In Italy’s Tuscany, Florence is a city of art, culture, churches, grand squares and palaces.

At the end of the 14th century, an elite handful of families ruled the city, most notably the Medici, whose highly ostentatious mausoleum was built in the Capelle Medicee.

Pope Eugene the Fourth bequeathed the Dominican orders the ruined Monastery of San Marco and Cosimo De Medici financed the renovation of the site. The main part of the monastery is still inhabited by monks, who pay due deference to its many valuable paintings and works of art.

Wih pride, and perhaps delusions of grandeur, the people of Florence demonstrated their supremacy over all the other towns of the region and the city has thus succeeded in being a combination of beauty, fortitude and religious belief in which art and culture are today united in magnificent finality.