What does the great Dutch painter Vermeer (1632–75) have in common with Pontormo, the Florentine Mannerist (1494–1557)? At first glance, nothing. They were born in different parts of Europe almost a century and a half apart. But there here are two paintings, one by each artist, and whenever I see one of them, I’m always reminded of the other.

How can a 15th-century Mannerist, painting in an age and a city where princely families and the Catholic church commissioned great works of art, possibly have produced anything faintly similar to the output of a bourgeois, struggling Dutch painter whose patrons–the few he had–were mere artesans?

What is it that makes these two works seem alike–at least to me? Is it the bold use of colour, for which Pontormo is so famous. Because Vermeer’s use of colour is extraordinary too. That great slab of lapis-blue skirt. The way the ruddy hues of the carpet are reflected in the jug and silver dish. Is it the crisp folds of the drapery and the shadows they cast? Is it the faint sfumato that softens the outlines of the faces? Is it the peculiar, detached absorption with which the women are going about their tasks: the one a housewife, immersed in domestic chores; the others biblical characters, playing the ineluctable roles they have been cast?  Is it the economy with which each image reduces itself to the essentials, with only the merest incidental detail (the man in the background of the Pontormo picture; the silk thread hanging out of the trinket box in the Vermeer)? Or is it the way the light falls upon the women’s skin, illuminating it, making it gleam (the housewife’s right arm as she opens the casement; the hands of the Virgin and St Elizabeth)? Or is it perhaps the way that the human figures seem like props while the stage sets they occupy are three-dimensional?

Both these paintings were intended for secluded contemplation: one in a church, the other in a private dwelling. I love them both.

Charles Freeman, ancient history consultant to the Blue Guides and author of Sites of Antiquity and Holy Bones, Holy Dust, takes a tour group to Volterra and Prato, to get away from it all.

One of the enduring pleasures of having written extensively about relic cults is recognizing obscure scenes in medieval frescoes. So who, in the frescoes depicting the Legend of the True Cross in the side chapel of San Francesco in Volterra (by Cenni di Francesco, 1410), is the figure standing before a gate in his underclothes? Well, the Byzantine emperor Heraclius (emperor 610–41), of course. Returning a fragment of the True Cross recaptured from the Persians to Jerusalem, Heraclius arrived at the city in his full imperial regalia as he assumed the occasion demanded. However, the city gate shut against him until he had showed appropriate humility by stripping off his finery. So this is why we had such a good example of medieval underwear in a fifteenth-century chapel in one of the more attractive towns of Tuscany.

Then there is the Chapel of the Girdle in Prato. This is not just any old girdle, but specifically the one that the Virgin Mary threw down to St Thomas as she was assumed into heaven. It was brought to Prato by a merchant after the crusades and in 1141 was placed in the chancel what is now the city’s cathedral. In the early fourteenth century it was wrested from the control of the clergy and placed in a new chapel in the people’s end of the church, where it still is. On its feast days it is displayed from an external pulpit built into the corner of the church overlooking the piazza.

It is the artwork connected with the Girdle that delights. The chapel has fine frescos of the Life of the Virgin (Agnolo Gaddi) and an intricately cast bronze gate (Maso di Bartolomeo). My favourite is the pulpit itself, which is the work of Donatello, with a frieze of  happy dancing putti. The original is now under cover in the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo and can be explored from close-up. It is a joy to come across because the putti are so exuberant in their celebration of the relic and, as one of Donatello’s lesser known works, it comes as such a surprise. The museum also has an exquisite fifteenth-century reliquary box for the Girdle, again with dancing putti on the sides. And this is all before one has explored the wonderful frescoes of Filippo Lippi in the main chancel of the cathedral.

Prato has another sacred space, Guiliano da Sangallo’s church of Santa Maria della Carcere, built in Greek style in the late fifteenth century to celebrate an image of the Virgin Mary that a small boy had seen come alive. He claimed to have seen the Virgin climb out of the painting, put the baby Jesus on the ground, then descend into the local prison (carcere) to give it a good scrubbing. On her return she collected her baby and popped back into the picture.

