Florence

There are a number of theories as to the origin of the Latin name Florentia from which the name of Florence and Firenze derived:

• Legend attributes the origin of the name Florentia to Florio (a soldier killed on the spot)
• It may be related to the Latin word for flowers found in the area
• It may be related to Flora, since it was founded during the Floralia festival
• There is a theory that Florentia is a name to convey good luck, "may you be florid"^[15]

View of Florence by Hartmann Schedel, published in 1493

Florence originated as a Roman city, and later, after a long period as a flourishing trading and banking medieval commune, it was the birthplace of the Italian Renaissance. It was politically, economically, and culturally one of the most important cities in Europe and the world from the 14th to 16th centuries.^[11]

The language spoken in the city during the 14th century came to be accepted as the model for what would become the Italian language. Thanks especially to the works of the Tuscans Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio, the Florentine dialect, above all the local dialects, was adopted as the basis for a national literary language.

Starting from the late Middle Ages, Florentine money—in the form of the gold florin—financed the development of industry all over Europe, from Britain to Bruges, to Lyon and Hungary. Florentine bankers financed the English kings during the Hundred Years' War. They similarly financed the papacy, including the construction of their provisional capital of Avignon and, after their return to Rome, the reconstruction and Renaissance embellishment of Rome.

Florence was home to the Medici, one of European history's most important noble families. Lorenzo de' Medici was considered a political and cultural mastermind of Italy in the late 15th century. Two members of the family were popes in the early 16th century: Leo X and Clement VII. Catherine de Medici married King Henry II of France and, after his death in 1559, reigned as regent in France. Marie de' Medici married Henry IV of France and gave birth to the future King Louis XIII. The Medici reigned as Grand Dukes of Tuscany, starting with Cosimo I de' Medici in 1569 and ending with the death of Gian Gastone de' Medici in 1737.

The Kingdom of Italy, which was established in 1861, moved its capital from Turin to Florence in 1865, although the capital was moved to Rome in 1871.

Roman origins

Florence was established by the Romans in 59 BC as a colony for veteran soldiers and was built in the style of an army camp.^[16] Situated along 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 centre and in AD 285 became the capital of the Tuscia region.

Early Middle Ages

The Goth King Totila razes the walls of Florence during the Gothic War: illumination from the Chigi manuscript of Villani's Cronica.

In centuries to come, the city experienced turbulent alternate periods of Ostrogoth and Byzantine rule, during which the city was fought over, helping to cause the population to fall to as low as 1,000 people.^[17] Peace returned under Lombard rule in the 6th century and Florence was in turn conquered by Charlemagne in 774 becoming part of the March of Tuscany centred on Lucca. The population began to grow again and commerce prospered.

Second millennium

The Basilica di San Miniato al Monte

Margrave Hugo chose Florence as his residency instead of Lucca around 1000 AD. The Golden Age of Florentine art began around this time. In 1100, Florence was a "commune", meaning a city-state. The city's primary resource was the Arno river, providing power and access for the industry (mainly textile industry), and access to the Mediterranean sea for international trade, helping the growth of an industrious merchant community. The Florentine merchant banking skills became recognised in Europe after they brought decisive financial innovation (e.g. bills of exchange,^[18] double-entry bookkeeping system) to medieval fairs. This period also saw the eclipse of Florence's formerly powerful rival Pisa.^[19] The growing power of the merchant elite culminated in an anti-aristocratic uprising, led by Giano della Bella, resulting in the Ordinances of Justice^[20] which entrenched the power of the elite guilds until the end of the Republic.

Middle Ages and Renaissance

Rise of the Medici

Leonardo da Vinci statue outside the Uffizi Gallery

At the height of demographic expansion around 1325, the urban population may have been as great as 120,000, and the rural population around the city was probably close to 300,000.^[21] The Black Death of 1348 reduced it by over half,^[22][23] 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, who became bitter rivals of the Medici.

In the 15th century, Florence was among the largest cities in Europe, with a population of 60,000, and was considered rich and economically successful.^[24] 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 (new people). The fact that the Medici were bankers to the pope also contributed to their ascendancy. Cosimo was succeeded by his son Piero, who was, soon after, 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 an accomplished poet and musician and brought composers and singers to Florence, including Alexander Agricola, Johannes Ghiselin, and Heinrich Isaac. By contemporary Florentines (and since), he was known as "Lorenzo the Magnificent" (Lorenzo il Magnifico).

Following Lorenzo de' Medici's death 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 realised 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.

Savonarola, Machiavelli, and the Medici popes

Girolamo Savonarola being burnt at the stake in 1498. The brooding Palazzo Vecchio is at centre right.

During this period, the Dominican friar Girolamo Savonarola had become prior of the San Marco monastery in 1490. He was famed for his penitential sermons, lambasting what he viewed as widespread immorality and attachment to material riches. He praised the exile of the Medici 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. 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 teachings, turned against him and arrested him. He was convicted as a heretic, hanged and burned at the stake on the Piazza della Signoria on 23 May 1498. His ashes were dispersed in the Arno river.^[25]

Another Florentine of this period was Niccolò Machiavelli, whose prescriptions for Florence's regeneration under strong leadership have often been seen as a legitimization of political expediency and even malpractice. Machiavelli was a political thinker, renowned for his political handbook The Prince, which is about ruling and exercising power. Commissioned by the Medici, Machiavelli also wrote the Florentine Histories, the history of the city.

In 1512, the Medici retook control of Florence with the help of Spanish and Papal troops.^[26] They were led by two cousins, Giovanni and Giulio de' Medici, both of whom would later become Popes of the Catholic Church, (Leo X and Clement VII, respectively). Both were generous patrons of the arts, commissioning works like Michelangelo's Laurentian Library and Medici Chapel in Florence, to name just two.^[27][28] Their reigns coincided with political upheaval in Italy, and thus in 1527, Florentines drove out the Medici for a second time and re-established a theocratic republic on 16 May 1527, (Jesus Christ was named King of Florence).^[29] The Medici returned to power in Florence in 1530, with the armies of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and the blessings of Pope Clement VII (Giulio de' Medici).

Florence officially became a monarchy in 1531, when Emperor Charles and Pope Clement named Alessandro de Medici as Duke of the Florentine Republic. The Medici's monarchy would last over two centuries. Alessandro's successor, Cosimo I de Medici, was named Grand Duke of Tuscany in 1569; in all Tuscany, only the Republic of Lucca (later a Duchy) and the Principality of Piombino were independent from Florence.

18th and 19th centuries

Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor and his family. Leopold was, from 1765 to 1790, the Grand Duke of Tuscany.

The extinction of the Medici dynasty 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 House of Bourbon-Parma in 1801. From 1801 to 1807 Florence was the capital of the Napoleonic client state Kingdom of Etruria. The Bourbon-Parma were deposed in December 1807 when Tuscany was annexed by France. Florence was the prefecture of the French département of Arno from 1808 to the fall of Napoleon in 1814. The Habsburg-Lorraine dynasty was restored on the throne of Tuscany at the Congress of Vienna but finally deposed in 1859. Tuscany became a region of the Kingdom of Italy in 1861.

