Great Synagogue of Florence

Florence's Jewish community gained full civic rights in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany in 1848, and a generation later it built a synagogue meant to be seen from anywhere in the city. The money came from the will of David Levi, president of the Jewish community, who left funds for a new synagogue "worthy of the city". Three architects — Mariano Falcini, Vincenzo Micheli and the Jewish architect Marco Treves — began work in 1874 and finished in 1882. The result, on Via Luigi Carlo Farini, is one of the finest synagogues of the emancipation era in Europe.

The design mixes Italian tradition with the Moorish Revival fashionable at the time. The façade combines white travertine with pink-toned stone, and two side towers crowned by small cupolas frame the entrance. Over the centre rises a large dome on pendentives, modelled in spirit on Hagia Sophia; it is built as two shells, the inner one 34 metres high and the outer 47, and its copper was meant to oxidise to green so that it would stand out among the terracotta roofs of the Florentine skyline.

Inside, almost every surface is painted. Giovanni Panti covered walls, arches and the dome with red and blue arabesques, once picked out in gold leaf, and added mosaics; polychrome stained glass and wrought-iron railings worked with seven-branched candelabra complete the room; the arch before the ark was designed by Giacomo Del Medico. The building has survived two close calls. In August 1944 retreating German troops and Italian Fascists mined the synagogue, but Italian partisans defused most of the charges and the damage stayed limited. In November 1966 the Arno flood swept through the neighbourhood and soaked the interior, which was later restored. Two upper floors house the Jewish Museum of Florence, with Torah ornaments from the late sixteenth century onward, the history of the community and a hall of remembrance for the Holocaust.

Getting there

The synagogue stands near Piazza d'Azeglio, on the eastern edge of Florence's historic centre and about 1 km from the Campo di Marte district. Florence Airport, Peretola (FLR) is about 6.5 km away; from the city centre the synagogue is reached on foot.