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(also Fi·ren·ze (fē-rĕn'dzĕ)) 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.
For more information on Florence, visit Britannica.com.
Points of Interest
It is impossible to mention here all of the city's monuments, most of which date from the 13th to 15th cent. The Gothic cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore (begun 1296) has a dome (1420–34) by Brunelleschi; nearby are the slim campanile (269 ft/82 m high) designed by Giotto, and Andrea Pisano and Lorenzo Ghiberti created their famous bronze doors for the baptistery. The large Franciscan Church of Santa Croce is the Florentine pantheon and has frescoes by Giotto, a crucifix by Donatello, and fine works by the Della Robbia family, Rossellino, and others. The Church of Santa Maria Novella (1278–1350) has frescoes by Masaccio, Orcagna, and Ghirlandaio; fine cloisters; and a facade (1470) by Alberti. Some of the best works of Fra Angelico are in the museum of the Monastery of St. Mark. Important frescoes by Masolino, Masaccio, and Filippino Lippi adorn the Church of Santa Maria del Carmine. The Church of San Lorenzo contains Michelangelo's tombs of the Medici; many works by Donatello; and the Laurentian Library, which holds approximately 10,000 manuscripts. The oratory of Orsanmichele (originally a wheat granary; rebuilt 1337–1404) has a tabernacle (14th cent.) by Orcagna. On a hill overlooking the city is the Romanesque basilica of San Miniato al Monte.
On the Piazza della Signoria are the Palazzo Vecchio, which contains frescoes by Vasari and sculptures by Michelangelo; the Loggia dei Lanzi (later 14th cent.), which has the Perseus (1533) of Cellini; and Ammanati's Fountain of Neptune (1576). The Uffizi Museum, housed in a Renaissance palace designed by Vasari, contains great collections of paintings, especially by Botticelli, Masaccio, and Piero della Francesca. The Pitti Palace (15th–17th cent.) also houses fine paintings, particularly by Raphael, Andrea del Sarto, and Titian. Behind the Pitti Palace are the terraced Boboli Gardens (1550), a good example of Italian landscaping architecture. Other important art museums include the Academy, with works by Michelangelo; the gallery in the Bargello palace, with works by Donatello; and the archaeological museum, with Etruscan, Egyptian, and Greco-Roman art. Among the other numerous medieval and Renaissance palaces, the Medici-Riccardi, Strozzi, and Rucellai deserve special mention.
History
Florence was the site of an Etruscan settlement and later became a Roman town on the Cassian Way (the modern Piazza della Republica is on the site of the Roman Forum). In the 5th and 6th cent. A.D. the city was controlled, in turn, by the Goths, Byzantines, and Lombards. It became an autonomous commune in the 12th cent.
In the 13th cent. the Guelphs (who were propapal) and the Ghibellines (who were proimperial) fought for control of the city. By the end of the 13th cent. the Guelphs held control, but they then split into warring factions, the Blacks and the Whites, best remembered because Dante, a Florentine, was banished (1302) as a White Guelph. Warfare raged, too, with other cities, notably Pisa, as the merchants and bankers of Florence made their own fortunes and that of the city; the sale of Florentine silks, tapestries, and jewelry brought great wealth. Florence grew as a result of war, absorbing Arezzo, Pistoia, Volterra, and Pisa. Growth was temporarily halted in 1348, when the Black Death killed approximately 60% of the city's population.
Florence became a city-state and in the 15th cent. came under the control of Cosimo de' Medici, a wealthy merchant and patron of the arts. Although republican forms were kept until the 16th cent., the Medici family ruled, and Lorenzo de' Medici, who held power from 1469 to 1492, was able to put down the Pazzi conspiracy (1478), instigated by Pope Sixtus IV.
Under Lorenzo and his successors, Florence was for two centuries the golden city, with an incredible flowering of intellectual and artistic life. The list of artists working in the city was headed by Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and Donatello. There were also numerous poets and scholars active in Florence, and the Accademia della Crusca was established (1582). A school of music flourished in the city during the Renaissance, and the earliest operas, Peri's Dafne (1594) and Euridice (1600), were performed there.
Political life continued to be turbulent. The Medici were expelled by a revolution in 1494, the fiery religious reformer Savonarola briefly held power (1494–98), and Machiavelli was a diplomatic representative of the republic. The revolt against the Medici was over by 1512, but another revolution (1527–30) established a new republic, which, however, was forced to surrender to Emperor Charles V after a heroic defense.
