Inferno

The book opens here. Chased through the streets of Florence, the scientist Bertrand Zobrist climbs the bell tower of this old abbey church and throws himself off. His plan drives the whole story. The 2016 film opens with the same fall from the same tower.

Access · The church opens to visitors only at a few set times (usually Monday afternoon); the bell tower is closed. Check before you go.

On the run, Langdon and Sienna try to reach the old city, but the police are waiting at Porta Romana, the medieval gate in the southern walls. They slip into the art school next to the gate and from its grounds into the Boboli Gardens.

Access · A public square, always open. The art school is a working school and the Boboli Gardens have their own entrance here.

With a drone above them, Langdon and Sienna cross the Medici gardens behind Palazzo Pitti and hide near the Grotta del Buontalenti, the strange artificial cave by the gardens' exit. Next to it is a door into the Vasari Corridor. The film shot the chase in these gardens.

Access · Ticket needed (entrances at Palazzo Pitti and at Porta Romana). Closed on some Mondays: check the Uffizi website before you go. The Vasari Corridor door near the grotto is only an exit today: the corridor visit starts at the Uffizi.

The covered passage the Medici built so they could walk from Palazzo Pitti to Palazzo Vecchio without going into the street. With the gardens blocked by the police, Langdon and Sienna run through it, above the shops of Ponte Vecchio and through the Uffizi. From the bridge you see its row of small windows over the shops. The film shot here too.

Access · The bridge is free and always open. The corridor, reopened in December 2024, is visited only in small groups, booked in advance on the Uffizi website (uffizi.it), Tuesday to Sunday, with slots from 10:15 to 16:45. The ticket (€47 booked ahead) includes the Uffizi: book your corridor slot at least 45 minutes after your Uffizi entry time, the time it takes to reach the meeting point in room D19, or 2 hours later if you want to see the gallery first. Be there 5 minutes early, without backpacks. The walk takes about 45 minutes, one way only, above Ponte Vecchio, and ends at the Buontalenti Grotto in the Boboli Gardens, next to Palazzo Pitti.

In the huge Salone dei Cinquecento, Langdon searches Vasari's battle fresco for two tiny words, "cerca trova" (seek and you shall find). In the museum he learns that Dante's death mask has been stolen, and the escape goes over the wooden walkways in the attic above the hall's ceiling. The film shot in the hall.

Access · Museum ticket needed. Dante's death mask is on display inside. The "secret passages" guided tours, booked in advance, take you up into the attic above the hall.

Looking for a copy of the Divine Comedy to read the next clue, Langdon and Sienna come to this small museum in the street where Dante's family lived. The tower house you see was rebuilt in the early 1900s.

Access · Small museum with a ticket. From here Santa Margherita de' Cerchi and the Badia are one minute away on foot.

Known as Dante's church: tradition says Dante married here, and the Portinari family, the family of Beatrice, the woman he loved all his life, had its tomb here. Langdon comes here following the clues. Visitors still leave letters for Beatrice in a basket by the tomb.

Access · Free entry, usually open in the morning and late afternoon. A small working church: keep quiet.

Dante was baptised here and called it "my beautiful San Giovanni". In the Baptistery Langdon finds the stolen death mask, hidden in the baptismal font, with a riddle written on the back that sends the story to Venice. In the film, the scene is set at the Baptistery and its bronze Gates of Paradise.

Access · Ticket for the cathedral complex needed to go inside. The mosaics of the dome are currently hidden by restoration work. The Gates of Paradise outside are copies; the originals are in the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo.

The riddle speaks of a treacherous doge who "severed the heads of horses". Langdon thinks of the four bronze horses of St Mark's, taken from Constantinople in 1204 by the crusade of the doge Enrico Dandolo, and in the basilica he realises Dandolo is not buried in Venice. The film shot in the square in front.

Access · Timed entry ticket, best booked online. The horses on the terrace are copies; the originals are in the Museo di San Marco upstairs, with a separate ticket.

The riddle's "gilded mouseion of holy wisdom": the great church of Constantinople, later a mosque. In the upper gallery a stone in the floor bears the name of the doge Enrico Dandolo, who died in Constantinople in 1205, and Langdon follows the trail to it. The marker was laid in the 1800s; his real grave has not survived.

Access · A working mosque again since 2020. Visitors pay a ticket and see the building from the upper gallery, where Dandolo's stone is. Closed to visitors at prayer times; cover shoulders and knees, women cover their hair.

The "sunken palace" of the riddle: Yerebatan Sarnıcı, a Byzantine water cistern under the city, a forest of 336 columns over dark water, with two Medusa heads at the back. The finale takes place here, during a concert of Liszt's Dante Symphony. The 2016 film did not shoot these scenes here: to protect the cistern, they were filmed on a full-size copy built on a set in Budapest.

Access · Ticket needed, with long queues in the middle of the day. It is dim and damp inside: walkways only.

In the 2016 film, Robert Langdon, the Harvard professor at the heart of the story, and Sienna Brooks, the young doctor helping him, cross this crowded square toward the basilica and spot the man hunting them among the tourists. Shooting of the whole film began here in Venice on 27 April 2015. In the book they also come to the square, following the clue of the bronze horses of St Mark's.

Access · A public square, always open and free. In autumn and winter it can flood at very high tides (acqua alta).

In the 2016 film, Langdon and Sienna reach Venice by train and set off down the Grand Canal by boat from a pier in front of Santa Lucia station. In the book, too, they arrive by train and travel down the Grand Canal toward St Mark's.

Access · The station steps and the canal bank are public. Vaporetto tickets are sold at the booths by the pier; check prices before you go.

The square in front of Palazzo Vecchio, the old town hall. In the 2016 film, the opening chase of Bertrand Zobrist, the scientist whose plan to spread a plague drives the story, runs through it, and Tom Hanks shot outdoor scenes near the palace in May 2015. In the book the square is the doorstep of the palace, where Langdon's search goes on inside.

Access · A public square, always open and free. The Loggia dei Lanzi, with its statues, is free too.

The narrow canal behind the Doge's Palace, crossed by the Bridge of Sighs. In the 2016 film, after Sienna leaves him, Langdon is knocked out by Christoph Bouchard, an agent who claimed to be on his side, and carried into a boat at a back door of the Doge's Palace on this canal. The bridge appears in a wide shot crowded with tourists.

Access · The Ponte della Paglia is a public bridge, always open and very crowded at midday. You can walk across the Bridge of Sighs only inside the Doge's Palace, with a ticket.

In the 2016 film, Sienna moves through the old city of Istanbul and meets one of Zobrist's followers to plan the release of his virus at the university, whose large gate opens onto Beyazıt Square. The camera shot the real gate here.

Access · The square is public and free. The campus is for students and staff: look at the gate from the square.

Budapest stood in for Italy in much of the 2016 film, and this square is one of its stand-ins. Here, beside the Central Market Hall, the film shot a rainy farewell between Zobrist, the scientist behind the plague plan, and Sienna, his lover. Nothing in the book happens in Budapest.

Access · A public square, always open. The market hall is open to everyone but usually closed on Sundays: check before you go.

In the 2016 film, Langdon, who has woken up in a Florence hospital with no memory of the last two days, escapes with Sienna, the doctor treating him, and they jump into a taxi on a night street. The street is meant to be Florence, but the whole taxi scene was filmed here in Budapest. In the book this escape takes place in Florence.

Access · A small public square in a residential area, always open and free.