Florence replaced Turin as Italy's capital in 1865 and, in an effort to modernise the city, the old market in the Piazza del Mercato Vecchio and many medieval houses were pulled down and replaced by a more formal street plan with newer houses. The Piazza (first renamed Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II, then Piazza della Repubblica, the present name) was significantly widened and a large triumphal arch was constructed at the west end. This development was unpopular and was prevented from continuing by the efforts of several British and American people living in the city. A museum recording the destruction stands nearby today.

The country's second capital city was superseded by Rome six years later, after the withdrawal of the French troops allowed the capture of Rome.

20th century

Porte Sante cemetery, burial place of notable figures of Florentine history

During World War II the city experienced a year-long German occupation (1943–1944) being part of the Italian Social Republic. Hitler declared it an open city on 3 July 1944 as troops of the British 8th Army closed in.^[30] In early August, the retreating Germans decided to demolish all the bridges along the Arno linking the district of Oltrarno to the rest of the city, making it difficult for troops of the 8th Army to cross. However, at the last moment Charles Steinhauslin, at the time consul of 26 countries in Florence, convinced the German general in Italy that the Ponte Vecchio was not to be destroyed due to its historical value. Instead, an equally historic area of streets directly to the south of the bridge, including part of the Corridoio Vasariano, was destroyed using mines. Since then the bridges have been restored to their original forms using as many of the remaining materials as possible, but the buildings surrounding the Ponte Vecchio have been rebuilt in a style combining the old with modern design. Shortly before leaving Florence, as they knew that they would soon have to retreat, the Germans executed many freedom fighters and political opponents publicly, in streets and squares including the Piazza Santo Spirito.

1/5 Mahratta Light Infantry, Florence, 28 August 1944

Florence was liberated by New Zealand, South African and British troops on 4 August 1944 alongside partisans from the Tuscan Committee of National Liberation (CTLN). The Allied soldiers who died driving the Germans from Tuscany are buried in cemeteries outside the city (Americans about nine kilometres or 5+1⁄2 miles south of the city, British and Commonwealth soldiers a few kilometres east of the centre on the right bank of the Arno).

At the end of World War II in May 1945, the US Army's Information and Educational Branch was ordered to establish an overseas university campus for demobilised American service men and women in Florence. The first American university for service personnel was established in June 1945 at the School of Aeronautics. Some 7,500 soldier-students were to pass through the university during its four one-month sessions (see G. I. American Universities).^[31]

In November 1966, the Arno flooded parts of the centre, damaging many art treasures. Around the city there are tiny placards on the walls noting where the flood waters reached at their highest point.

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History of Florence

History of Florence

Florence weathered the decline of the Western Roman Empire to emerge as a financial hub of Europe, home to several banks including that of the politically powerful Medici family. The city's wealth supported the development of art during the Italian Renaissance, and tourism attracted by its rich history continues today.

Odoacer

Odoacer

Odoacer, also spelled Odovacer or Odovacar, was a Germanic soldier and statesman of barbarian background, who deposed the Western Roman child emperor Romulus Augustulus and became Rex/Dux of Italy (476–493). Odoacer's overthrow of Romulus Augustulus is traditionally seen as marking the end of the Western Roman Empire as well as Ancient Rome.

Byzantine Empire

Byzantine Empire

The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinople. It survived the fragmentation and fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD and continued to exist for an additional thousand years until the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453. During most of its existence, the empire remained the most powerful economic, cultural, and military force in Europe. The terms "Byzantine Empire" and "Eastern Roman Empire" were coined after the end of the realm; its citizens continued to refer to their empire as the Roman Empire, and to themselves as Romans—a term which Greeks continued to use for themselves into Ottoman times. Although the Roman state continued and its traditions were maintained, modern historians prefer to differentiate the Byzantine Empire from Ancient Rome as it was centred on Constantinople instead of Rome, oriented towards Greek rather than Latin culture, and characterised by Eastern Orthodox Christianity.

Kingdom of the Lombards

Kingdom of the Lombards

The Kingdom of the Lombards also known as the Lombard Kingdom; later the Kingdom of (all) Italy, was an early medieval state established by the Lombards, a Germanic people, on the Italian Peninsula in the latter part of the 6th century. The king was traditionally elected by the very highest-ranking aristocrats, the dukes, as several attempts to establish a hereditary dynasty failed. The kingdom was subdivided into a varying number of duchies, ruled by semi-autonomous dukes, which were in turn subdivided into gastaldates at the municipal level. The capital of the kingdom and the center of its political life was Pavia in the modern northern Italian region of Lombardy.

Carolingian Empire

Carolingian Empire

The Carolingian Empire (800–888) was a large Frankish-dominated empire in western and central Europe during the Early Middle Ages. It was ruled by the Carolingian dynasty, which had ruled as kings of the Franks since 751 and as kings of the Lombards in Italy from 774. In 800, the Frankish king Charlemagne was crowned emperor in Rome by Pope Leo III in an effort to transfer the Roman Empire from the Byzantine Empire to western Europe. The Carolingian Empire is considered the first phase in the history of the Holy Roman Empire.

Kingdom of Italy (Holy Roman Empire)

Kingdom of Italy (Holy Roman Empire)

The Kingdom of Italy, also called Imperial Italy, was one of the constituent kingdoms of the Holy Roman Empire, along with the kingdoms of Germany, Bohemia, and Burgundy. It originally comprised large parts of northern and central Italy. Its original capital was Pavia until the 11th century.

March of Tuscany

March of Tuscany

The March of Tuscany was a march of the Kingdom of Italy and the Holy Roman Empire during the Middle Ages. Located in northwestern central Italy, it bordered the Papal States to the south, the Ligurian Sea to the west and Lombardy to the north. It comprised a collection of counties, largely in the valley of the Arno River, originally centered on Lucca.

Duchy of Florence

Duchy of Florence

The Duchy of Florence was an Italian principality that was centred on the city of Florence, in Tuscany, Italy. The duchy was founded after Emperor Charles V restored Medici rule to Florence in 1530. Pope Clement VII, himself a Medici, appointed his relative Alessandro de' Medici as Duke of the Florentine Republic, thereby transforming the Republic of Florence into a hereditary monarchy.

Grand Duchy of Tuscany

Grand Duchy of Tuscany

The Grand Duchy of Tuscany was an Italian monarchy that existed, with interruptions, from 1569 to 1859, replacing the Republic of Florence. The grand duchy's capital was Florence. In the 19th century the population of the Grand Duchy was about 1,815,000 inhabitants.

Kingdom of Etruria

Kingdom of Etruria

The Kingdom of Etruria was an Italian kingdom between 1801 and 1807 that made up a large part of modern Tuscany. It took its name from Etruria, the old Roman name for the land of the Etruscans.

First French Empire

First French Empire

The First French Empire, officially the French Republic, then the French Empire after 1809, also known as Napoleonic France, was the empire ruled by Napoleon Bonaparte, who established French hegemony over much of continental Europe at the beginning of the 19th century. It lasted from 18 May 1804 to 11 April 1814 and again briefly from 20 March 1815 to 7 July 1815.