Under the restored Medici, Florence went on expanding and controlled most of Tuscany. In 1569, Cosimo I de' Medici was made grand duke, and Florence became the capital of the grand duchy of Tuscany. The grand duchy, ruled by the house of Hapsburg-Lorraine after the extinction (1737) of the Medici line, was annexed to the kingdom of Sardinia in 1860. Florence was the capital of the newly founded kingdom of Italy from 1865 to 1871. Relatively few of the art treasures of Florence were harmed in World War II; the flooding of the Arno in Nov., 1966, however, caused extensive damage, which art experts sought, with considerable success, to repair.
Originally a center of Roman provincial government and commerce, Florence in the Middle Ages became an important bishopric, a county nominally subject to the Holy Roman Emperor, and, by 1138, a commune. Beginning in 1125 with the capture of its nearby rival, Fiesole, Florence embarked on a policy of Tuscan expansion that would culminate in the mid-sixteenth century with its conquest of Siena and its position as the capital of Tuscany. A hub of banking, commerce, and textiles, it was, along with Venice, Milan, Rome, and Naples, one of the five powers of Renaissance Italy as well as the axis of Renaissance Italian culture. Its history throughout the early modern era was bound to the Medici family, who dominated it either unofficially or, after 1530, as lords. With the death of Gian Gastone de' Medici in 1737, Florence and its territory became a fief of the House of Lorraine.
The Florentine Constitution
With the exile of most of the Medici in 1494, the republic, dominated by the friar Girolamo Savonarola (1452–1498), broadened the government by establishing a Great Council of some three thousand members. But with the return of the Medici in 1530, the oligarchy redrew the constitution. Alessandro de' Medici (1510–1537) became capo (head) and, shortly thereafter, "duke of the republic of Florence." The four-man Magistrato Supremo replaced the Signoria; the Consiglio de' 200 (Council of Two Hundred) and Senato de' 48 (Senate of Forty-Eight), whose members served for life, replaced the Consiglio Maggiore (Great Council). As of 1537, the old criminal courts of the Executors of the Ordinances of Justice and Podestà (chief magistrate) were consolidated in the Otto di Guardia e di Balìa (Eight on Public Safety), though, despite ducal attempts at centralization, some two dozen other bodies exercised criminal justice functions. As of 1569, the ruler held the title grand duke of Tuscany from the pope.
Politics
Although the arrival in Italy of Charles VIII of France in 1494 seemed the fulfillment of Savonarola's apocalyptic preaching, the friar's pro-French policy, antithetical to the position of Pope Alexander VI, and his defiance of a papal excommunication led to his execution in 1498. In 1512, the Medici, headed by Cardinal Giovanni (the future Pope Leo X [reigned 1513–1521] and the son of Lorenzo the Magnificent), returned as lords, but fled in 1527 following the sack of Rome. In 1530, pro-Medici troops forced the fall of the last Florentine republic. Although the Medici would, from now on, rule as lords, Florence's patriciate proved resilient: 90 percent of appointees to the Senate during the sixteenth century came from families who had served in the Signoria the century before.
Florence became the capital of an important medium-sized state in the early modern period. As of 1537, it was ruled by one of the most talented of the Medici, Duke Cosimo I (1519–1574), who succeeded in establishing considerable Florentine independence. By the early eighteenth century, Florence was paying huge subsidies to Austria, one of the costs of attempted neutrality. In the last weeks of the reign of the childless Gian Gastone de' Medici (1671–1737), several thousand Austrian troops occupied the city, and upon his death the grand duchy passed to the House of Lorraine.
The Medici dukes allied Tuscany with the Catholic states of Europe through both policy and marriages. Cosimo I, for instance, married into the House of Toledo; his progeny made marriage alliances with the Habsburgs, the royal house of France, and the House of Lorraine. Catherine de Médicis (1518–1589), wife of Henry II of France, was a daughter of Lorenzo of Urbino, and Marie de Médicis (1573–1642), wife of Henry IV of France, was a daughter of Francesco. Catherine's daughter Elizabeth married Philip II of Spain, and a son married Mary Stuart. Cosimo III (1642–1723) paired his daughter with Johann Wilhelm, elector of the Palatinate.
