FROM the best vantage point in the city, Brunelleschi's dome on top of the cathedral, Florence is a sea of terracotta roofs sliced into rectangular portions by straight and sober roman roads. At ground level, however, the outlook is less picturesque. The picture postcard images of honey-hued, time-softened stonework and lofty bell towers are seductive but selective.

With a few celebrated exceptions its facades are foreboding and secretive, the streets gloomy and claustrophobic and the squares often bunged up with traffic and packs of tourists. If you want to get to the historic and artistic heart of the place you need to step inside. Florence keeps most, but not all, of its treasures behind closed doors. The city, which sits on the banks of the River Arno in the north of Italy, is like a huge museum that just happens to be home to over 450,000 people. Its origins and name date back to the Roman era but its heyday was in the 15th century when an upsurge of interest in all things classical gave birth to the Italian Renaissance and its luminaries including Michelangelo, Brunelleschi, Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael.

In the palatial surroundings of the Uffizi Gallery (Galleria degli Uffizi) Florence hosts one of the finest and most important collections of fine art anywhere in the world.