Kingdom of Italy

Kingdom of Italy

The Kingdom of Italy was a state that existed from 1861, when Victor Emmanuel II of Sardinia was proclaimed King of Italy, until 1946, when civil discontent led to an institutional referendum to abandon the monarchy and form the modern Italian Republic. The state resulted from a decades-long process, the Risorgimento, of consolidating the different states of the Italian Peninsula into a single state. That process was influenced by the Savoy-led Kingdom of Sardinia, which can be considered Italy's legal predecessor state.

Florence with snow cover in December 2009

Florence lies in a basin formed by the hills of Careggi, Fiesole, Settignano, Arcetri, Poggio Imperiale and Bellosguardo (Florence). The Arno river, three other minor rivers (Mugnone,^[32] Ema and Greve) and some streams flow through it.^[33]

Climate

Florence has a humid subtropical climate (Cfa), tending to Mediterranean (Csa).^[34] It has hot summers with moderate or light rainfall and cool, damp winters. As Florence lacks a prevailing wind, summer temperatures are higher than along the coast. Rainfall in summer is convectional, while relief rainfall dominates in the winter. Snow flurries occur almost every year,^[35] but often result in no accumulation.^[36] The highest officially recorded temperature was 42.6 °C (108.7 °F) on 26 July 1983 and the lowest was −23.2 °C (−9.8 °F) on 12 January 1985.^[37]

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Villa Medici at Careggi

Villa Medici at Careggi

The Villa Medici at Careggi is a patrician villa in the hills near Florence, Tuscany, central Italy.

Fiesole

Fiesole

Fiesole is a town and comune of the Metropolitan City of Florence in the Italian region of Tuscany, on a scenic height above Florence, 5 km northeast of that city. It has structures dating to Etruscan and Roman times.

Settignano

Settignano

Settignano is a frazione on a hillside northeast of Florence, Italy. The little borgo of Settignano carries a familiar name for having produced three sculptors of the Florentine Renaissance, Desiderio da Settignano and the Gamberini brothers, better known as Bernardo Rossellino and Antonio Rossellino. The young Michelangelo lived with a sculptor and his wife in Settignano—in a farmhouse that is now the "Villa Michelangelo"— where his father owned a marble quarry. In 1511 another sculptor was born there, Bartolomeo Ammannati. The marble quarries of Settignano produced this series of sculptors.

Arcetri

Arcetri

Arcetri is a location in Florence, Italy, positioned among the hills south of the city centre.

Poggio Imperiale

Poggio Imperiale

Poggio Imperiale is a town and comune in the province of Foggia in the Apulia region of southeast Italy.

Humid subtropical climate

Humid subtropical climate

A humid subtropical climate is a zone of climate characterized by hot and humid summers, and cool to mild winters. These climates normally lie on the southeast side of all continents, generally between latitudes 25° and 40° and are located poleward from adjacent tropical climates. It is also known as warm temperate climate in some climate classifications.

Mediterranean climate

Mediterranean climate

A Mediterranean climate, also called a dry summer climate, described by Köppen as Cs, is a climate type that occurs in the lower mid-latitudes, characterized by warm to hot, dry summers and mild, fairly wet winters; these weather conditions are typically experienced in the majority of Mediterranean-climate regions and countries, but remain highly dependent on proximity to the ocean, altitude and geographical location.

Snow flurry

Snow flurry

A snow flurry is a light snowfall that results in little or no snow accumulation. The US National Weather Service defines snow flurries as intermittent light snow that produces no measurable precipitation. In contrast, bursts of snowfall that do result in measurable snow accumulation are called snow showers. Environment Canada uses a different definition for flurries, approximately equivalent to 'snow shower'.

Precipitation

Precipitation

In meteorology, precipitation is any product of the condensation of atmospheric water vapor that falls from clouds due to gravitational pull. The main forms of precipitation include drizzle, rain, sleet, snow, ice pellets, graupel and hail. Precipitation occurs when a portion of the atmosphere becomes saturated with water vapor, so that the water condenses and "precipitates" or falls. Thus, fog and mist are not precipitation but colloids, because the water vapor does not condense sufficiently to precipitate. Two processes, possibly acting together, can lead to air becoming saturated: cooling the air or adding water vapor to the air. Precipitation forms as smaller droplets coalesce via collision with other rain drops or ice crystals within a cloud. Short, intense periods of rain in scattered locations are called showers.

Sunshine duration

Sunshine duration

Sunshine duration or sunshine hours is a climatological indicator, measuring duration of sunshine in given period for a given location on Earth, typically expressed as an averaged value over several years. It is a general indicator of cloudiness of a location, and thus differs from insolation, which measures the total energy delivered by sunlight over a given period.

United Nations

United Nations

The United Nations (UN), particularly informally also referred to as the United Nations Organization (UNO), is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations. It is the world's largest and most familiar international organization. The UN is headquartered on international territory in New York City, and has other main offices in Geneva, Nairobi, Vienna, and The Hague.

Ultraviolet index

Ultraviolet index

The ultraviolet index, or UV index, is an international standard measurement of the strength of the sunburn-producing ultraviolet (UV) radiation at a particular place and time. It is primarily used in daily and hourly forecasts aimed at the general public. The UV index is designed as an open-ended linear scale, directly proportional to the intensity of UV radiation, and adjusting for wavelength based on what causes human skin to sunburn. The purpose of the UV index is to help people effectively protect themselves from UV radiation, which has health benefits in moderation but in excess causes sunburn, skin aging, DNA damage, skin cancer, immunosuppression, and eye damage, such as cataracts.

In 1200 the city was home to 50,000 people.^[42] By 1300 the population of the city proper was 120,000, with an additional 300,000 living in the Contado.^[43] Between 1500 and 1650 the population was around 70,000.^[44][45]

As of 31 October 2010^[update], the population of the city proper is 370,702, while Eurostat estimates that 696,767 people live in the urban area of Florence. The Metropolitan Area of Florence, Prato and Pistoia, constituted in 2000 over an area of roughly 4,800 square kilometres (1,850 sq mi), is home to 1.5 million people. Within Florence proper, 46.8% of the population was male in 2007 and 53.2% were female. Minors (children aged 18 and less) totalled 14.10 percent of the population compared to pensioners, who numbered 25.95 percent. This compares with the Italian average of 18.06 percent (minors) and 19.94 percent (pensioners). The average age of Florence resident is 49 compared to the Italian average of 42. In the five years between 2002 and 2007, the population of Florence grew by 3.22 percent, while Italy as a whole grew by 3.56 percent.^[46] The birth rate of Florence is 7.66 births per 1,000 inhabitants compared to the Italian average of 9.45 births.

As of 2009^[update], 87.46% of the population was Italian. An estimated 6,000 Chinese live in the city.^[47] The largest immigrant group came from other European countries (mostly Romanians and Albanians): 3.52%, East Asia (mostly Chinese and Filipino): 2.17%, the Americas: 1.41%, and North Africa (mostly Moroccan): 0.9%.^[48]

Much like the rest of Italy most of the people in Florence are Roman Catholic, with more than 90% of the population belonging to the Archdiocese of Florence.^[49][50]

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Eurostat

Eurostat

Eurostat is a Directorate-General of the European Commission located in the Kirchberg quarter of Luxembourg City, Luxembourg. Eurostat’s main responsibilities are to provide statistical information to the institutions of the European Union (EU) and to promote the harmonisation of statistical methods across its member states and candidates for accession as well as EFTA countries. The organisations in the different countries that cooperate with Eurostat are summarised under the concept of the European Statistical System.