Science, Art, and Culture
Florence's enduring fame rests on its place in Renaissance and early modern culture. The humanists Coluccio Salutati, Marsilio Ficino, Angelo Poliziano, and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola all worked in Florence. In the early sixteenth century, the Rucellai family hosted gatherings of Florentine patricians in the family's palace gardens, the Orti Oricellari, where Niccolò Machiavelli explained to the literati gathered there the principles of his Discourses; indeed, scholars trace the political realism of Machiavelli and Francesco Guicciardini (1483–1540) to modes of thought developed by participants in the Rucellai garden conversations.
Florence remained a center of learning through the early modern era. Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) served as a Medici court mathematician and as tutor to the future Cosimo II (1590–1621), and left some of his scientific instruments to Ferdinando II (1610–1670), a man of real scientific bent. Another of Galileo's legacies was a "core of Tuscan Galileans" (Cochrane, p. 232), many of whom gathered at the learned academy popularly known as the Cimento, patronized and organized by prince Leopoldo, son of Cosimo II.
Lorenzo Magalotti (1637–1712), a diplomat, scientist, and writer whose interests ranged from geometry to air pressure to collecting bawdy poetry in several languages, belonged to the Accademia della Crusca and served as secretary of the Accademia del Cimento. When the latter disbanded in the second half of the seventeenth century, its members spread its ideas throughout Europe. Cosimo III (1642–1723) patronized medical research, including the work of his personal physician, Francesco Redi (1626–1698), whose critique of the received wisdom of the Greek physician Galen led to a more modern approach to health and pharmacology. Several Medici grand dukes also made it their policy to extend health care to even the more remote parts of their domain.
The Medici and other patrons sought out the best artists and humanists of the day. Florence was at the forefront of mannerism, with the architecture of Michelangelo (the stairs of the Laurentian Library, 1524–1526) and the paintings of Jacopo Pontormo (The Visitation in the Church of the Annunziata, 1514–1516, and The Deposition in the Church of Santa Felicità, 1526–1528), Parmigianino (The Madonna with the Long Neck, c. 1535), and the works of Agnolo Bronzino and Giorgio Vasari (best known for his Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects and the Uffizi, or public office building, 1559–1565). The city was an energetic participant in the Italian baroque movement; Artemesia Gentileschi enjoyed the patronage of Cosimo II, completed Judith and Her Maidservant around 1614, and was admitted to Florence's Accademia del Disegno.
Finance and Economy
Florence remained economically stable, even prosperous, until the recession, accelerated by the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648), of the 1620s. Cosimo I and his successors, especially Ferdinando I, lavished time and money on the acquisition and improvement of Livorno, which became Tuscany's main port and a sanctuary for merchants of all nations and creeds. In the reign of Francesco, a wave of palace construction reflected increased patrician investment in buildings.
Florence's economic power rested upon two industries, international banking and textiles, though the great Medici bank collapsed by 1494. Good raw wool, imported from England, Spain, and elsewhere, was spun by thousands of country women and then woven into cloth on looms. Until the mid-fourteenth century, women dominated the weaving trade, but were then replaced by German immigrant males. By the late sixteenth century, women once again flocked to the trade, and they constituted nearly two-thirds of wool weavers by 1604.
Smaller but still important was Florence's silk industry, producing high-quality, luxury goods. Women played important roles in cultivating mulberry trees, harvesting the leaves on which the silkworms fed, caring for the silk cocoons, and spinning the raw silk into thread. As with the wool industry, women tended to carry out production tasks associated with plain cloth, not with fine, highly decorative textiles.
Other important industries included international trade, printing, and glassmaking. Florentine merchants could be found in every corner of Europe. Cosimo I subsidized the press of Laurens Lenaerts (known in Florence as Lorenzo Torrentino), who published works in the vernacular, Latin, and Greek, among them the first edition of Vasari's Lives (1550). Torrentino's successors served as printers to the grand dukes until the late eighteenth century. A painting by Giovanni Maria Butteri from the early 1570s of a glass factory, built for Francesco I, hints at the importance of that industry.
Population
In 1427 Florence held about 40,000 permanent inhabitants, not including clergy, about one-third of its estimated population prior to the Black Death of 1348. The 1552 census counted about 60,000 residents, including clergy. The number rose to about 75,000 by 1600. The population was unusually literate; between a quarter and a third of Florentines could read and write during the Renaissance.
