Voyay walking tour

Exiles of the English Island

Writers, reformers, and religious outsiders in nineteenth-century Florence

Florence, Italy
11 stops
192 min
7.5 km
History

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Florence’s Renaissance masterpieces are only part of its story. During the nineteenth century, the city became a haven for British, American, Russian, and other expatriates seeking artistic opportunity, political inspiration, religious freedom, better health, or simply a new life. The walk begins with foreign congregations that made their presence visible in stone. At the vanished Porta a Pinti, you will reconstruct the old boundary separating Catholic Florence from the burial ground assigned to outsiders before entering the cypress-shaded English Cemetery. Inside this remarkable island of the dead, poets, novelists, abolitionists, and artists reveal an interconnected expatriate society. Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote about Italian freedom, Frances Trollope built a literary career, Theodore Parker fought slavery, and William Holman Hunt turned personal grief into art. The final stretch passes through a leafy capital-era neighborhood to Florence’s monumental Great Synagogue. It is an ideal route for literary travelers, social-history enthusiasts, and anyone curious about the unconventional foreigners who helped make modern Florence an international city.

Try the first stop

Free sample · Stop 1

St. James American Church

A striking neo-Gothic home for Florence’s enduring English-speaking Protestant expatriate community.

Begin with the living heirs of nineteenth-century expatriate Florence. Founded by American and British residents, St. James grew from temporary Protestant worship into a confident permanent institution. Its pointed arches and warm stone feel delightfully unexpected among Florentine apartments, introducing a community of travelers, artists, settlers, and religious nonconformists.

The route

11 stops, in order.

Stop 1 · Free sample
St. James American Church
A striking neo-Gothic home for Florence’s enduring English-speaking Protestant expatriate community.
Stop 2
Russian Orthodox Church
Onion domes reveal the confidence of Florence’s once-flourishing Russian expatriate colony.
Stop 3
Waldensian Church
A restrained Protestant church linking foreign worshippers with Italy’s own religious dissenters.
Stop 4
Porta a Pinti
A vanished gate marks Florence’s former boundary between religious insiders and outsiders.
Stop 5
English Cemetery
Florence’s cypress-shaded island preserves a remarkable society of expatriate outsiders.
Stop 6
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Florence’s beloved English poet rests beneath a monument designed by Frederic Leighton.
Stop 7
Frances Trollope
A fearless novelist turned financial hardship into a formidable Florentine literary career.
Stop 8
Theodore Parker
A radical American preacher brought militant abolitionism and religious dissent to Florence.
9
Stop 9
Fanny Waugh Hunt
A Pre-Raphaelite memorial transforms an artist’s devastating family loss into intricate stone.
10
Stop 10
Piazza Massimo d’Azeglio
A leafy capital-era square reveals the comfortable world of later foreign residents.
Stop 11
Great Synagogue
A monumental green-domed synagogue crowns Florence’s story of religious emancipation and survival.