"Looking for famous people's houses" Florence Off The Beaten Path Tip by Jefie

It goes without saying that a city of such historical and cultural importance as Florence should have a long list of notable residents. One thing I enjoyed doing as we were walking around the historic centre of the city was to look for markers indicating when someone famous had lived in the house. Dante's (Via Santa Margherita, 1) and Michelangelo's (Via Ghibellina, 70) were easy to find since they now house small museums dedicated to their former residents. There were two other houses I was very happy to find on my own, and there actually is a connection between them. The first was that of English poetess Elizabeth Barrett Browning at No. 8 Piazza di San Felice, across the street from Palazzo Pitti. Elizabeth came to Italy in 1846 with her husband, the poet Robert Browning, and she lived there until her death in 1861. There's a good chance that Elizabeth Browning's famous poem "Aurora Leigh" was written while she lived in Florence, and it also seems likely that Robert Browning's poem "Andrea del Sarto" was written in that house. And this of course brings me to No. 22 Via Gino Capponi, the house where the "faultess painter" lived at the beginning of the 16th century while he was working on his frescoes at the Santissima Annunziata Basilica. It was after reading Browning's poem that I first got interested in the works of Andrea del Sarto, so to see the houses where both men lived was a nice bonus to my trip to Florence.