The San Lorenzo quarter was the parish of the Medici, and their presence is everywhere: the family church of San Lorenzo with Brunelleschi's interior, the Medici Chapels with Michelangelo's brooding tomb figures, and the Laurentian Library reached by his theatrical staircase. The dynasty's first great palace, the Palazzo Medici Riccardi, stands a block away with its jewel-like Gozzoli chapel.
The streets around the church are taken over by the leather and souvenir stalls of the San Lorenzo street market, while the cast-iron Mercato Centrale shelters food stalls below and a busy upstairs food hall. It is one of the liveliest and most workaday corners of the centre, good for browsing, grazing, and a sense of everyday Florentine bustle.