A Journey Through the Courts of the Italian Renaissance

There are journeys that reveal places, and there are journeys that reveal entire civilizations.

This exclusive itinerary invites you to explore the extraordinary world of Renaissance Italy, following the footsteps of princes, artists, humanists, and visionaries who transformed the course of European history. From the grandeur of Florence to the refined court of Urbino, from the powerful dynasties of the Este and Gonzaga to the artistic treasures of Parma and Bergamo, every destination tells the story of an age that forever changed the way we think about art, politics, philosophy, and culture.

What makes this experience truly exceptional is the opportunity to travel alongside Mike Corradi, acclaimed host and creator of the internationally renowned podcast "A History of Italy."

Celebrated for his engaging storytelling, meticulous historical research, and remarkable ability to bring the past vividly to life, Mike has introduced thousands of listeners around the world to the fascinating people and events that shaped the Italian peninsula. Throughout the journey, he will enrich each visit with historical insights, captivating anecdotes, and the broader context that transforms monuments into living history and cities into chapters of an extraordinary narrative.

Rather than simply visiting remarkable places, guests will gain a deeper understanding of the political ambitions of Niccolò Machiavelli, the humanist ideals of Federico da Montefeltro, the artistic genius of Michelangelo, Piero della Francesca, Correggio, and Mantegna, and the enduring legacy of the great Renaissance courts that competed not only for power, but also for beauty, knowledge, and innovation.

Carefully designed for travellers with a passion for history, art, and authentic cultural discovery, this journey combines expertly guided visits, exceptional culinary experiences, elegant accommodations, and exclusive access to some of Italy's most celebrated landmarks.

More than a tour, this is an invitation to experience the Renaissance through the eyes of one of today's most respected interpreters of Italian history.

Join us for an unforgettable journey where every city tells a story, every masterpiece has a voice, and every day offers a deeper appreciation of the civilization that gave birth to the modern world.

In the afternoon, the official program of the trip begins with a visit to the Basilica of Santa Croce, the pantheon of great Italians. Here rest Galileo Galilei, Michelangelo Buonarroti, Leon Battista Alberti, and — most relevant to us — Niccolò Machiavelli. The tomb of the great Florentine thinker, created by Innocenzo Spinazzi (1787), is sober and majestic: the inscription on the relief reads "TANTO NOMINI NULLUM PAR ELOGIUM" – no praise is equal to so great a name.

Machiavelli (1469–1527) served as secretary of the Second Chancery of the Florentine Republic for fourteen years, and was a diplomat, historian, and playwright. His masterpiece, The Prince, written in 1513 and dedicated to Lorenzo de' Medici, remains the most widely read and discussed work of political science of all time. Walking beside his tomb, in this church that was also a meeting place for political and intellectual gatherings, is an experience of direct contact with the history of Western thought. The Basilica itself is a masterpiece of Tuscan Gothic architecture, with frescoes by Giotto and works by Donatello, Cimabue, and Brunelleschi.

A short walk from Santa Croce, in Piazza della Signoria, stands Palazzo Vecchio, the political heart of Florence for centuries. Built between 1299 and 1314, with its crenellated tower dominating the city, the palace was the seat of the Florentine Signoria, then of the Medici, and today of the City Council. Machiavelli himself worked there for years as an official of the Republic. The Salone dei Cinquecento, commissioned by Savonarola in 1494 and later transformed by Vasari for Cosimo I, is a monumental space where the great battles of Florentine history are celebrated in enormous frescoes. Not to be missed are the private Studiolo of Francesco I, a small jewel box of Mannerist wonders, and the private chambers of the Medici.

The morning is dedicated to the heart of Medici power: the Medici Chapels and the Basilica of San Lorenzo. The New Sacristy, designed by Michelangelo between 1521 and 1534, is one of the most stirring spaces in Italian architecture. The tombs of Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino, and Giuliano, Duke of Nemours, with the famous allegories of Day, Night, Dawn, and Dusk, show Michelangelo at the height of his sculptural powers. The reclining figures seem almost ready to slip down from their supports, as though death and time were physical forces pressing upon their bodies.

The Basilica of San Lorenzo, built by Brunelleschi starting in 1419, is the Medici family church. Its central nave, with columns of pietra serena and light filtering through the windows, is a masterpiece of proportional harmony. In the crypt rest the members of the Medici family who do not have the sumptuous tombs of the Chapel of the Princes.

Adjacent to San Lorenzo, the Medici Laurentian Library is one of Florence's hidden gems, designed entirely by Michelangelo on commission from Pope Clement VII de' Medici. The vestibule, with its three-ramp staircase that seems to flow like petrified lava, and the reading room, with its original lecterns holding manuscripts of inestimable value, are a manifesto of Mannerism even before the term was coined. Here are kept some of the most precious Greek, Latin, and Oriental codices in the world, including the fourth-century Codex Vergilius.

