Empoli gave art one of its revolutionaries: Jacopo Carucci, "il Pontormo", born in the hamlet of Pontorme in 1494 — his birth house can be visited. And it gave music a giant: Ferruccio Busoni, born 1866, honoured by the study centre bearing his name. The collegiate church of Sant'Andrea, its Romanesque façade in white-and-green marble, is a reminder that this is Tuscany's heartland.
For a century the town blew "Empoli green": the bottle-coloured glass of demijohns and goblets, now told in the glass museum. The Thursday market and the position — Florence, Pisa and Chianti all half an hour away — do the rest.
Near Empoli
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
