Via Maggio: the antique dealers' street
The Oltrarno's grand street of antiquari, a graffito-faced palace, and the quiet church by the bridge. This is a Claude-drafted route awaiting the editor's walk.

1. Ponte Santa Trinita
Start on the bridge Ammannati built with its impossibly shallow arches — the most elegant in the city, and the best place to stand for the upstream view to Ponte Vecchio. Cross to the south bank and walk straight into the head of Via Maggio. The grand street opens in front of you.

2. Via Maggio
Florence's street of *antiquari* (antique dealers) — broad for the Oltrarno, lined with palaces whose ground floors hold gilt mirrors, old masters and furniture you couldn't lift. Window-shop the lot. You're not expected to buy; the dealers are used to people simply looking, slowly.

3. Palazzo di Bianca Cappello
Look up at the house Buontalenti decorated for Bianca Cappello, the Venetian mistress (and later wife) of Grand Duke Francesco I. Its facade carries *sgraffito* — designs scratched into the plaster — restored but still legible. A scandalous love story written onto a wall.

4. Piazza San Felice
Where Via Maggio opens toward Pitti, marked by a stone column. The church of San Felice sits quietly on the corner; Elizabeth Barrett Browning lived just off the square at Casa Guidi and wrote there. A literary footnote, and a good pivot point to turn back toward the river.

5. Santa Felicita
Cut east toward the river to this small, ancient church under the Vasari Corridor. Inside the door, the Capponi chapel holds Pontormo's *Deposition* — weightless figures in impossible pinks and blues. Drop a coin in the light box and stand with it a minute. Often empty.

6. Ponte Vecchio
End at the old bridge, a short step on from Santa Felicita. The jewellers' shopfronts and the river make a fitting close to a walk about looking at beautiful, expensive things. Cross into the centre, or stay on the south bank and double back along the Lungarno.

Via Maggio: the antique dealers' street