Ponte Vecchio survived a flood in 1333, the wrath of the Arno in 1966, and a peculiar episode in 1593 when Grand Duke Ferdinand I decided he'd had quite enough of the smell. For centuries, butchers had occupied the bridge's shops, cheerfully tossing blood and offal into the river below. Ferdinand, who commuted across the bridge via the Vasari Corridor overhead, found the stench intolerable. He evicted the lot and replaced them with goldsmiths and jewellers, whose trade produced significantly less olfactory offense.

The decree still holds. Today's bridge glitters with gold rather than dripping with entrails, a transformation that proved fortunate when German forces retreated through Florence in August 1944. While every other bridge across the Arno was destroyed that night, Ponte Vecchio survived. Whether Hitler spared it for its beauty, German consul Gerhard Wolf intervened, or a brave shop assistant disabled the mines remains deliciously uncertain.

VoiceMap's self-guided audio tours trace the Medici's influence across Florence, explaining how the family's private corridor above the bridge transformed it from meat market to jewellery showcase, connecting the Vasari Corridor's architectural ambitions to the glittering commerce still visible in the shops below.