• Michelangelo's David (Galleria dell'Accademia): The Big Guy himself, the perfect Renaissance nude, masterpiece of sculpture, and symbol of Tuscany itself.
  • Sandro Botticelli's Birth of Venus (Galleria degli Uffizi): Venus on the half shell. The goddess of love is born from the sea, a beauty drawn in the flowing lines and limpid grace of one of the most elegant masters of the Renaissance.
  • Lorenzo Ghiberti's Gates of Paradise (Battistero): In 1401, young Ghiberti won a sculpture competition to craft the doors of Florence's Baptistery. Fifty-one years later, he completed his second and final set, boosting the Gothic language of three dimensions into a Renaissance reality of invented space and narrative line. Art historians consider that 1401 competition to be the founding point of the Renaissance. Michelangelo looked at the doors and simply declared them "so beautiful they would grace the entrance to Paradise."
  • Masaccio's Trinità and the Cappella Brancacci (Santa Maria Novella and Santa Maria del Carmine): The greatest thing since Giotto. Masaccio not only redefined figure painting with his strongly modeled characters of intense emotion and vital energy but also managed to be the first painter to pinpoint precise mathematical perspective and create the illusion of depth on a flat surface. The world's first perfecter of virtual reality.

Note: This information was accurate when it was published, but can change without notice. Please be sure to confirm all rates and details directly with the companies in question before planning your trip.