Prato

Prato

Prato is a city and comune in Tuscany, Italy, the capital of the Province of Prato. The city lies north east of Tuscany, in the Florentine plain, at an elevation of 65 metres (213 ft), at the foot of Monte Retaia. With 195,213 inhabitants as of 1 January 2023, Prato is Tuscany's second largest city and the third largest in Central Italy.

Pistoia

Pistoia

Pistoia (, Italian: [pisˈtoːja] is a city and comune in the Italian region of Tuscany, the capital of a province of the same name, located about 30 kilometres west and north of Florence and is crossed by the Ombrone Pistoiese, a tributary of the River Arno. It is a typical Italian medieval city, and it attracts many tourists, especially in the summer. The city is famous throughout Europe for its plant nurseries.

Birth rate

Birth rate

The birth rate for a given period is the total number of live human births per 1,000 population divided by the length of the period in years. The number of live births is normally taken from a universal registration system for births; population counts from a census, and estimation through specialized demographic techniques. The birth rate is used to calculate population growth. The estimated average population may be taken as the mid-year population.

Overseas Chinese

Overseas Chinese

Overseas Chinese refers to people of Chinese birth or ethnicity who reside outside Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. As of 2011, there were over 40.3 million overseas Chinese.

Romanians

Romanians

The Romanians are a Romance-speaking ethnic group. Sharing a common Romanian culture and ancestry, and speaking the Romanian language, they live primarily in Romania and Moldova. The 2021 Romanian census found that just under 89.3% of Romania's citizens identified themselves as ethnic Romanians.

Albanians

Albanians

The Albanians are an ethnic group native to the Balkan Peninsula who share a common Albanian ancestry, culture, history and language. They primarily live in Albania, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia as well as in Croatia, Greece, Italy and Turkey. They also constitute a large diaspora with several communities established across Europe, the Americas and Oceania.

Han Chinese

Han Chinese

The Han Chinese or Han people, are an East Asian ethnic group native to China. They constitute the world's largest ethnic group, making up about 18% of the global population and consisting of various subgroups speaking distinctive varieties of the Chinese language. The estimated 1.4 billion Han Chinese people worldwide are primarily concentrated in the People's Republic of China, where they make up about 92% of the total population. In Taiwan, they make up about 97% of the population. People of Han Chinese descent also make up around 75% of the total population of Singapore.

Morocco

Morocco

Morocco, officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to the east, and the disputed territory of Western Sahara to the south. Mauritania lies to the south of Western Sahara. Morocco also claims the Spanish exclaves of Ceuta, Melilla and Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera, and several small Spanish-controlled islands off its coast. It spans an area of 446,300 km2 (172,300 sq mi) or 710,850 km2 (274,460 sq mi), with a population of roughly 37 million. Its official and predominant religion is Islam, and the official languages are Arabic and Berber; the Moroccan dialect of Arabic and French are also widely spoken. Moroccan identity and culture is a mix of Arab, Berber, and European cultures. Its capital is Rabat, while its largest city is Casablanca.

Tourism is, by far, the most important of all industries and most of the Florentine economy relies on the money generated by international arrivals and students studying in the city.^[11] The value tourism to the city totalled some €2.5 billion in 2015 and the number of visitors had increased by 5.5% from the previous year.^[51]

In 2013, Florence was listed as the second best world city by Condé Nast Traveler.^[52]

Manufacturing and commerce, however, still remain highly important. Florence is also Italy's 17th richest city in terms of average workers' earnings, with the figure being €23,265 (the overall city's income is €6,531,204,473), coming after Mantua, yet surpassing Bolzano.^[53]

Industry, commerce and services

Florence is a major production and commercial centre in Italy, where the Florentine industrial complexes in the suburbs produce all sorts of goods, from furniture, rubber goods, chemicals, and food.^[11] However, traditional and local products, such as antiques, handicrafts, glassware, leatherwork, art reproductions, jewellery, souvenirs, elaborate metal and iron-work, shoes, accessories and high fashion clothes also dominate a fair sector of Florence's economy.^[11] The city's income relies partially on services and commercial and cultural interests, such as annual fairs, theatrical and lyrical productions, art exhibitions, festivals and fashion shows, such as the Calcio Fiorentino. Heavy industry and machinery also take their part in providing an income. In Nuovo Pignone, numerous factories are still present, and small-to medium industrial businesses are dominant. The Florence-Prato-Pistoia industrial districts and areas were known as the 'Third Italy' in the 1990s, due to the exports of high-quality goods and automobile (especially the Vespa) and the prosperity and productivity of the Florentine entrepreneurs. Some of these industries even rivalled the traditional industrial districts in Emilia-Romagna and Veneto due to high profits and productivity.^[11]

In the fourth quarter of 2015, manufacturing increased by 2.4% and exports increased by 7.2%. Leading sectors included mechanical engineering, fashion, pharmaceutics, food and wine. During 2015, permanent employment contracts increased by 48.8 percent, boosted by nationwide tax break.^[51]

Tourism

Tourists flock to the Fontana del Porcellino.

Tourism is the most significant industry in central Florence. From April to October, tourists outnumber local population. Tickets to the Uffizi and Accademia museums are regularly sold out and large groups regularly fill the basilicas of Santa Croce and Santa Maria Novella, both of which charge for entry. Tickets for The Uffizi and Accademia can be purchased online prior to visiting.^[54] In 2010, readers of Travel + Leisure magazine ranked the city as their third favourite tourist destination.^[55] In 2015, Condé Nast Travel readers voted Florence as the best city in Europe.^[56]

Studies by Euromonitor International have concluded that cultural and history-oriented tourism is generating significantly increased spending throughout Europe.^[57]

Florence is believed to have the greatest concentration of art (in proportion to its size) in the world.^[58] Thus, cultural tourism is particularly strong, with world-renowned museums such as the Uffizi selling over 1.93 million tickets in 2014.^[59] The city's convention centre facilities were restructured during the 1990s and host exhibitions, conferences, meetings, social forums, concerts and other events all year.

