A city of central Italy on the Arno River east of Pisa. Originally an Etruscan settlement, then a Roman town, Florence was a powerful city-state under the Medici family during the Italian Renaissance, with a brilliant artistic flowering led by Giotto, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Dante, and Raphael. Florence was the capital of newly unified Italy from 1865 to 1871, when the government was moved to Rome. Population: 366,000.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.