Florence had animportant Jewishcommunityby the early thirteenth century. By the fifteenth century, Jews were relegated to a very fewprofessions, notably pawnbroking. The Savonarolan republic's attemptin 1495 to expel them failed. Cosimo I granted substantial privileges to Jewish bankers in Tuscany and forbade anti-Semitic acts. In the 1550s, he opened Tuscany to settlement by Jews, an invitation accepted by many Iberian Jews, who created the first important Sephardic community in Italy. In 1571, Jews in Florence were moved to a ghetto, where they enjoyed considerable internal autonomy and where, by the century's end, they had built two synagogues. The Jewish physician Elia Montalto di Luna worked at the Medici court in the seventeenth century and produced learned scientific treatises. Although the entry of Napoleonic armies into Florence in 1799 resulted in the emancipation of the Jews, the return of the Habsburgs in 1815 forced them back into the ghetto, from which they were definitively liberated only with Italian unification.
Bibliography
Primary Sources
Machiavelli, Niccolò. Florentine Histories. Translated by Laura F. Banfield and Harvey C. Mansfield, Jr. Princeton, 1988. Translation of Istorie fiorentine. Florence's history as compiled, on commission from the Medici, by this astute political observer.
Secondary Sources
Acton, Harold. The Last Medici. Rev. ed. New York, 1980. A lively portrait of the late-seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Medici grand dukes.
Brackett, John K. Criminal Justice and Crime in Late Renaissance Florence, 1537–1609. Cambridge, U.K., and New York, 1992. Analyzes the Florentine criminal justice system in the late Renaissance.
Cochrane, Eric. Florence in the Forgotten Centuries, 1527–1800: A History of Florence and the Florentines in the Age of the Grand Dukes. Chicago and London, 1983. Colorful and well written; an impressionistic work for the general public with several chapters on the late Renaissance.
Hale, J. R. Florence and the Medici: The Pattern of Control. London, 1977. A history of the Medici and their relationship with Florence from the early Renaissance through the reign of Gian Gastone.
Litchfield, R. Burr. Emergence of a Bureaucracy: The Florentine Patricians, 1530–1790. Princeton, 1986. Catalogues the resilience of the Florentine elite over the longue durée.
Menning, Carol Bresnahan. Charity and State in Late Renaissance Italy: The Monte di Pietà of Florence. Ithaca, N.Y., 1993. A scholarly work on Florence's charitable pawn shop through the late sixteenth century.
—CAROL M. BRESNAHAN
City in central Italy on the Arno River.
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| Comune di Firenze | |
|---|---|
 Municipal coat of arms |
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| Country |  Italy |
| Region | Tuscany |
| Province | Florence (FI) |
| Mayor | Leonardo Domenici (Democrats of the Left) |
| Elevation | m ( ft) |
| Area | km² ( sq mi) |
| Population (as of 2006-06-02) | |
| - Total | |
| - Density | /km² (/sq mi) |
| Time zone | CET, [[UTC+1]] |
| Coordinates | |
| Gentilic | Fiorentini |
| Dialing code | 055 |
| Postal code | 50100 |
| Frazioni | Galluzzo, Settignano |
| Patron | St. John the Baptist |
| - Day | June 24 |
.svg)  Location of Florence in Italy |
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| Website: www.comune.firenze.it | |
| Historic Centre of Florence* | |
|---|---|
| UNESCO World Heritage Site | |
 |
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| State Party | Italy |
| Type | Cultural |
| Criteria | i, ii, iii, iv, vi |
| Reference | 174 |
| Region† | Europe and North America |
| Inscription History | |
| Inscription | 1982 (6th Session) |
|
* Name as
inscribed on World Heritage List. † Region as classified by UNESCO. |
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Florence (Italian: Firenze) is the capital city of the region of Tuscany, Italy.
From 1865 to 1870 the city was also the capital of the Kingdom of Italy. Florence lies on the Arno River and has a population of around 400,000 people, plus a suburban population in excess of 200,000 persons. The greater area has some 956,000 people. A center of medieval European trade and finance, the city is often considered the birthplace of the Italian Renaissance and was long ruled by the Medici family. Florence is also famous for its magnificent art and architecture. It is said that, of the 1,000 most important European artists of the second millennium, 350 lived or worked in Florence.[citation needed] The city has also been called the Athens of the Middle Ages.
