A Stroll in San Lorenzo A Stroll in San Lorenzo is a slim and condensed guide that focuses on the history, famous people, streets, monuments, events and memories of a neighborhood with an antique heart. Immersed in the roots of Florentine popular culture, it has also produced some of the most important Florentine products. A Stroll in San Lorenzo is, above all, an invitation to Italian and foreign tourists but which the Florentines themselves- we are sure- will accept because they obviously love and protect their artistic patrimony and the beauty that they have inherited from the past. This volume can be skimmed like a guide, with different itineraries, streets and monuments, but it can also be read like a story because through the stories of this neighborhood you can reconstruct two thousand years of the city's history in just a few pages. This neighborhood grew up around the Basilica of San Lorenzo, consecrated in 393. The first Florentine cathedral and it continued to grow with the medieval city. During the Renaissance this neighborhood was at the center of power thanks to its illustrious inhabitants, the Medici family who in addition to prestige gave the neighborhood a series of extraordinary monuments: Palazzo Medici Riccardi, a prototype for every palazzo of the era, the new Basilica rebuilt by Filippo Brunelleschi with later additions by Michelangelo and the Prince's Chapel with the tombs of the Medicean Grand Dukes. And then there is the nineteenth century when Florence was proclaimed the Capital and the Central Market was born. It immediately became the crown for the stalls of Via dell'Ariento (as the title of a popular story recalls). 6 Our story is laid out in three itineraries that each take off from a different entrance to the neighborhood: Via Cavour (The Medici Entrance), Borgo San Lorenzo (The Commercial Entrance) and Piazza dell'Unità d'Italia (The Popular Entrance). Each of the three itineraries, which are easily finished in a few hours, each concentrates on a visit to a great monument (Palazzo Medici, San Lorenzo and the Medici Chapels), some of our stops are dedicated to lesser known monuments (the churches of San Giovannino, San Barnaba, San Jacopo in Campo Corbolini and the Cenacolo di Fuligno frescoed by Perugino) and along series of shorter stops in front of palazzi, frescoes, busts, plaques, tabernacles, statues, fountains and much more. Testimonies left by everyday life that often strike us as we walk; they intrigue us and make us want to know more. Perhaps this is the most innovative aspect of this guide, it has been made to accompany tourists as they stroll the streets of the neighborhood, bringing them on alternative routes so that they can discover the city and the extraordinary accomplishments of its inhabitants. As we will discover, San Lorenzo is a neighborhood that has many stories to tell us and it will never finish to amaze us. Many surprises wait for us on our stroll... Gloria Chiarini
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