Tourists and restaurant in the Piazza del Duomo

In 2016, Florence had 20,588 hotel rooms in 570 facilities. International visitors use 75% of the rooms; some 18% of those were from the U.S.^[60] In 2014, the city had 8.5 million overnight stays.^[61] A Euromonitor report indicates that in 2015 the city ranked as the world's 36th most visited in the world, with over 4.95 million arrivals for the year.^[62]

Tourism brings revenue to Florence, but also creates certain problems. The Ponte Vecchio, The San Lorenzo Market and Santa Maria Novella are plagued by pickpockets.^[63] The province of Florence receives roughly 13 million visitors per year^[64] and in peak seasons, popular locations may become overcrowded as a result.^[65] In 2015, Mayor Dario Nardella expressed concern over visitors who arrive on buses, stay only a few hours, spend little money but contribute significantly to overcrowding. "No museum visit, just a photo from the square, the bus back and then on to Venice ... We don’t want tourists like that", he said.^[66]

Some tourists are less than respectful of the city's cultural heritage, according to Nardella. In June 2017, he instituted a programme of spraying church steps with water to prevent tourists from using such areas as picnic spots. While he values the benefits of tourism, he claims that there has been "an increase among those who sit down on church steps, eat their food and leave rubbish strewn on them", he explained.^[67] To boost the sale of traditional foods, the mayor had introduced legislation (enacted in 2016) that requires restaurants to use typical Tuscan products and rejected McDonald's application to open a location in the Piazza del Duomo.^[68]

In October 2021, Florence was shortlisted for the European Commission's 2022 European Capital of Smart Tourism award along with Bordeaux, Copenhagen, Dublin, Ljubljana, Palma de Mallorca and Valencia.^[69]

Food and wine production

Fiaschi of basic Chianti

Food and wine have long been an important staple of the economy. 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 32 km (20 mi) to the west is the Carmignano area, also home to flavourful sangiovese-based reds. The celebrated Chianti Rufina district, geographically and historically separated from the main Chianti region, is also few kilometres east of Florence. More recently, the Bolgheri region (about 150 km or 93 mi southwest of Florence) has become celebrated for its "Super Tuscan" reds such as Sassicaia and Ornellaia.^[70]

Discover more about Economy related topics

Mantua

Mantua

Mantua is a city and comune in Lombardy, Italy, and capital of the province of the same name.

Bolzano

Bolzano

Bolzano is the capital city of the province of South Tyrol in northern Italy. With a population of 108,245, Bolzano is also by far the largest city in South Tyrol and the third largest in historical Tyrol. The greater metro area has about 250,000 inhabitants and is one of the urban centers within the Alps.

Calcio Fiorentino

Calcio Fiorentino

Calcio Fiorentino is an early form of football that originated during the Middle Ages in Italy. Once widely played, the sport is thought to have started in the Piazza Santa Croce in Florence. There it became known as the giuoco del calcio fiorentino or simply calcio, which is now also the name for association football in the Italian language. The game may have started as a revival of the Roman sport of harpastum.

Mercato Centrale (Florence)

Mercato Centrale (Florence)

The Mercato Centrale in Florence is located between via dell'Ariento, via Sant'Antonino, via Panicale and Piazza del Mercato Centrale. It is one of the results from the time of risanamento, the period when Florence was the capital of Italy in the late nineteenth century. It was designed by Giuseppe Mengoni, an architect who also conceived the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II in Milan.

European Commission

European Commission

The European Commission (EC) is part of the executive of the European Union (EU), together with the European Council. It operates as a cabinet government, with 27 members of the Commission headed by a President. It includes an administrative body of about 32,000 European civil servants. The Commission is divided into departments known as Directorates-General (DGs) that can be likened to departments or ministries each headed by a Director-General who is responsible to a Commissioner.

Bordeaux

Bordeaux

Bordeaux is a port city on the river Garonne in the Gironde department, Southwestern France. It is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the prefecture of the Gironde department. Its inhabitants are called "Bordelais" (masculine) or "Bordelaises" (feminine). The term "Bordelais" may also refer to the city and its surrounding region.

Copenhagen

Copenhagen

Copenhagen is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a population of around 1.4 million in the urban area, and more than 2 million in the wider Copenhagen metropolitan area. The city is on the islands of Zealand and Amager, separated from Malmö, Sweden, by the Øresund strait. The Øresund Bridge connects the two cities by rail and road.

Dublin

Dublin

Dublin is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 census it had a population of 1,173,179, while the preliminary results of the 2022 census recorded that County Dublin as a whole had a population of 1,450,701, and that the population of the Greater Dublin Area was over 2 million, or roughly 40% of the Republic of Ireland's total population.

Ljubljana

Ljubljana

Ljubljana is the capital and largest city of Slovenia. It is the country's cultural, educational, economic, political and administrative center.

Palma de Mallorca

Palma de Mallorca

Palma, also known as Palma de Mallorca is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of the Balearic Islands in Spain. It is situated on the south coast of Mallorca on the Bay of Palma. The Cabrera Archipelago, though widely separated from Palma proper, is administratively considered part of the municipality. As of 2018, Palma Airport serves over 29 million passengers per year.

Fiasco (bottle)

Fiasco (bottle)

A fiasco is a typical Italian style of bottle, usually with a round body and bottom, partially or completely covered with a close-fitting straw basket.

Chianti (region)

Chianti (region)

Chianti, in Italy also referred to as Monti del Chianti or Colline del Chianti, is a mountainous area of Tuscany in the provinces of Florence, Siena and Arezzo, composed mainly of hills and mountains. It is known for the wine produced in and named for the region, Chianti.

• 

  The traditional boroughs of the whole comune of Florence

• 

  The 5 administrative boroughs of the whole comune of Florence

Seats in the Florence City Council
(2019–2024)

The legislative body of the municipality is the City Council (Consiglio Comunale), which is composed of 36 councillors elected every five years with a proportional system, at the same time as the mayoral elections. The executive body is the City Committee (Giunta Comunale), composed of 7 assessors, nominated and presided over by a directly elected Mayor. The current mayor of Florence is Dario Nardella.

The municipality of Florence is subdivided into five administrative Boroughs (Quartieri). Each borough is governed by a Council (Consiglio) and a President, elected at the same time as the city mayor. The urban organisation is governed by the Italian Constitution (art. 114). The boroughs have the power to advise the Mayor with nonbinding opinions on a large spectrum of topics (environment, construction, public health, local markets) and exercise the functions delegated to them by the City Council; in addition they are supplied with an autonomous funding in order to finance local activities. The boroughs are:

• Q1 – Centro storico (Historic Centre); population: 67,170;
• Q2 – Campo di Marte; population: 88,588;
• Q3 – Gavinana-Galluzzo; population: 40,907;
• Q4 – Isolotto-Legnaia; population: 66,636;
• Q5 – Rifredi; population: 103,761.

All of the five boroughs are governed by the Democratic Party.

The former Italian Prime Minister (2014–2016), Matteo Renzi, served as mayor from 2009 to 2014.

Discover more about Government related topics

List of mayors of Florence

List of mayors of Florence

The Mayor of Florence is an elected politician who, along with Florence's City Council of 36 members, is accountable for the strategic government of Florence. The title is the equivalent of Lord Mayor in the meaning of an actual executive leader.

Assessor (Italy)

Assessor (Italy)

In Italy an assessor is a member of a Giunta, the executive body in all levels of local government: regions, provinces and comunes.

Dario Nardella

Dario Nardella

Dario Nardella is an Italian politician who has been the Mayor of Florence since 26 May 2014 and the first Metropolitan Mayor of Florence since 1 January 2015.

Historic Centre of Florence

Historic Centre of Florence

The historic centre of Florence is part of quartiere 1 of the Italian city of Florence. This quarter was named a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1982.

Galluzzo

Galluzzo

Galluzzo is part of quartiere 3 of the Italian city of Florence, Italy, located in the southern extremity of the Florentine commune. It is known for the celebrated Carthusian monastery, the Galluzzo or Florence Charterhouse, which was founded in 1342 by Niccolò Acciaioli.

