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In the 15th century, the Renaissance led to sweeping changes being made throughout Europe, but it was in Florence, the city where the cultural movement began, that the "rebirth" would have the most pervasive and lasting impact.

The city's writers, painters, architects, and philosophers all contributed to making Florence a model of Renaissance culture. The Renaissance has been described as the bridge between the middle ages and modernity; and in Florence, more than in any other city, the new perception of the world propelled man, at long-last as protagonist, head-first towards the future. The Medici family were responsible for great part of Florence's monumental words of architecture, from the Uffizi to Ponte Vecchio, Palazzo Pitti, and Piazza della Signoria, and commissioned many of the artistic masterpieces (by the likes of Michelangelo, Leonardo, Donatello, Brunelleschi and Botticelli), now conserved within the Tuscan capital's museums, churches, galleries, and piazzas.

If much of the appeal of Florence lies in its past, be it that of the Etruscans, the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, or the Granducato of Tuscany; this city stretching out along the banks of the Arno, has never once lost its desire for change and is still driven by a thirst for renewal which, every two years, during the Florence Biennale of Contemporary art, transforms the city’s Medici Fortress in laboratory of global creativity.

Capital of the Roman empire, the Catholic church, and modern-day Italy, this city built on seven hills along the banks of the Tiber river is, arguably, the most visited in the world.

Today’s tourists are able to stand in awe in front of the great monuments of ancient Rome largely thanks to Mussolini’s obsession with Rome and Roman-ness . Not content with building a whole new district (EUR) on the southern edge of the city, the fascist dictator bulldozed his way through the heart of the capital; demolishing the crumbling proletarian tenement blocks which had been suffocating sites such as the Coliseum and Imperial Forum, in order to make way for his triumphal Via dei Fori Imperiali and "liberate" the city’s most magnificent Roman ruins.

Eighty years on, modern day Romans seem remarkably nonchalant about the immensity of the ancient antiquities, churches, and monuments which line their city’s streets. Despite the wealth of historical and artistic masterpieces conserved within its walls, Rome is, in fact, far from being a museum. As is testified by life in the districts of Testaccio and Trastevere, Rome is a wonderfully vibrant city, brimming with colorful markets, noisy bars and crowded restaurants…. and even the occasional work of striking, contemporary architecture.