Piazzale Michelangelo wasn't always here. Giuseppe Poggi designed this panoramic terrace in 1869, when Florence briefly served as Italy's capital and the city needed to look the part. He demolished medieval walls, laid out Parisian-style boulevards and crowned his eight-kilometre Viale dei Colli with this viewing platform perched above the Oltrarno district.

The bronze David in the centre required nine pairs of oxen to haul up the hill in June 1873. It's flanked by copies of the four allegories from the Medici Chapel, all in bronze rather than marble. Poggi designed the neoclassical loggia behind the statues as a Michelangelo museum, but the building became a restaurant instead.

VoiceMap's self-guided audio tours trace the hill's relationship to Florence's thousand-year-old Romanesque basilica of San Miniato al Monte above, explain how Poggi's renovation transformed the city during its fleeting years as capital, and follow the monumental stairs from Porta San Niccolò through the historic neighbourhoods that wind up to this terrace.