The historic Center of Florence was declared a World Heritage Site by the UNESCO in 1982.
Florentine (fiorentino), spoken by inhabitants of Florence and its environs, is a Tuscan dialect and an immediate parent language to modern Italian. (Many linguists and scholars of Dante, Boccaccio, and Petrarch consider modern Italian to be, in fact, modern Florentine.) Its vocabulary and pronunciation are largely identical to Italian, though the hard c [k], when it is between two vowels (as in ducato) is pronounced as a fricative [h], similar to an English h. This gives Florentines a distinctive and highly recognizable accent (the so-called gorgia toscana). Other traits include using a form of the subjunctive mood last commonly used in medieval times, frequent usage of the modern subjunctive instead of the present, which may be viewed as incorrect in comparison to standard Italian, and a reduced definite article [i] in the pronounce.
Florence began as a settlement established by Julius Caesar in 59 BC for his veteran soldiers. It was named Florentia (Flourishing) and built in the style of an army camp with the main streets, the cardo and the decumanus, intersecting at the present Piazza della Repubblica. Situated at the Via Cassia, the main route between Rome and the North, and within the fertile valley of the Arno, the settlement quickly became an important commercial center. Emperor Diocletian made Florentia capital of the province of Tuscia in the 3rd century AD.
Saint Minias was Florence’s first martyr. He was beheaded at about 250 AD, during the anti-Christian persecutions of the Emperor Decius. After being beheaded, it is said that he picked up his disembodied head and walked across the Arno River and up the hill Mons Fiorentinus to his hermitage, where the Basilica di San Miniato al Monte now stands.
The seat of a bishopric from around the beginning of the 4th century AD, the city experienced subsequent turbulent periods of Ostrogothic rule, during which the city was often troubled by warfare between the Ostrogoths and the Byzantines, which may have caused the population to fall to as few as 1,000 living persons.
Peace returned under Lombard rule in the 6th century. Conquered by Charlemagne in 774, Florence became part of the duchy of Tuscany, with Lucca as capital. Population began to grow again and commerce prospered. In 854, Florence and Fiesole were united in one county.
Margrave Hugo chose Florence as his residency instead of Lucca at about 1000 AD. This initiated the Golden Age of Florentine art. In 1013, construction began on the Basilica di San Miniato al Monte. The exterior of the baptistry was reworked in Romanesque style between 1059 and 1128.
Pisa (defeated by Genoa in 1284 and subjugated by Florence in 1406), and the exercise of power by the mercantile elite following an anti-aristocratic movement, led by Giano della Bella, that resulted in a set of laws called the Ordinances of Justice (1293).
Of a population estimated at 80,000 before the Black Death of 1348, about 25,000 are said to have been supported by the city's wool industry: in 1345 Florence was the scene of an attempted strike by wool combers (ciompi), who in 1378 rose up in a brief revolt against oligarchic rule in the Revolt of the Ciompi. After their suppression, Florence came under the sway (1382-1434) of the Albizzi family, bitter rivals of the Medici. Cosimo de' Medici was the first Medici family member to essentially control the city from behind the scenes. Although the city was technically a democracy of sorts, his power came from a vast patronage network along with his alliance to the new immigrants, the gente nuova. The fact that the Medici were bankers to the pope also contributed to their rise. Cosimo was succeeded by his son Piero, who was shortly thereafter succeeded by Cosimo's grandson, Lorenzo in 1469. Lorenzo was a great patron of the arts, commissioning works by Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and Botticelli. Lorenzo was also an accomplished musician and brought some of the most famous composers and singers of the day to Florence, including Alexander Agricola, Johannes Ghiselin, and Heinrich Isaac.
Following the death of Lorenzo in 1492, he was succeeded by his son Piero II. When the French king Charles VIII invaded northern Italy, Piero II chose to resist his army. But when he realized the size of the French army at the gates of Pisa, he had to accept the humiliating conditions of the French king. These made the Florentines rebel and they expelled Piero II. With his exile in 1494, the first period of Medici rule ended with the restoration of a republican government.
