On a budget, Santa Maria Novella Station (Rationalist architecture) still earns its price.
Free
For architecture enthusiasts it's a fascinating counterpoint to the Renaissance city — a bold, clean 1934 Rationalist design by Giovanni Michelucci that you pass through anyway. The catch: it's a functioning, busy station, not a curated sight, and the appeal is genuinely niche. A free, two-minute 'look up' for the design-curious, irrelevant to most.