Private Landmarks Open for Fai Autumn Days 2025

 

Visitors have the chance to tour historical and cultural landmarks in Florence—including normally inaccessible venues— during FAI Autumn Days on .Saturday, October 11 & Sunday, October 12. Although admission is free, a visit to open sites during the weekend provides an opportunity to make a donation, large or small, to event organizer, FAI—the Fondo Ambiente Italiano (the Italian equivalent of the National Trust) — a  nonprofit organization, which safeguards and promotes Italy’s architectural cultural heritage.

In and around Florence, Palazzo Pazzi Quaratesi on via del Proconsolo, the RAI TV and Radio Headquarters on Largo Alcide De Gasperi, 1 past the Bellariva neighborhood, and the Badia Fiesolana, Via della Badia dei Roccettini, 9 on the way to Fiesole, are open to the public from 10 am – 12 noon and again from 3 to 5 pm.

Palazzo Pazzi Quaratesi

On April 26, 1478, an elaborate plan instigated by the rival Pazzi family to overthrow the ruling Medici family took place at Easter High Mass in the Florence Duomo.  An assailant approached Lorenzo with a knife aimed at his carotid artery, but he swung around shouting, “Ah traitor” receiving the blow instead on his shoulder.  Thus, with the aid of his men, Lorenzo took refuge in the sacristy and escaped through a back passage.  His brother Giuliano, not so lucky, suffered 19 stab wounds inflicted by Francesco de’ Pazzi, dying at the scene.

The Pazzi conspirators mistakenly believed the citizens of Florence would applaud the demise of the Medici, but, on the contrary, the Florentines chased down and brutally executed 80 people.  Loyal followers of the Medici pursued the schemers, including Jacopo de’Pazzi, who escaped but was later caught caught and hanged from a window in the Palazzo Vecchio or city hall.

Their former family home, a beautiful Renaissance palace with courtyard, was designed by Benedetto da Maiano in the mid 15th century.  The Medicis confiscated it; down the centuries the property had various owners in different periods: the Strozzis, the Quaratesi family, the Bank of Italy and finally INPS, the Italian Social Security office. (rita kungel)

RAI TV and Radio Station

Situated between via Aretina and Lungarno Moro near the Arno river, the building – plus adjacent garden and parking lot –  is one of the largest in Florence.  It was constructed in the 20th century according to the principles of Rationalism, a style in which architecture mirrors function utilizing materials such as copper and steel. The architect was Italo Gamberini who won a prize for its design.

Thanks to FAI Autumn Days, guests will see the soundproof studios, the director’s office furnished with tapestries, work spaces for radio and TV journalists, a collection of art works inspired by the theme of broadcast and communication in addition to collections of historically-important documents and antique radios.

The headquarters of the present RAI TV and Radio Station were inaugurated in 1968, moving from the Palazzo delle Cento Finestre, piazza Santa Maria Maggiore in downtown Florence.  Journalists working in former location informed the world about the great flood which submerged Florence in 1966, after the Arno river burst its banks.

Badia Fiesolana

The Badia Fiesolana was originally a church built in 1098. The facade is all that remains of the original structure in the Tuscan Romanesque style similar to San Minato al Monte above Piazzale Michelangelo.  Surrounded by bricks of a later, unfinished extension, this building becomes even more magical because of its incongruity.  The geometric patterns and graceful rounded arches seam all the more beautiful because they are part of a fragment incorporated into the whole.  In the mid 15th century, Cosimo the Elder funded the renovation of the run-down Badia, with the interior transformed according to canons of Renaissance architecture.

The expanded Badia Fiesolana complex is now home to the European University Institute (EUI), a post-graduate school founded to favor contact and communication among thinkers, academics and students from various member countries.  (thomas kirk)