Where it was filmed 'Inferno'

"If you know where to look, Florence is Paradise"

Dan Brown, Inferno

The new film based on the books by Dan Brown, centering around Professor Robert Langdon, opens with a sweeping shot of Florence, with Brunelleschi’s dome, Giotto’s Bell Tower and the Arnolfo Tower in Palazzo Vecchio clearly visible in the background.
The story starts with a chase through the historic city centre, which ends at the top of the 14th-century hexagonal bell tower of Santa Maria Assunta, part of the Badia Fiorentina. In this famous location in the city’s profile, between the towers of Palazzo Vecchio and the Bargello, a mysterious man refuses to give his pursuers the information they want, and opts instead to throw himself off the tower, from a height of 70m. This is a symbolic place in the story strongly associated with Dante, as the great poet wrote that he was born in the shadow of the Badia Fiorentina, and it was here that he met his muse Beatrice for the first time.
Shortly afterwards, Professor Langdon wakes up in a hospital bed. He can’t remember anything that’s happened in the previous 48 hours and realises, looking out the window, that he’s in Florence. He’s soon forced to escape, with the help of Ms Sienna Brook.
A copy of Dante del Botticelli’s Inferno, containing the first part of the puzzle, brings the two protagonists to Palazzo Vecchio, but in getting there they run into a string of enemies. From Porta Romana, the old stone gate to the city, they climb the walls next to the Istituto d’Arte and enter the Boboli Gardens, a magnificent example of an Italian garden built between the 16th and 17th centuries, full of statues of Roman gods. From the garden they take a secret passage, ending up in the Vasari Corridor, an elevated passage linking Palazzo Pitti with Palazzo Vecchio through the Uffizi Gallery and over the Ponte Vecchio.
The corridor leads them to the Salone de’ Cinquecento in Palazzo Vecchio, which was built at the end of the 15th century for meetings of the Council of the Florentine Republic. The solution to the puzzle is painted into the Battaglia di Marciano della Chiana, a famous fresco by Vasari.
An important clue to solving the puzzle is hidden in Dante’s death mask in Palazzo Vecchio: the scene in which Langdon and Sienna discover that it is missing and go through the CCTV footage was filmed in the Museum of Ethnography in Budapest.
The pair escape the palace through a secret passage in the Sala delle Carte Geografiche, which leads them to the loft space above the Salone de’ Cinquecento, and from there they head to the Baptistery of Saint John. The Baptistery, which is decorated with mosaics inside, has three bronze doors: the third door, by Lorenzo Ghiberti, is known as the ‘Gates of Paradise’ and is vital to the plot, as it provides a clue to solving the mystery.
It is a clue that leads us, together with the protagonists, to Venice and a St. Mark’s Square bustling with tourists. St. Mark’s Basilica and the winged lion that dominates its façade are symbols of the lagoon city. The crypt in St. Mark’s Basilica, a key location in the story, was reconstructed in Hungary. Here too, the protagonists are forced to flee, through the underground tunnels in the Doge’s Palace (which lead into a black tent resting against the walls of the Palace).

The third stop is Istanbul and the majestic Hagia Sophia, the interiors of which were partially reconstructed in Budapest. And to recreate the Basilica Cistern, the director opted to shoot at Korda Studios in Etyek, near Budapest. Also in Budapest, the Hungarian National Museum was used as the location for flashbacks of Harvard University.