Rating: 
Summary: Be your own guide at your own pace.
Review: I was very impressed with the amount of detailed information that was available in this book. Being a college student I didn't have much to spend on a guided tour in every place. This book was a great substitute and in my opinion a better idea. Transportation information, restaurants, hotels, plenty of maps, and a wealth of history all packed in these pages. I highly recommend this to anyone that is planning a trip to Tuscany. Definately take time to follow the two guided walks included. On my next trip to Europe I'll be sure to purchase this series for all my destinations.
Rating:
Summary: The Gold Standard
Review: If you plan to buy only one travel guide to Florence and Tuscany, this is the one. It provides an overview of all aspects of Florentine life and then proceeds to discuss the attractions in different sections of the city, complete with street maps. Major attractions are given several page spreads with open building diagrams from which you can determine where a particular painting or sculpture is within a building.
Unfortunately, the coverage tends to be uneven. For instance, very little coverage is provided of the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, the museum that houses Michelangelo's second Pieta, Donatello's Mary Magdalene, and other significant sculpture by Donatello, della Robbia and others.
The listings of hotels and restaurants are limited, and for our purposes, of little use. Better to use a current version of a guide dedicated to those subjects.
The best museum guides are the small inexpensive (about 8 euro) ones that are available at the main museums. These exist for the Academy, the Bargello, San Lorenzo, San Marco and the Museum of Archaeology. There is also an excellent, slightly larger guide to the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo that can be bought in their bookshop (You do not have to enter the museum to use the bookshop, which has an excellent collection of books on Florence). We bought an excellent book there (Alta Mcadam's "Americans in Florence" [ISBN 88-09-013157-1]), which offers a series of walks with recommendations for sights restaurants, and hotels along the way. Unfortunately, it does not appear to be available in the U.S., although some of the same information may be available in the Guinti Guide to Florence.
Also consider purchasing the Knopf Guide to Florence, which is less functional but has beautiful pictures of the city.
The best map is the Knopf CityMap. Compact and very useful.
One last thing: Be sure to check the hours of the places you plan to visit. Many of the museums (e.g., the Bargello and the Medici Library) are only open during very short hours and only on certain days.
Rating:
Summary: Most carried travel guide by tourists in Florence
Review: My wife and I recently returned from a two week visit to Rome, Florence and Venice. We used the corresponding Eyewitness Travel Guide for each of the three cities. What I liked about all three guidebooks are its 3-D maps, good overviews of the museums and excellent descriptions of all the sites in the three cities, both major and minor ones. What was very helpful was to read a paragraph or two about a sight when we came upon it, whether deliberately or by just exploring. For the Florence book, the 3D cutaway of the Duomo is great. Also, excellently presented are the overviews of the Uffizi, the Bargello, Piazza della Signoria and Pallazzo Vecchio. The book begins with an excellent short history of the region and the Medici family. I found this description far superior to the one in the Knopf series. The book's weakness is its short and insufficient list of hotels. For hotel listings I suggest the Frommer series. Finally, an unofficial survey by observation, it seemed that more tourists were carrying the Eyewitness Travel Guides (in many different languages) than any other tour guide.
Rating: 
Summary: Very useful for planning.
Review: On a recent trip to Tuscany, we found this book extremely useful for planning our days, but less useful when we actually got where we were going. This is basically a "teaser" book -- it contains lots of information that's helpful in deciding what you want to do, but if you're really interested in exploring a church, archeological site, or art gallery, you need a more in-depth guide. The street-maps of Florence were a little confusing, but once we figured out how to use them, they were very helpful.
Rating: 
Summary: An Indispensable Resource
Review: On my trip to Florence last June, I equipped myself with a map and this book and it was all I needed. The book is informative and full of rich detail about every inch of Florence/Tuscany's landmarks, sights, restaurants, nightlife, etc. Mapped with detailed illustrations of Florence's many Renaissance churches, you can literally appreciate everything as you make your way through each one of them. Additionally, the book lends useful tips about public transportation and travel, hotel information and what to expect, etc.
While useful in your travels, this is also one to keep handy in your personal library if you should ever need a brief cultural or historical reference. Sadly and finally, however, this book is no substitute for the real thing. Go to Florence!
