Overview
Giuseppe Poggi designed it as part of the ring boulevards that replaced the medieval walls, and set bronze copies of Michelangelo’s David and the Medici Chapel figures in the middle of it. The intended museum of his works was never built and became the restaurant on the terrace instead. Above it stands San Miniato al Monte, an eleventh-century church that most visitors to the Piazzale never climb the last five minutes to see.
Highlights
Come for sunset, but arrive an hour early or you will be behind three rows of people. Walk up through the rose garden from Porta San Niccolò rather than taking the bus; it is fifteen minutes of steps and much better. San Miniato above holds Gregorian vespers most afternoons, sung in the crypt.