During this period the Dominican monk Girolamo Savonarola had become prior of the San Marco monastery in 1490. He was famed for his penitential sermons. He blamed the exile of the Medicis as the work of God, punishing them for their decadence. He seized the opportunity to carry through political reforms leading to a more democratic rule. His monomaniacal persecution of the widespread Florentine pederasty[1] and of other worldly pleasures both influenced and foreshadowed many of the wider religious controversies of the following centuries. But when Savonarola publicly accused Pope Alexander VI of corruption, he was banned from speaking in public. When he broke this ban, he was excommunicated. The Florentines, tired of his extreme teachings, turned against him and arrested him. He was convicted as a heretic and burned at the stake on the Piazza della Signoria on 23 May 1498.
A second individual of unusual insight was Niccolò Machiavelli, whose prescriptions for Florence's regeneration under strong leadership have often been seen as a legitimisation of political expediency and even malpractice. Commissioned by the Medici, Machiavelli also wrote the Florentine Histories, the history of the city. Florentines drove out the Medici for a second time and re-established a republic on May 16, 1527.
Restored twice with the support of both Emperor and Pope, the Medici in 1537 became hereditary dukes of Florence, and in 1569 Grand Dukes of Tuscany, ruling for two centuries. In all Tuscany, only the Republic of Lucca (later a Duchy) and the Principality of Piombino were independent from Florence.
The extinction of the Medici line and the accession in 1737 of Francis Stephen, duke of Lorraine and husband of Maria Theresa of Austria, led to Tuscany's temporary inclusion in the territories of the Austrian crown. It became a secundogeniture of the Habsburg-Lorraine dynasty, who were deposed for the Bourbon-Parma in 1801 (themselves deposed in 1807), restored at the Congress of Vienna; Tuscany became a province of the United Kingdom of Italy in 1861.
Florence replaced Turin as Italy's capital in 1865, hosting the country's first parliament, but was superseded by Rome six years later, after the withdrawal of the French troops made its addition to the kingdom possible. After doubling during the 19th century, Florence's population tripled in the 20th with the growth of tourism, trade, financial services and industry. During World War II the city experienced a year-long German occupation (1943-1944) and was declared an open city. The Allied soldiers who died driving the Germans from Tuscany are buried in cemeteries outside the city (Americans about kilometres ( mi) south of the city [1], British and Commonwealth soldiers a few kilometers east of the center on the north bank of the Arno [2])
A very important role is played in those years by the famous café of Florence Giubbe Rosse from its foundation until the present day. Piazza del Mercato Vecchio was destroyed (Old Market Square), and then was renamed Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II. It is known today as Piazza della Repubblica, and is the location of the Giubbe Rosse. In those years (the end of the l9th century) the city administration of Florence decided to raze the old neighborhood of Mercato Vecchio to the ground, in favour of a new square dedicated to Victor Emmanuel II. "Non fu giammai così nobil giardino/ come a quel tempo egli è Mercato Vecchio / che l'occhio e il gusto pasce al fiorentino", claimed Antonio Pucci (poet) in the fourteenth century, "Mercato Vecchio nel mondo è alimento./ A ogni altra piazza il prego serra". The area had decayed from its original medieval splendor". Nowadays the literary café Giubbe Rosse is publishing books of famous Italian authors such: Mario Luzi, Manlio Sgalambro, Giovanni Lista, Menotti Lerro, Leopoldo Paciscopi.
In November 1966, the Arno flooded parts of the center, damaging many art treasures. There was no warning from the authorities who knew the flood was coming, except a phone call to the jewelers on the Ponte Vecchio. Around the city there are tiny placards on the walls noting where the flood waters reached at their highest point.
The surge in artistic, literary, and scientific investigation that occurred in Florence in the 14th-16th centuries was precipitated by Florentines' preoccupation with money, banking and trade and with the display of wealth and leisure. With the money from the banking, the Medicis, very wealthy bankers, sponsored different artists such as Michelangelo.
