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Stazione Centrale S.M. Novella
Florence's Main Station
On the edge of Piazza Santa Maria Novella, but a world apart from Santa Maria Novella, another large, amorphous square detracts from one of modern Italy’s finest buildings – Florence’s Stazione Centrale, designed by the Tuscan Giovanni Michelucci in 1935; today 59 million people a year pass through it.
Adorned by only a glass block canopy at the entrance (and on the corner, an early model of that great Italian invention, the digital clock), the station is nevertheless remarkable for its clean lines and impeccable practicality; form following function in a way that even Brunelleschi would have appreciated.
As Florence's main train station, it has witnessed much: a memorial by platform 16 remembers the Jews deported from here to the concentration camps. After the 1966 Flood, invaluable mud-laden manuscripts from the National Central Library were brought to the warm boiler room to be washed and dried.
The interior has recently had a facelift some 30 shops, car hire, left luggage, post office, car hire, bank and currency exchange.
Piazza Santa Maria Novella
Hours Ticket office open 6am-9pm (there are also automatic ticket machines).
Images by Freepenguin, Creative Commons License, UNESCO, Creative Commons License