HOW ARRIVE TO SYNAGOGUE:
Exit of Home in Palace and continue toward the city center to 50 meters and turn left onto Via Giuseppe Giusti. After 500 meters turn right into via Vittorio Alfieri. After 150 meters continues in Via Luigi Carlo Farini and continue for about 100 meters. You have arrived at the synagogue. Total distance about 800 meters from Home in Palace.

HISTORY OF SYNAGOGUE:
After the Emancipartion, in 1859 in Tuscany, Jews had the same rights and duties of the other citizens. Since they could now live in every part of the town, it began to take shape the plan of a new Synagogue. When David Levi died childless, he left in his will a big amount in order to build a synagogue "suitable for the town of Florence". The three architects, Marco Treves, Mariano Falcini and Vincenzo Micheli, to whom was assigned the plan, chose the Moorish style, a kind of style rooted in Europe in the second half of the 19? century, because recalled the roots of the jewish people. The new Synagogue of Florence was inaugurated in october 24, 1882, after almost ten years of works.

Behind a wonderful iron gate opens a beautiful path, with a scenografic effect, once more charming for the exotic vegetation. At the end stands out the huge building which was called not sinagogue but Temple, like all of those built after the Emancipation. You can get to it by a wide staircase making the fa?ade more imponent. The fa?ade is on three orders, with two little towers beside and closed by a wide round arch where are placed the Tables of the Law. The building is covered with stone slabs disposed in parallel, pink and white alternately. The dome, resting on a round drum, is completely covered with copper slabs, the only one in Florence and well visible by every rise of the town. Through a three archs portico you can reach the three main entrances leading to a long rectangular atrium, with the floor in mosaic. The interior is a square hall with three sides with spaces closed by archs supported by columns with capitals carved with arabesques on which stands the women's gallery. On the fourth side an apse encloses the Aron ha Kodesh completely covered with venetian mosaics. The walls are painted with moresques, made by Giovanni Panti, patterns we find again on the wooden furniture, on the doors and glasses. Windows are closed by polychrome glasswindows giving to the sinagogue a very suggestive athmosphere. In the garden, on the left, was put a memorial stone with all the names of the 248 florentine Jews deported during the last war, between them there was the Chief Rabbi Nathan Cassuto.

INFORMATIONS ABOUT SYNAGOGUE:
Visit by the Cooperative Services Cultural Sigma (+39.055 2346654; fax +39 055 244145 e-mail: cscsigma@tin.it)
TOURIST VISITS ARE IN SOSPESE : January 1 Jewish: Every Saturday - eve 1st and 2nd day Rosh Ha-Shanà - Kippur - Sukkot - Sheminà Atzeret, Simchat Torah; Eve, 1st, 2nd, 7th and Day 8 Pesach - - 1 and Day 2 of Shavu'ot - Fast of 9 of Av.