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FLORENCE
(FIRENZE)
Recent research shows that
the Florence City’s Etruscan origins,
as originally believed, are unfounded, whilst it definitely
contains a Roman Town Hall (Florentia).
A Byzantine stronghold
during the Greek-Gothic war (535-53), then part of the Tuscia-Longobard,
during the 9th Century, it was ruled by the Marquis’s
of Tuscany, despite the presence of an Imperial Count. The
constitution of the Town Hall (12th Century) signalled a rapid
economic and political evolution of the City: the government,
initially in the hands of a restricted faction of nobility,
passed successively to the middle-class merchants and financial
institutions, organized in the branches (today’s corporations).
This passage is witnessed by the changes in the supreme state
office: consul (1134), Podestà, Head of the Nation
(1251), until the accession of power by the Prior of the Major
Branches (1282). Towards the middle of the 14th Century, the
City, involved in the wars between factions (Guelphs and Ghibellines),
shaken by the bankruptcy of bankers Bardi and Peruzzi (1342),
subdued by the Duke of Athens (1342-43), decimated by the
Pestilence and the famine (the first was the famous epidemic
of 1347-48, the second was the obvious consequences of the
disease, which hit the City between 1347 and ’48), went
into decay.
After the Riots of the Ciompi (1379; Ciompi is the common
name to indicate wool workers), the communal institutions
ceased to exist and a restricted oligarchy of noble families
assumed the governing of the City. The Medici Family emerged
from amongst them, and established their dominion in 1434.
With the downfall in Italy of Charles VIII of France (1494)
and the subsequent expulsion of the Medici Family, a new period
of political instability began: at the restoration of the
Republic, through the initiative of G. Savonarola, the Medici
Family returned, (1512), seeing a second Republic (1527) and
a new restoration of the higher classes. First taking the
title of Duchy (1530), then of Grand Duchy (1569), the Medici
Family governed until the arrival of the dynasty of Francesco
Stefano di Lorena, husband of Maria Teresa of Austria. The
Lorena Family promised an extraordinary cultural development
of the City. It became part of the Reign of Italy (1860),
and became Capital from 1865 to 1870. From that time, it has
always been an important cultural and artistic pole of the
nation, also overcoming the most tragic moment in its recent
history, that is, the floods of 4.11.1966, which left a profound
mark on the City, but which, in some way, also signalled the
beginning of a new “Rebirth”.
An enormous amount of religious and civil monuments, testify
the rich artistic history of the City. In the historical centre,
we can find the Cathedral complex – in the homonymous
square, containing the church of S. Maria del Fiore (Gothic
masterpiece of the 13th-14th Centuries, from an initial project
by Arnolfo di Cambio and constructed on the ruins of the previous
church of Santa Reparata, of which you can still visit its
foundations in the underground part of the actual Cathedral
– a little curiosity about the façade in its
present day appearance, is that it dates back to 1875/87)
surmounted by a dome by Brunelleschi (from 1419), the Baptistery
completes the number of buildings present (a splendid example
of Romanesque-Florentine architecture from the 11th Century,
characterized by the bi-chromatics of the marmoreal inlays)
and by its bell tower, said to be by Giotto (1334; height
84,7).
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FLORENCE
Art City
Duomo |
Giotto's Bell Tower |
"Ponte Vecchio"
(Old Bridge) |
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