Added to this, the crises of the Roman Catholic church (especially the
controversy over the French Avignon Papacy and the Great
Schism), along with the catastrophic effects of the Black Death, led to a
re-evaluation of medieval values, resulting in the development of a humanist culture, stimulated by the works of Petrarch and Boccaccio. This prompted a revisitation and study of the
| Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Avg high [°C](°F) | 10 (50) | 12 (54) | 15 (59) | 19 (66) | 23 (74) | 28 (82) | 31 (88) | 31 (87) | 27 (80) | 21 (70) | 15 (59) | 11 (51) | 20 (68) |
| Avg low temperature [°C](°F) | 2 (35) | 3 (37) | 5 (41) | 8 (46) | 11 (52) | 15 (59) | 17 (63) | 17 (63) | 14 (58) | 10 (50) | 6 (42) | 2 (36) | 9 (49) |
| Rainfall [inches](millimeters) | 2.90 (73.60) | 2.70 (68.58) | 3.20 (81.28) | 3.10 (78.74) | 2.90 (73.66) | 2.20 (55.88) | 1.60 (40.64) | 3.00 (76.20) | 3.10 (78.74) | 3.50 (88.90) | 4.40 (111.76) | 3.60 (91.44) | 36.20 (919.48) |
Although usually perceived to have a Mediterranean climate, under the Köppen climate classification Florence is sometimes classified as having a Humid subtropical climate (Cfa). It experiences hot, humid summers with little rainfall and cool, damp winters. Due to the geographical position of the city (surrounded by hills in a valley traversed by the Arno river), Florence can be hot and humid from June to August. Summer temperatures are higher than those along coastlines, due to the lack of a prevailing wind. The small amount of rain which falls in the summer is convectional in type. Relief rainfall dominates in the winter, with occasional snow.
The best-known site and crowning architectural jewel of Florence is the domed cathedral of the city, Santa Maria del Fiore, known as The Duomo. The magnificent dome was built by Filippo Brunelleschi. The nearby Campanile tower (partly designed by Giotto) and the Baptistery buildings are also highlights. Both the dome itself and the campanile are open to tourists and offer excellent views.
At the heart of the city in Piazza della Signoria is Bartolomeo Ammanati's Fountain of Neptune, which is a masterpiece of marble sculpture at the terminus of a still functioning Roman aqueduct.
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The Arno river, which cuts through the old part of the city, is as much a character in Florentine history as many of the men who lived there. Historically, the locals have had a love-hate relationship with the Arno — which alternated from nourishing the city with commerce, and destroying it by flood.
One of the bridges in particular stands out as being unique — The Ponte Vecchio (Old Bridge), whose most striking feature is the multitude of shops built upon its edges, held up by stilts. The bridge also carried Vasari's elevated corridor linking the Uffizi to the Medici residence (Palazzo Pitti). First constructed by the Etruscans in ancient times, this bridge is the only one in the city to have survived World War II intact.
The San Lorenzo contains the Medici Chapel, the mausoleum of the Medici family - the most powerful family in Florence from the 15th to the 18th century. Nearby is the Uffizi Gallery, one of the finest art galleries in the world - founded on a large bequest from the last member of the Medici family.
The Uffizi ("offices") itself is located on the corner of Piazza della Signoria, a site important for three main reasons:
In addition to the Uffizi, Florence has other world-class museums:
The Bargello concentrates on sculpture, containing many priceless works of art created by such sculptors as Donatello, Giambologna, and Michelangelo.
The Accademia dell'Arte del Disegno (often simply called the Accademia) collection's highlights are Michelangelo's David and his unfinished Slaves.
Across the Arno is the huge Pitti Palace containing part of the Medici family's former private collection. In addition to the Medici collection the palace's galleries contain a large number of Renaissance works, including several by Raphael and Titian as well as a large collection of modern art, costumes, cattiages, and porcerlain. Adjoining the Palace are the Boboli Gardens, elaborately landscaped and with many interesting sculptures.
The Santa Croce basilica, originally a Franciscan foundation, contains the monumental tombs of Galileo, Michelangelo, Machiavelli, Dante (actually a cenotaph), and many other notables.
Other important basilicas and churches in Florence include Santa Maria Novella, San Lorenzo, Santo Spirito and the Orsanmichele.
The city's principal football team is AC Fiorentina.
Florence has been the setting for numerous works of fiction and movies, including the novels and associated films Hannibal, Tea with Mussolini and A Room with a View.