Legnaia

Legnaia

Legnaia is a rione in Florence, Italy. It is located between the centre of the city and Scandicci, and was an autonomous commune from 1808 until 1865. At the time, it counted some 11,300 inhabitants.

Democratic Party (Italy)

Democratic Party (Italy)

The Democratic Party is a social-democratic political party in Italy. The party's secretary is Elly Schlein, elected in the 2023 leadership election, while the party's president is Stefano Bonaccini.

Matteo Renzi

Matteo Renzi

Matteo Renzi is an Italian politician who served as prime minister of Italy from 2014 to 2016. He has been a senator for Florence since 2018. Renzi has served as the leader of Italia Viva (IV) since 2019, having been the secretary of the Democratic Party (PD) from 2013 to 2018, with a brief interruption in 2017.

Art

Botticelli's Venus, stored in the Uffizi

Florence was the birthplace of High Renaissance art, which lasted from 1450 to 1527. While Medieval art focused on basic story telling of the Bible, Renaissance art focused on naturalism and human emotion.^[71] Medieval art was abstract, formulaic, and largely produced by monks whereas Renaissance art was rational, mathematical, individualistic, consisted of linear perspective and shading (Chiaroscuro)^[71] and produced by specialists (Leonardo da Vinci, Donatello, Michelangelo, and Raphael). Religion was important, but with this new age came the humanization^[72][73] of religious figures in art, such as Expulsion from the Garden of Eden, Ecce Homo (Bosch, 1470s), and Madonna Della Seggiola; People of this age began to understand themselves as human beings, which reflected in art.^[73] The Renaissance marked the rebirth of classical values in art and society as people studied the ancient masters of the Greco-Roman world;^[72] Art became focused on realism as opposed to idealism.^[73]

Sculptures in the Loggia dei Lanzi

Michelangelo's David

Cimabue and Giotto, the fathers of Italian painting, lived in Florence as well as Arnolfo and Andrea Pisano, renewers of architecture and sculpture; Brunelleschi, Donatello and Masaccio, forefathers of the Renaissance, Ghiberti and the Della Robbias, Filippo Lippi and Angelico; Botticelli, Paolo Uccello and the universal genius of Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo.^[74][75]

Their works, together with those of many other generations of artists, are gathered in the several museums of the town: the Uffizi Gallery, the Palatina gallery with the paintings of the "Golden Ages",^[76] the Bargello with the sculptures of the Renaissance, the museum of San Marco with Fra Angelico's works, the Academy, the chapels of the Medicis^[77] Buonarroti's house with the sculptures of Michelangelo, the following museums: Bardini, Horne, Stibbert, Romano, Corsini, The Gallery of Modern Art, the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, the museum of Silverware and the museum of Precious Stones.^[78] Several monuments are located in Florence: the Florence Baptistery with its mosaics; the cathedral with its sculptures, the medieval churches with bands of frescoes; public as well as private palaces: Palazzo Vecchio, Palazzo Pitti, Palazzo Medici Riccardi, Palazzo Davanzati; monasteries, cloisters, refectories; the "Certosa". In the archaeological museum includes documents of Etruscan civilisation.^[79] In fact the city is so rich in art that some first time visitors experience the Stendhal syndrome as they encounter its art for the first time.^[80]

The Uffizi Gallery is the 10th most visited art museum in the world.

Florentine architects such as Filippo Brunelleschi (1377–1466) and Leon Battista Alberti (1404–1472) were among the fathers of both Renaissance and Neoclassical architecture.^[81]

The cathedral, topped by Brunelleschi's dome, dominates the Florentine skyline. The Florentines decided to start building it – late in the 13th century, without a design for the dome. The project proposed by Brunelleschi in the 14th century was the largest ever built at the time, and the first major dome built in Europe since the two great domes of Roman times – the Pantheon in Rome, and Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. The dome of Santa Maria del Fiore remains the largest brick construction of its kind in the world.^[82][83] In front of it is the medieval Baptistery. The two buildings incorporate in their decoration the transition from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. In recent years, most of the important works of art from the two buildings – and from the nearby Giotto's Campanile, have been removed and replaced by copies. The originals are now housed in the Museum dell'Opera del Duomo, just to the east of the cathedral.

Florence has large numbers of art-filled churches, such as San Miniato al Monte, San Lorenzo, Santa Maria Novella, Santa Trinita, Santa Maria del Carmine, Santa Croce, Santo Spirito, the Annunziata, Ognissanti and numerous others.^[11]

The Palazzo della Signoria, better known as the Palazzo Vecchio (English: The Old Palace)

Artists associated with Florence range from Arnolfo di Cambio and Cimabue to Giotto, Nanni di Banco, and Paolo Uccello; through Lorenzo Ghiberti, and Donatello and Massaccio and the della Robbia family; through Fra Angelico and Botticelli and Piero della Francesca, and on to Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci. Others include Benvenuto Cellini, Andrea del Sarto, Benozzo Gozzoli, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Filippo Lippi, Bernardo Buontalenti, Orcagna, Pollaiuolo, Filippino Lippi, Verrocchio, Bronzino, Desiderio da Settignano, Michelozzo, the Rossellis, the Sangallos, and Pontormo. Artists from other regions who worked in Florence include Raphael, Andrea Pisano, Giambologna, Il Sodoma and Peter Paul Rubens.

Brunelleschi's dome

Picture galleries in Florence include the Uffizi and the Pitti Palace. Two superb collections of sculpture are in the Bargello and the Museum of the Works of the Duomo. They are filled with the creations of Donatello, Verrochio, Desiderio da Settignano, Michelangelo and others. The Galleria dell'Accademia has Michelangelo's David – perhaps the best-known work of art anywhere, plus the unfinished statues of the slaves Michelangelo created for the tomb of Pope Julius II.^[84][85] Other sights include the medieval city hall, the Palazzo della Signoria (also known as the Palazzo Vecchio), the Archeological Museum, the Museum of the History of Science, the Palazzo Davanzatti, the Stibbert Museum, St. Marks, the Medici Chapels, the Museum of the Works of Santa Croce, the Museum of the Cloister of Santa Maria Novella, the Zoological Museum ("La Specola"), the Bardini, and the Museo Horne. There is also a collection of works by the modern sculptor, Marino Marini, in a museum named after him. The Strozzi Palace is the site of special exhibits.^[86]

Language

Florentine (fiorentino), spoken by inhabitants of Florence and its environs, is a Tuscan dialect and the immediate parent language to modern Italian.

Although its vocabulary and pronunciation are largely identical to standard Italian, differences do exist. The Vocabolario del fiorentino contemporaneo (Dictionary of Modern Florentine) reveals lexical distinctions from all walks of life.^[87] Florentines have a highly recognisable accent in phonetic terms due to the so-called gorgia toscana): "hard c" /k/ between two vowels is pronounced as a fricative [h] similar to an English h, so that dico 'I say' is phonetically [ˈdiːho], i cani 'the dogs' is [iˈhaːni]. Similarly, t between vowels is pronounced [θ] as in English thin, and p in the same position is the bilabial fricative [ɸ]. Other traits include using a form of the subjunctive mood last commonly used in medieval times, a frequent usage in everyday speech of the modern subjunctive, and a shortened pronunciation of the definite article, [i] instead of "il", causing doubling of the consonant that follows, so that il cane 'the dog', for example, is pronounced [ikˈkaːne].

Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio pioneered the use of the vernacular^[88] instead of the Latin used for most literary works at the time.

Literature

The introduction of the Decameron (1350–1353) by Giovanni Boccaccio

Despite Latin being the main language of the courts and the Church in the Middle Ages, writers such as Dante Alighieri^[88] and many others used their own language, the Florentine vernacular descended from Latin, in composing their greatest works. The oldest literary pieces written in Florentine go as far back as the 13th century. Florence's literature fully blossomed in the 14th century, when not only Dante with his Divine Comedy (1306–1321) and Petrarch, but also poets such as Guido Cavalcanti and Lapo Gianni composed their most important works.^[88] Dante's masterpiece is the Divine Comedy, which mainly deals with the poet himself taking an allegoric and moral tour of Hell, Purgatory and finally Heaven, during which he meets numerous mythological or real characters of his age or before. He is first guided by the Roman poet Virgil, whose non-Christian beliefs damned him to Hell. Later on he is joined by Beatrice, who guides him through Heaven.^[88]

In the 14th century, Petrarch^[89] and Giovanni Boccaccio^[89] led the literary scene in Florence after Dante's death in 1321. Petrarch was an all-rounder writer, author and poet, but was particularly known for his Canzoniere, or the Book of Songs, where he conveyed his unremitting love for Laura.^[89] His style of writing has since become known as Petrarchism.^[89] Boccaccio was better known for his Decameron, a slightly grim story of Florence during the 1350s bubonic plague, known as the Black Death, when some people fled the ravaged city to an isolated country mansion, and spent their time there recounting stories and novellas taken from the medieval and contemporary tradition. All of this is written in a series of 100 distinct novellas.^[89]

In the 16th century, during the Renaissance, Florence was the home town of political writer and philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli, whose ideas on how rulers should govern the land, detailed in The Prince, spread across European courts and enjoyed enduring popularity for centuries. These principles became known as Machiavellianism.

Music

The Teatro della Pergola

Florence became a musical centre during the Middle Ages and music and the performing arts remain an important part of its culture. The growth of Northern Italian Cities in the 1500s likely contributed to its increased prominence. During the Renaissance, there were four kinds of musical patronage in the city with respect to both sacred and secular music: state, corporate, church, and private. It was here that the Florentine Camerata convened in the mid-16th century and experimented with setting tales of Greek mythology to music and staging the result—in other words, the first operas, setting the wheels in motion not just for the further development of the operatic form, but for later developments of separate "classical" forms such as the symphony and concerto. After the year 1600, Italian trends prevailed across Europe, by 1750 it was the primary musical language. The genre of the Madrigal, born in Italy, gained popularity in Britain and elsewhere. Several Italian cities were "larger on the musical map than their real-size for power suggested. Florence, was once such city which experienced a fantastic period in the early seventeenth Century of musico-theatrical innovation, including the beginning and flourishing of opera.^[90]

Opera was invented in Florence in the late 16th century when Jacopo Peri's Dafne an opera in the style of monody, was premiered. Opera spread from Florence throughout Italy and eventually Europe. Vocal Music in the choir setting was also taking new identity at this time. At the beginning of the 17th century, two practices for writing music were devised, one the first practice or Stile Antico/Prima Prattica the other the Stile Moderno/Seconda Prattica. The Stile Antico was more prevalent in Northern Europe and Stile Moderno was practiced more by the Italian Composers of the time.^[91] The piano was invented in Florence in 1709 by Bartolomeo Cristofori. Composers and musicians who have lived in Florence include Piero Strozzi (1550 – after 1608), Giulio Caccini (1551–1618) and Mike Francis (1961–2009). Giulio Caccini's book Le Nuove Musiche was significant in performance practice technique instruction at the time.^[90] The book specified a new term, in use by the 1630s, called monody which indicated the combination of voice and basso continuo and connoted a practice of stating text in a free, lyrical, yet speech-like manner. This would occur while an instrument, usually a keyboard type such as harpsichord, played and held chords while the singer sang/spoke the monodic line.^[92]

Cinema

Florence has been a setting for numerous works of fiction and movies, including the novels and associated films, such as Light in the Piazza, The Girl Who Couldn't Say No, Calmi Cuori Appassionati, Hannibal, A Room with a View, Tea with Mussolini, Virgin Territory and Inferno. The city is home to renowned Italian actors and actresses, such as Roberto Benigni, Leonardo Pieraccioni and Vittoria Puccini.

Video games

Florence has appeared as a location in video games such as Assassins Creed II.^[93] The Republic of Florence also appears as a playable nation in Paradox Interactive's grand strategy game Europa Universalis IV.

Other media

16th century Florence is the setting of the Japanese manga and anime series Arte.

Cuisine

Florentine steak in Florence

Florentine food grows out of a tradition of peasant eating rather than rarefied high cooking. The majority of dishes are based on meat. The whole animal was traditionally eaten; tripe (trippa) and stomach (lampredotto) were once regularly on the menu and still are sold at the 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 salame, often served with melon when in season). The typically saltless Tuscan bread, obtained with natural levain frequently features in Florentine courses, especially in its soups, ribollita and pappa al pomodoro, or in the salad of bread and fresh vegetables called panzanella that is served in summer. The bistecca alla fiorentina is a large (the customary size should weigh around 1.2 to 1.5 kg or 2 lb 10 oz to 3 lb 5 oz) – the "date" steak – T-bone 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. Most of these courses are generally served with local olive oil, also a prime product enjoying a worldwide reputation.^[94]
Among the desserts, schiacciata alla fiorentina, a white flatbread cake, is one of the most popular; it is a very soft cake, prepared with extremely simple ingredients, typical of Florentine cuisine, and is especially eaten at Carnival.

Research activity

UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre

Research institutes and university departments are located within the Florence area and within two campuses at Polo di Novoli and Polo Scientifico di Sesto Fiorentino^[95] as well as in the Research Area of Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche.^[96]

Science and discovery

A display of proboscideans in the Museo di Storia Naturale di Firenze, or the Natural History Museum of Florence

Florence has been an important scientific centre for centuries, notably during the Renaissance with scientists such as Leonardo da Vinci.

Florentines were one of the driving forces behind the Age of Discovery. Florentine bankers financed Henry the Navigator and the Portuguese explorers who pioneered the route around Africa to India and the Far East. It was a map drawn by the Florentine Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli, a student of Brunelleschi, that Christopher Columbus used to sell his "enterprise" to the Spanish monarchs, and which he used on his first voyage. Mercator's "Projection" is a refined version of Toscanelli's, taking the Americas into account.

Galileo and other scientists pioneered the study of optics, ballistics, astronomy, anatomy, and other scientific disciplines. Pico della Mirandola, Leonardo Bruni, Machiavelli, and many others laid the groundwork for modern scientific understanding.

