Each city has its streets and legends that trickle down through the generations, passing from corner to corner and guide to guide, intensifying, growing, and endlessly delighting both the young and the not so young. Let's discover 5 legends of Florence that you can delve into while walking around the city.

Let’s have a look at Palazzo Budini Gattai, formerly Palazzo Grifoni, in Piazza Santissima Annunziata in Florence. You can easily recognize it as it’s the only one made with terracotta bricks, located facing towards the cathedral, on the right. In Florence, we call the open door of shutters on a building gelosia. Here, there’s one that’s always kept open. Legend has it that this nomenclature came about due to a young woman from Palazzo Grifoni who was consumed by her love, waiting for her husband who left for war and never returned. A window is always left half open in the hopes that one day she’ll see him again.

Another legend is linked to the statue of Ferdinando I de 'Medici, located in the middle of the square. He was married to Christina of Lorraine, however he was famous for being a great lover and for having had many affairs with women from well-respected families. It seems that one of his beloved ones lived inside the palace at the end of the 16th century. For this reason, Giambologna didn’t represent him looking straight ahead towards the Duomo, but rather towards the right as if he were jealously checking the window with the shutter open, keeping an eye on his girl.