Before leaving Tuscany, a stop in Fiesole, the Etruscan hill town overlooking the city. From here you can enjoy one of the most beautiful views in Italy: Brunelleschi's dome, the towers, the winding Arno River, and the Tuscan hills on the horizon. Lunch at a local agriturismo offers the chance to savor the area's typical products – new-pressed olive oil, cured meats, unsalted Tuscan bread, ribollita or pappa al pomodoro – in an atmosphere of authentic Tuscan life.

Afternoon transfer to Rimini. In the afternoon, we leave Florence aboard the private coach and head toward Rimini, crossing the Tuscan-Romagna Apennines. The landscape changes dramatically: from the gentle Tuscan hills to the plains and the Adriatic coast. Rimini, a city rich in Roman and medieval history as well as known for its beaches, will prove a surprising stop for those discovering it for the first time through the lens of Renaissance history.

Rimini was the capital of the Malatesta Signoria, one of the most powerful and controversial families of the Italian Renaissance. Its most famous lord, Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta (1417–1468), was a warrior, patron, and art commissioner of extraordinary boldness. Machiavelli cites him in The Prince as an example of a prince who made himself feared but not loved – a figure of fascinating contradictions: a ruthless military leader and a refined protector of philosophers and artists.

MORNING

Malatesta Temple

The Malatesta Temple is the most important Renaissance monument in Rimini and one of the masterpieces of fifteenth-century architecture. Around 1450, Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta commissioned Leon Battista Alberti to transform the existing Gothic church of San Francesco into a secular temple dedicated to his own glory. The result is a revolutionary building: the white marble façade draws inspiration from Rimini's Arch of Augustus, with three monumental arches, while the sides are lined with sepulchral arches intended for the humanists of the Malatesta court. Inside, the Chapel of the Ancestors houses the bas-relief of Sigismondo kneeling before Saint Sigismund, a work by Piero della Francesca (1451) – a portrait of extraordinary psychological vividness.

Arch of Augustus and Tiberius Bridge

Rimini preserves two extraordinary monuments from Roman antiquity that remind us of the city's strategic importance as a crucial junction of the Via Flaminia and the Via Emilia. The Arch of Augustus (27 BC) is the oldest Roman triumphal arch to survive intact to this day: four Corinthian columns support the archway, and the decorative friezes still show traces of their original polychromy. The Tiberius Bridge (14–21 AD), built entirely of Istrian stone, can still be crossed today and is a masterpiece of ancient engineering: its five arches have carried traffic over the Marecchia River for more than two thousand years.

AFTERNOON

City Museum – Sigismondo's Altarpiece

The City Museum houses some of the most significant testimonies of the Malatesta court. Among the highlights of the collection is Piero della Francesca's Sigismondo Altarpiece: one of the key works of Renaissance portraiture, in which the prince is painted in profile with an almost stony hardness. The section devoted to the Malatesta Court reconstructs the cultural environment of one of the liveliest centers of the Adriatic Renaissance, with illuminated manuscripts, ceremonial weapons, documents, and court furnishings.

Optional Romagna cooking class in the evening. For those wishing to immerse themselves in Romagna's culinary tradition, the evening offers a cooking class dedicated to local cuisine. Romagna boasts one of Italy's most genuine and beloved culinary traditions: hand-rolled pasta sheets, tagliatelle al ragù, piadina romagnola, and passatelli in broth. A delicious and convivial way to end the day.

Exploring Federico da Montefeltro's court: Palazzo Ducale, the Studiolo, and the National Gallery of the Marche with masterpieces by Piero della Francesca.

In the fifteenth century, Urbino was perhaps the most refined Renaissance court in Italy. Governed by Federico da Montefeltro (1422–1482), the city became a center of culture, art, and philosophy that had nothing to envy in Florence. Federico was the ideal prince theorized by the humanists: an unbeatable military commander and an enlightened patron, a scholar of grammar and mathematics, and a protector of Piero della Francesca, Bramante, and the young Raphael. Baldassarre Castiglione set his Book of the Courtier here, one of the founding texts of European civilization.

Afternoon excursion to the Republic of San Marino. in the afternoon, a stop in the Most Serene Republic of San Marino, one of the oldest and smallest sovereign states in the world, founded according to tradition in 301 AD by Marinus of Arbe. Perched on Monte Titano at 738 meters above sea level, the historic city is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The three medieval towers crowning the rock — the First Tower (Guaita), the Second Tower (Cesta), and the Third Tower (Montale) — offer spectacular views over the Adriatic and the inland hills. The historic center, with its paved lanes, medieval palaces, and surrounding walls, is a fascinating labyrinth to explore at leisure.