On our way back to Florence, we stopped at the Villa di Castello, which was bought by the Medici at the end of the fifteenth century and once housed several of Botticelli’s greatest works, including The Birth of Venus. It is now the meeting place of the venerable Accademia della Crusca founded in 1582.Crusca means bran, and the Accademia is dedicated to winnowing out infelicities from the Italian language. In 2012 it is celebrating the four hundredth anniversary of Europe’s first dictionary that it compiled.

The villa interior is closed to the public but the garden is open and, amazingly, is free of charge. This is one of the great gardens of Europe, an inspiration for later Italian gardens but also known for its extraordinary collection of citrus fruits, over ninety different varieties. They are set out in great terracotta tubs in rows around a central sixteenth-century fountain. Here the gardeners devotedly tend the most obscure permutations of oranges and lemons, and even crosses between the two, all carefully nurtured from century to century. It is an entrancing place—and what is more extraordinary still, until a French group arrived as we were leaving, we were the only visitors.

There could be no better reasons for planning a day away from the queues of Florence.

Volterra and Prato and the Villa di Castello are covered in detail in Blue Guide Tuscany. For Florence itself, see here.

After some three years of closure for restoration and rearrangement, the exquisite little room known as the Tribuna in the Uffizi was reopened this summer. Alta Macadam (author of Blue Guide Florence) paid a visit.

The Tribuna was built in 1581 by the architect and theatrical designer Bernardo Buontalenti, as a place for Grand Duke Francesco I to display his treasures. Octagonal in shape, it has a dome crowned with a lantern and is lit by windows on the upper walls. Its chief glory is the precious mother-of-pearl decoration against a bright blue ground on the drum of the dome, and the dome itself covered with 6000 shells against a crimson background, all of which have been spectacularly restored on this occasion. The magnificent polychrome marble floor also survives intact. On the walls, the precious red velvet, above a richly painted frieze, has been renewed.

Since 1677 this room has displayed the most famous Classical sculptures from the Medici collections including the Medici Venus (recorded as one of the great sights of Florence during the days of the Grand Tour), the Knife-grinder and the two-figure group of the Wrestlers. These have now all been cleaned, and more delightful marble Roman sculptures have been added (including a sleeping Cupid, a Child with a duck, and various putti and amorini) which are displayed round the walls on low gilded stools. The magnificent 17th-century octagonal table in pietre dure (matching the shape of the room) remains in the centre, as does the ebony cabinet of the same date.

It has been decided, however, that visitors may only view the Tribuna from its three entrances and for this reason the famous paintings which used to hang on the walls have been removed and replaced by other less important works (all of which are nevertheless known to have been displayed here at one time or another since the 16th century). Although it is disappointing that one can no longer enter the room, the visitor’s attention is immediately drawn to the architecture and its exquisite decorations, as well as the masterpieces of ancient sculpture (today rather out of vogue and often overlooked by modern visitors in favour of paintings). A further justification for the re-hanging of the paintings is that we know from past inventories that the arrangement of the room has undergone numerous changes in the past, particularly in the 18th century, and again in 1926 and 1970. The present works date mostly from the 16th and 17th centuries, and tapestries have been hung above the doors, to add to the atmosphere of magnificence.

The adjoining Stanzino delle Matematiche (so called because it was here that the Medici used to keep some of their scientific instruments) has now been opened and renovated with its emerald green walls and grotteschi on the ceiling. Charmingly displayed in little niches are small bronzes, miniature busts, and marble statuettes dating from the antique Roman period right up to the 18th century.

It is a great shame that there is no publication yet on the renovated Tribuna, and the explanatory panels have been kept to a minimum so that the hurried visitor may perhaps neglect this lovely room, now in its full glory, and which for centuries was considered the most important place in the entire gallery.

The restoration was financed by Friends of Florence, a non-profit international foundation founded in 1998 (most of the donors reside in the US).

(The famous works displayed here up until a few years ago, notably the court portraits by Bronzino, as well as works by Andrea del Sarto and Pontormo, can now be seen in recently opened rooms on the piano nobile of the Uffizi).