As of 2004, the greater Firenze (Florence) area had a population of 957,949 inhabitants, 93.30% being ethnic Italian. Immigrants in the city number 6.70% of the greater Firenze area. Of the 64,421 immigrants living in the Firenze area, 27,759 are of European origins other than Italian. The majority are of Albanian, Romanian, and German ethnicities. An increasing Asian population numbers 19,488, mostly recent immigrants of Chinese and Filipino origins. The African population numbers 10,364, of which half are North African Arabs and the other half sub-Saharan blacks. The remaining numbers constitute immigrants from the Americas.[3]
Age structure[4]
The city is undergoing an aging process due to the low fertility rates among the women like much of Europe. As a result, the pensioner population outnumbers that of youths. However, in the past decade there has been an increase in the number of births contributing to the slow, continuing positive growth of the city. [citation needed]
The principal public transportation network within the city is run by the ATAF and Li-nea bus company, with tickets available at local tobacconists, bars, and newspaper stalls. Individual tickets or a pass called the Carta Agile with multiple rides (10 or 21) may be used on buses. Once on the bus, tickets must be stamped (or swiped for the Carta Agile) using the machines on board unlike the train tickets which must be validated before boarding. The main bus station is next to Santa Maria Novella train station. Trenitalia runs trains between the railway stations within the city, and to other destinations around Italy and Europe. The central station, Santa Maria Novella Station, is located about metres ( ft) NW of Piazza del Duomo. There is also another important station, Campo Di Marte, but it is not as well-known as Santa Maria Novella.
Long distance buses are run by the SITA, Copit, CAP and Lazzi companies. The transit companies also accommodate travellers from the Amerigo Vespucci Airport, which is five kilometers (3.1 mi) west of the city center, and which has scheduled services run by major European carriers such as Air France and Lufthansa.
The centre of the city is closed to through-traffic, although buses, taxis and residents with appropriate permits are allowed in. This area is commonly referred to the ZTL (Zona Traffico Limitato), which is divided into five subsections. [citation needed] Residents of one section, therefore, will only be able to drive in their district and perhaps some surrounding ones. Cars without permits are allowed to enter after seven-thirty at night, or before seven-thirty in the morning. The rules shift somewhat unpredictably during the tourist-filled summers, putting more restrictions on where one can get in and out. This is enforced by cameras located on all the roads into the city, which photograph licence plates that pass by. [citation needed]
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Due to the high level of air pollution and traffic in the city, an urban tram network called the TramVia is currently under construction in the City.[2] It will run from Scandicci to the southwest through the western side of the city, cross the river Arno at the Cascine Park and arrive to the main station of Santa Maria Novella.
Tourism is the most significant industry within the center of Florence. [citation needed] On any given day between April and October, the local population is greatly outnumbered by tourists from all over the world. [citation needed] The Uffizi and Accademia museums are regularly sold out of tickets, and large groups regularly fill the basilicas of Santa Croce and Santa Maria Novella, both of which charge for entry.
Florence is also home to the legendary Italian fashion establishment Salvatore Ferragamo, notable as one of the oldest and most famous Italian fashion houses not located in Milan. Gucci, Prada, Roberto Cavalli, and Chanel also have large offices and stores in Florence or its outskirts.
Certain textile industries employing largely immigrant populations can be found to the north and north-west of the city, continuing its long tradition as a center of fine fabrics. [citation needed]
Food and wine have long been an important staple of the economy. Florence is the most important city in Tuscany, one of the great wine-growing regions in the world. The Chianti region is just south of the city, and its Sangiovese grapes figure prominently not only in its Chianti Classico wines but also in many of the more recently developed Supertuscan blends. Within twenty miles (32 km) to the west is the Carmignano area, also home to flavorful reds. More recently, the Bolgheri region (about miles/ km southwest of Florence) has become celebrated for its Supertuscan reds like Sassicaia. [citation needed]
Florentine food grows out of a tradition of peasant eating rather than rarefied high cooking. The vast majority of dishes are based on meat. The whole animal was traditionally eaten; various kinds of tripe, (trippa) and (lampredotto) were once regularly on the menu and still are sold at the remaining food carts stationed throughout the city. Antipasti include crostini toscani, sliced bread rounds topped with a chicken liver-based pâté, and sliced meats (mainly prosciutto and salami, often served with melon when in season). The typically saltless and butter-less Tuscan bread frequently features in Florentine courses, especially in its famous soups, ribollita and pappa al pomodoro, both usually served with local olive oil, and in the salad of bread and fresh vegetables called panzanella that is served in summer. The most famous main course is the bistecca alla fiorentina, a huge steak of Chianina beef cooked over hot charcoal and served very rare with its more recently derived version, the tagliata, sliced rare beef served on a bed of arugula, often with slices of parmesan cheese on top.