Discovering the Este dynasty through visits to Modena Cathedral (UNESCO), the Galleria Estense, and a private visit to Acetaia Giusti, the world's oldest producer of Traditional Balsamic Vinegar of Modena.

For centuries, Modena was the capital of the Duchy of the Este family, one of the longest-lasting and most refined families of the Italian Renaissance. Originally from Ferrara, where they had created a legendary court, the Este moved to Modena in 1598 when Ferrara was absorbed into the Papal States. To Modena they brought their art collections, their library, and their passion for music and cuisine. The city, with its historic center of rigorous geometry, preserves numerous traces of this age of splendor.

MORNING AND AFTERNOON

Modena Cathedral – UNESCO World Heritage Site

Modena Cathedral is one of the absolute masterpieces of Italian Romanesque architecture, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1997. Built from 1099 onward by the architect Lanfranco and the sculptor Wiligelmo, the cathedral holds one of the most important Romanesque sculptural cycles in Western Europe. On the exterior walls of the cathedral, Wiligelmo carved the Stories of Genesis in a sculptural language of extraordinary expressive power, which some art historians consider the true beginning of monumental Italian sculpture. The Ghirlandina Tower, the symbol of the city, is one of the most beautiful medieval towers in Italy.

Estense Gallery

The Estense Gallery is one of the most important picture galleries in Northern Italy, born from the nucleus of the Este ducal collections. Its halls bring together masterpieces spanning seven centuries of painting: from the Middle Ages to the Flemish masters, to the Italian Renaissance and Baroque. Among the most notable pieces are Velázquez's Portrait of Francesco I d'Este, bronzes by Giambologna, miniatures from the Este workshop, and numerous works by Correggio, a painter deeply beloved by the Este. A visit to the Gallery is an immersion in the visual culture of one of the most sophisticated courts of the Italian Renaissance.

Acetaia Giusti – Private Visit

One of the most original moments of the trip: a private visit to the Acetaia Giusti, the world's oldest producer of Traditional Balsamic Vinegar of Modena, founded in 1605. Traditional balsamic vinegar is no ordinary condiment: it is a product of culture, patience, and artisanal knowledge passed down from generation to generation. The acetification process lasts from 12 to 25 years (for the "Extravecchio"), during which the cooked must of Lambrusco or Trebbiano grapes is transferred through barrels of decreasing size made of different woods – oak, chestnut, cherry, mulberry, and juniper. The result is a dense, sweet-and-sour, aromatically complex nectar that has no equal in the world.

The day concludes with a gourmet dinner at one of Modena's select restaurants, a city that boasts one of the highest concentrations of Michelin stars in the world. Emilian cuisine — tagliatelle al ragù, tortellini in broth, zampone and cotechino, sparkling lambrusco — finds here its most refined expressions.

Parma is one of the Italian cities with the most intense and surprising artistic history. In the sixteenth century, it became the capital of the Duchy of the Farnese, one of the most influential families of Renaissance Italy. It was under the Farnese that Parma developed an extraordinary artistic scene, with Correggio as its undisputed leading figure, a painter of luminosity and grace unequaled in the history of art.

MORNING

Cathedral – Correggio's Dome

Parma Cathedral, built starting in the eleventh century, holds one of the most extraordinary pictorial cycles of the Renaissance: the dome frescoed by Antonio Allegri, known as Correggio, between 1526 and 1530. Looking up at the vast octagonal surface, one is swept up in a whirlwind of ascending figures: the Virgin rises to heaven surrounded by apostles, angels, and the blessed in a swirl of bodies and clouds that anticipates the dynamism of the Baroque by decades. When Titian saw this fresco, he said that if the dome were turned upside down and filled with gold, it still would not be enough to pay for it.

Camera di San Paolo – Correggio's Frescoes

The Camera di San Paolo is one of the most fascinating and mysterious spaces of the Italian Renaissance. Commissioned by Abbess Giovanna da Piacenza around 1519, the vault is entirely covered with pergolas of vine and laurel from which playful putti and splendid tondos with mythological figures peer out. Here Correggio created a cycle of extraordinary originality: a humanist and pagan interpretation of conventual space, in which classical tradition and naturalism merge into a decoration of incomparable lightness and joie de vivre.

