Florence for free? That’s the ticket today, when the whole family can get a taste of Italy’s fair city without ever leaving this one.

From noon to 5 p.m., the Winter Garden at the World Financial Center will be filled with things Florentine – including masterpieces on loan from the famed Uffizi Gallery.

But today, the really cool stuff is for kids.

They can get a quickie (15-minute) lesson in speaking Italian and make Italian fruit tarts with pastry cream, poached pears, figs and other delicacies with a pastry chef from the Institute of Culinary Education.

Artists and teachers will help them make selfportraits, masks, still lifes and more. They can even help create a large-scale map of Florence in mosaic tesserae (small squares of stone or glass).

Meanwhile, artists will put the finishing touches on a 15-foot-by-20-foot reproduction of Botticelli’s “La Primavera” – in chalk.

Actors in 16th-century costumes will perform commedia d’ell arte- an early Italian version of slapstick, complete with eerie masks and lots of juggling and drums – in 25-minute performances every hour beginning at 12:30 p.m.

Wondering who those two strangers in costume are? Meet the Medicis: They’ve got an awful lot to tell you

about art and intrigue.

The Winter Garden is at 220 Vesey St. For more information, visit splendorofflorence.com or call (212) 945-0505.