The fact is, the best of Florence is to be seen indoors. Under the patronage of the Medici family, the city's artists and thinkers were instigators of the shift from the medieval to the modern world-view, and churches, galleries and museums are the places to get to grips with their achievement. The development of the Renaissance can be plotted in the vast picture collection of the Uffizi and in the sculpture of the Bargello and the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo. Equally revelatory are the fabulously decorated chapels of Santa Croce and Santa Maria Novella, forerunners of such astonishing creations as Masaccio's superb frescoes in the Cappella Brancacci, and Fra' Angelico's serene paintings in the monks' cells at San Marco. The Renaissance emphasis on harmony and rational design is expressed with unrivalled eloquence in Brunelleschi's architecture, specifically in the churches of San Lorenzo, Santo Spirito and the Cappella dei Pazzi. The full genius of Michelangelo, the dominant creative figure of sixteenth-century Italy, is on display in the fluid design of San Lorenzo's Biblioteca Laurenziana and the marble statuary of the Cappelle Medicee and the Accademia - home of the David. Every quarter of Florence can boast a church or collection worth an extended call, and the enormous Palazzo Pitti south of the river constitutes a museum district on its own.