Farnese Theater

The Farnese Theater, built in 1618 to a design by Giovan Battista Aleotti inside the Palazzo della Pilotta, is one of the first permanent theaters with an Italian-style stage ever built. Its semicircular wooden tiers can seat up to four thousand spectators. The theater was built for a celebration in honor of Cosimo II de' Medici that was, in the end, never held — an emblematic paradox of seventeenth-century princely extravagance. After suffering serious damage in the last war, it has been carefully restored and today hosts performances and concerts.

The afternoon is dedicated to a unique experience: a visit to a dairy selected for the production of Parmigiano Reggiano DOP. From the morning milking to the breaking of the curd, from shaping to long aging — the production process of this extraordinary cheese has remained virtually unchanged for nearly a thousand years. Parmigiano Reggiano is made only with milk from cows raised in the area between Parma, Reggio Emilia, Modena, Bologna, and Mantua. The visit concludes with a tasting of the different ages: 12, 24, and 36 months.

Overnight: Hotel Principe Modena / Phi Hotel Canalgrande ****.or similar

THE GONZAGA – PATRONS OF THE RENAISSANCE

Mantua, surrounded by the waters of the Mincio, was for nearly four centuries the seat of power of the Gonzaga, one of the families that best embodied the ideal of the Renaissance prince. Under the guidance of Ludovico II, Francesco II, and above all Isabella d'Este – the "first lady of the Renaissance" – the Mantuan court became a magnet for artists, poets, musicians, and philosophers. Andrea Mantegna worked there for nearly fifty years, creating some of the most revolutionary works in the history of art.

MORNING – MANTUA

Ducal Palace – Mantegna's Bridal Chamber (Camera degli Sposi)

The Ducal Palace of the Gonzaga is a complex of staggering proportions: 34,000 square meters, 500 rooms, 15 courtyards and gardens. Inside, the Camera degli Sposi (originally called the Camera Picta) is one of the most important fresco cycles in the history of Western art. Painted by Andrea Mantegna between 1465 and 1474, the room is entirely covered in painting: the walls with scenes of court life and diplomatic meetings, the vault with medallions of the Caesars and putti, and above all the central oculus of the ceiling — the perspectival trompe-l'œil that appears to open the ceiling onto a sky where laughing figures look down. It was the first time in history that an artist applied illusionistic perspective to an entire room.

Palazzo Te – Hall of the Giants

A short distance from the historic center, Palazzo Te is the suburban villa that Giulio Romano built for Federico II Gonzaga between 1524 and 1534. The palace is a manifesto of Mannerism: in the rooms decorated by Giulio Romano, a pupil of Raphael, the rules of classicism are deliberately broken — capitals that seem to slip from their columns, triglyphs that skip their proper sequence, decorations that play with illusion and astonishment. The Hall of the Giants is the most astounding room: an unbroken fresco covering walls and ceiling alike, depicting the fall of the Titans struck down by Jupiter's thunderbolts. Anyone entering the room is literally surrounded by crumbling rocks and falling bodies — a visual experience of overwhelming theatrical power.

EVENING – TRANSFER TO BERGAMO AND FAREWELL DINNER

In the late afternoon, we leave Mantua and transfer to Bergamo, the final stop of the trip. The farewell dinner is the moment to share memories, discoveries, and impressions of these eight extraordinary days.

The last day of the trip is dedicated to Bergamo Alta, one of the best-preserved medieval historic centers in Italy. A UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2023 (together with its Venetian walls), the upper town is reached by funicular and reveals itself as a gem suspended in time, with its paved squares, Venetian palaces, Romanesque churches, and walls that wrap around everything like an embrace of stone.

MORNING

Colleoni Chapel

The Colleoni Chapel is considered the most important monument of the Lombard Renaissance. Commissioned by the condottiero Bartolomeo Colleoni and built by Giovanni Antonio Amadeo between 1470 and 1476, the chapel's exterior is faced with white, red, and black polychrome marble, with a decorative richness unmatched in Lombardy. The lunettes, medallions, friezes, and reliefs narrate biblical scenes and episodes from the patron's life. The interior holds the monumental tomb of Colleoni and frescoes by Tiepolo, the eighteenth-century Venetian painter. Admission is free.

Piazza Vecchia and the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore

Piazza Vecchia is one of the most beautiful urban spaces in Italy: Le Corbusier called it "the most beautiful square in the world." Surrounded by the Palazzo della Ragione, the Palazzo Nuovo (Civic Library), and the Civic Tower, the square has a quiet, intimate quality that invites you to linger. Beside it opens Piazza del Duomo, with the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, a twelfth-century Romanesque building. The interior is covered with sixteenth-century Flemish tapestries commissioned by the Misericordia Maggiore: a cycle of extraordinary quality and great decorative impact that transforms the church's interior into a tapestry of biblical stories.