The mysterious aura of Palazzo Vecchio has long been an inspiration for many creatives, including Dan Brown, who mentioned it in his “Inferno”. In the book - and later in the film - the characters look for Dante’s funeral mask (meaning sculpted from his face before he was buried) that went missing from the palace. In reality, the mask is still there, safe and intact, but the historians agree upon one thing: it is not, in fact, Dante’s burial mask, but most likely a mask sculpted from one of his statues that went long missing during the course of time. Regardless, it will be a must-stop for any Dan Brown fan!

What intrigues me personally a bit more is the story of the lost painting by Da Vinci, supposedly located under one of Vasari’s works. When Giorgio Vasari was commissioned to decorate Salone dei Cinquecento by Grand Duke Cosimo I, many important works previously located there were lost, including one by Michelangelo and one by Leonardo. According to some accounts, Da Vinci finished painting the wall, but it wasn’t drying fast enough. When he tried an innovative method to speed up the drying process, using braziers stoked with hot coals, the colors supposedly ran down the wall. The legend has it that Vasari built a false wall over Leonardo’s unfinished work to paint on it and preserve the great artist’s work; however, to this day, al