Rating:
Summary: An informative cultural guide
Review: The Dorling Kindersley Eyewitness Travel Guides are all very visually appealing, and the Florence and Tuscany guide is no exception. The guide literally has over 1,000 color photographs within its 312 pages. Naturally, the pictures are all on the small side, but they serve well as a visual aid so that one can get an idea of what one is going to see. The Florence section of the guide focuses on the city center, and is divided up by four areas: City Centre East, North, West, and the Oltrarno. In each section, the main sights are gone over and there is a street map and a drawn 3-D street layout of the area. In many cases, the main sights have cutaways and floorplans so that one knows exactly where one wants to go before hand. The main attractions of Florence are pretty much all within walking distance of each other, so sometimes the maps of each area are a bit confusing, and one has to flip to the street-by-street map at the end of the Florence section. This is somewhat disorienting, and I found myself not being able to find that street-by-street map since it is in the middle of the book, and it isn't convenient to put the either of the bookmarking flaps at that place. The information on the main sights of Florence was quite good, especially the information on art and history. However, it was surprising that on the section devoted to the Palazzo Vecchio, there is no mention of the beautiful sculpture of Judith with the head of Holofernes by Donatello. The text was fairly engaging, and I found myself reading the whole guide through, even though we only went to Florence and Siena. The information in this guide about other places in Tuscany seemed fairly cursory; there are around 100 pages devoted to Florence, and another 100 to the rest of Tuscany. As far as practical information for travelers, I found the restaurant information to be good, but the hotel list isn't very extensive, and I did not use the guide to find a hotel.
Rating:
Summary: Our personal guide to Florence and Tuscany
Review: The Eyewitness series offers such detailed, intimate, lively knowledge that one can almost skip the trip itself. But don't!Our eyes feasted on the descriptions and then we made meticulous use of the guide as we wandered joyfully about Florence and the region. The trip to Fiesole alone was worth the price of the book. We enjoyed a day trip to Prato, Pistois and Montecatini, including a panoramic view in the off season from Montecatini Alto.
Rating:
Summary: Equal Best
Review: These DK guides are fantastic - we buy them for all of our destinations and pack them along with our other favourite books - the Michelan Green Guides. The DK books present glorious potted histories along with brilliant illustrations which bring the locations to life. Equal best because the book that goes in my back pocket is always the Michelan Green Guide - they fold in half and slip into the hip pocket whereas the DK book is too thick for that. Totally sold on these great books. Like the Michelans, they don't go out of date - history is just that.
Rating:
Summary: Great planning guide
Review: This is an indispensable resource for the Tuscan visitor! What we found most helpful is this book's organization and insight to the sights in Florence and Tuscany. It really brings a spacial sense to the places so it was the most helpful planning source. Once you have your itinerary set out, you can use its encyclopediac format for useful information about hours of operation, fees, contact numbers, etc. However, it does not necessarily connect point a with point b. Other guides provide this sort of information which can be helpful if you are a bit uncertain how you will get about. Not a serious shortcoming, just be aware you need to do your own planning. I would recommend this guide over most others for its comprehenisve detail and effective graphics.
Rating:
Summary: Eyewitness To Florence and Tuscany, The Only Way to Go.
Review: This is the second of the Triumverate of Eyewitness books for traveling to Italy, the others are "Rome" and "Italy". My wife and I used these books endlessly in preparing our trip there. This is another great book, almost equal to the Eyewitness Rome. Once again I'll gladly say, if you're going, get this book. It's hard to imagine that one book can cover both Florence and Tuscany. This one doesn't get it all, but you'll certainly have a very good idea of what's up before you go, or during for that matter. The maps are great (in 3D), and the discussions about sites, cities, traveling and other Italian fare are very good. Yes I agree with another reviewer, the hotel list is small, but for us that's fine. We like to check as many sources (Internet, various giudes, word-of-mouth, etc.) when searching for a hotel. The sample presented here is a good suggestion, not a definitive ultimate list. You can't go wrong with this book. Buy it before, take and read it during, then enjoy it's memory after.
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