Famous people who grew up or lived in and around Florence
4 notable people grew up or lived in and around Florence. Each listing explores the home and neighbourhood, and how the place shaped the person they became.
Dante Alighieri1265–1302
📍 Casa di Dante, Via Santa Margherita 1, 50122 Florence, Italy
I was born in 1265 in the crowded heart of medieval Florence, in the Alighieri houses near the Torre della Castagna and the little church of San Martino del Vescovo, a few streets from the…
Galileo Galilei1631–1642
📍 Villa Il Gioiello, Via del Pian dei Giullari 42, 50125 Florence, Italy
I was born in Pisa, the son of a lute player and music theorist who taught me to question authority and to trust experiment; as a young man I timed the swinging lamps of Pisa cathedral…
Niccolò Machiavelli1513–1527
📍 Albergaccio, Via Scopeti 64, 50026 Sant'Andrea in Percussina, Italy
I grew up in Florence, where my father, a lawyer of modest means, loved books and taught me to love the Roman historians. For fourteen years I served the Florentine republic as a secretary…
Sandro Botticelli1445–1510
📍 Borgo Ognissanti, 50123 Florence, Italy
I was born in Florence in the 1440s in a house on Borgo Ognissanti, the street that runs west along the river towards the church of All Saints. My father, Mariano Filipepi, was a tanner…