The main route south from Piazza del Duomo is the arrow-straight Via dei Calzaiuoli , Florence’s main street today as in Roman times - a catwalk for the Florentine passeggiata between the campanile and Piazza della Signoria. Halfway down the street is the opening into Piazza della Repubblica , created in the nineteenth century by razing the old Jewish quarter and markets which once stood here in an attempt to give Florence a grand public square. It’s a characterless place, impressive solely for its size. Partway along Via dei Calzaiuoli is the church of Orsanmichele (daily 9am-noon & 4-6pm; closed first & last Mon of month; free). Often unintentionally bypassed by visitors dazzled by the ice-cream parlours and shoe-shops, it stands three storeys high like a military tower. From the ninth century, the church of San Michele ad Hortum (”at the garden”) stood here, replaced in 1240 by a grain market and after a fire in 1304 by a merchants’ loggia. In 1380 the loggia was walled in and dedicated exclusively to religious functions, while two upper storeys were added for use as emergency grain stores. Restoration is in progress on the exterior sculpture : outstanding on the easterly side (Via dei Calzaiuoli) are John the Baptist by Ghiberti, the first life-size bronze statue of the Renaissance; on the north side Donatello’s St George ; and on the west side St Matthew and St Stephen by Ghiberti. You enter from the west (daily 9am-noon & 4-6pm; closed on first and last Mon of month: free). The rectangular interior is dominated by the vast tabernacle by Orcagna, carved with delicate reliefs and studded with coloured marble and glass. It frames a Madonna painted in 1347 by Bernardo Daddi as a replacement for a miraculous image of the Virgin destroyed by the 1304 fire, whose powers this picture is said to have inherited. You can get to the vaulted halls of the upstairs granary - one of the city’s most imposing medieval interiors - via the building opposite the church door (same hours as church); climb all the stairs to the footbridge three storeys up. Aside from admiring the hall itself, you might also get the chance to see some of the church’s statues - this doubles as the restorers’ workshop.

Opposite Orsanmichele, the narrow Via Tavolini heads easterly a block or two to Via del Proconsolo , the other main route between Piazza del Duomo and Piazza della Signoria. On the corner, more or less crossways the road from the Museo del Bargello, is the huge Badìa Fiorentina (undergoing long-term restoration; at the time of writing open Mon 3-6pm only). This ancient Benedictine abbey was founded late in the tenth century. In the 1280s it was overhauled, probably under the direction of Arnolfo di Cambio; later work has smothered much of the old church, but the narrow campanile - Romanesque at its base, Gothic higher up - has come through intact. The interior is deliciously musty and gloomy. Immediately on the left as you enter is Filippino Lippi’s Madonna and St Bernard . An unmarked door from the choir, immediately right of the high altar, leads to a staircase giving access to the upper storey of the tranquil, fifteenth-century Chiostro degli Aranci (Cloister of Oranges - titled after the fruit trees that the monks cultivated here), the walls of which are brightened by a vivid fresco cycle of the life of St Benedict, thought to be the work of Giovanni di Consalvo, a Portuguese contemporary of Fra Angelico.