Fashion

Luxury boutiques along Florence's prestigious Via de' Tornabuoni

By the year 1300 Florence had become a centre of textile production in Europe. Many of the rich families in Renaissance Florence were major purchasers of locally produced fine clothing, and the specialists of fashion in the economy and culture of Florence during that period is often underestimated.^[97] Florence is regarded by some as the birthplace and earliest centre of the modern (post World War Two) fashion industry in Italy. The Florentine "soirées" of the early 1950s organised by Giovanni Battista Giorgini were events where several Italian designers participated in group shows and first garnered international attention.^[98] Florence has served as the home of the Italian fashion company Salvatore Ferragamo since 1928. Gucci, Roberto Cavalli, and Emilio Pucci are also headquartered in Florence. Other major players in the fashion industry such as Prada and Chanel have large offices and stores in Florence or its outskirts. Florence's main upscale shopping street is Via de' Tornabuoni, where major luxury fashion houses and jewellery labels, such as Armani and Bulgari, have boutiques. Via del Parione and Via Roma are other streets that are also well known for their high-end fashion stores.^[99]

Historical evocations

Scoppio del Carro

The Scoppio del Carro ("Explosion of the Cart") is a celebration of the First Crusade. During the day of Easter, a cart, which the Florentines call the Brindellone and which is led by four white oxen, is taken to the Piazza del Duomo between the Baptistery of St. John the Baptist (Battistero di San Giovanni) and the Florence Cathedral (Santa Maria del Fiore). The cart is connected by a rope to the interior of the church. Near the cart there is a model of a dove, which, according to legend, is a symbol of good luck for the city: at the end of the Easter mass, the dove emerges from the nave of the Duomo and ignites the fireworks on the cart.

Calcio Storico

Calcio Storico

Calcio Storico Fiorentino ("Historic Florentine Football"), sometimes called Calcio in costume, is a traditional sport, regarded as a forerunner of soccer, though the actual gameplay most closely resembles rugby. The event originates from the Middle Ages, when the most important Florentine nobles amused themselves playing while wearing bright costumes. The most important match was played on 17 February 1530, during the siege of Florence. That day Papal troops besieged the city while the Florentines, with contempt of the enemies, decided to play the game notwithstanding the situation. The game is played in the Piazza di Santa Croce. A temporary arena is constructed, with bleachers and a sand-covered playing field. A series of matches are held between four teams representing each quartiere (quarter) of Florence during late June and early July.^[100] There are four teams: Azzurri (light blue), Bianchi (white), Rossi (red) and Verdi (green). The Azzurri are from the quarter of Santa Croce, Bianchi from the quarter of Santo Spirito, Verdi are from San Giovanni and Rossi from Santa Maria Novella.

Discover more about Culture related topics

Florentine painting

Florentine painting

Florentine painting or the Florentine School refers to artists in, from, or influenced by the naturalistic style developed in Florence in the 14th century, largely through the efforts of Giotto di Bondone, and in the 15th century the leading school of Western painting. Some of the best known painters of the earlier Florentine School are Fra Angelico, Botticelli, Filippo Lippi, the Ghirlandaio family, Masolino, and Masaccio.

Italian Renaissance sculpture

Italian Renaissance sculpture

Italian Renaissance sculpture was an important part of the art of the Italian Renaissance, in the early stages arguably representing the leading edge. The example of Ancient Roman sculpture hung very heavily over it, both in terms of style and the uses to which sculpture was put. In complete contrast to painting, there were many surviving Roman sculptures around Italy, above all in Rome, and new ones were being excavated all the time, and keenly collected. Apart from a handful of major figures, especially Michelangelo and Donatello, it is today less well-known than Italian Renaissance painting, but this was not the case at the time.

Guilds of Florence

Guilds of Florence

The guilds of Florence were secular corporations that controlled the arts and trades in Florence from the twelfth into the sixteenth century. These Arti included seven major guilds, five middle guilds and nine minor guilds. Their rigorous quality control and the political role in the commune that the Arti Maggiori assumed were formative influences in the history of Florence, which became one of the richest cities of late Medieval Europe.

Chiaroscuro

Chiaroscuro

Chiaroscuro, in art, is the use of strong contrasts between light and dark, usually bold contrasts affecting a whole composition. It is also a technical term used by artists and art historians for the use of contrasts of light to achieve a sense of volume in modelling three-dimensional objects and figures. Similar effects in cinema, and black and white and low-key photography, are also called chiaroscuro.

Donatello

Donatello

Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi, better known as Donatello, was an Italian sculptor of the Renaissance period. Born in Florence, he studied classical sculpture and used this to develop a complete Renaissance style in sculpture. He spent time in other cities, and while there he worked on commissions and taught others; his periods in Rome, Padua, and Siena introduced to other parts of Italy his techniques, developed in the course of a long and productive career. Financed by Cosimo de' Medici, Donatello's David was the first freestanding nude male sculpture since antiquity.

Expulsion from the Garden of Eden

Expulsion from the Garden of Eden

The Expulsion from the Garden of Eden is a fresco by the Italian Early Renaissance artist Masaccio. The fresco is a single scene from the cycle painted around 1425 by Masaccio, Masolino and others on the walls of the Brancacci Chapel in the church of Santa Maria del Carmine in Florence. It depicts the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the garden of Eden, from the biblical Book of Genesis chapter 3, albeit with a few differences from the canonical account.

Ecce Homo (Bosch, 1470s)

Ecce Homo (Bosch, 1470s)

Ecce Homo is a painting of the episode in the Passion of Jesus by the Early Netherlandish painter Hieronymus Bosch, painted between 1475 – 1485. The original version, with a provenance in collections in Ghent, is in the Städel Museum in Frankfurt; a copy is held the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. The painting takes its title from the Latin words Ecce Homo, "Behold the Man" spoken by the Roman Prefect Pontius Pilate when Jesus is paraded before a baying, angry mob in Jerusalem before he is sentenced to be crucified.

David (Michelangelo)

David (Michelangelo)

David is a masterpiece of Renaissance sculpture, created in marble between 1501 and 1504 by the Italian artist Michelangelo. David is a 5.17-metre marble statue of the Biblical figure David, a favoured subject in the art of Florence.

Cimabue

Cimabue

Cimabue, also known as Cenni di Pepo or Cenni di Pepi, was an Italian painter and designer of mosaics from Florence.

Andrea Pisano

Andrea Pisano

Andrea Pisano also known as Andrea da Pontedera, was an Italian sculptor and architect.

Filippo Lippi

Filippo Lippi

Filippo Lippi, also known as Lippo Lippi, was an Italian painter of the Quattrocento and a Carmelite Priest.

Bargello

Bargello

The Bargello, also known as the Palazzo del Bargello, Museo Nazionale del Bargello, or Palazzo del Popolo, was a former barracks and prison, now an art museum, in Florence, Italy.

Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore

Palazzo Vecchio

1835 City Map of Florence, still largely in the confines of its medieval city centre

Ponte Vecchio, which spans the Arno river

Florence is known as the "cradle of the Renaissance" (la culla del Rinascimento) for its monuments, churches, and buildings. The best-known site of Florence is the domed cathedral of the city, Santa Maria del Fiore, known as The Duomo, whose dome was built by Filippo Brunelleschi. The nearby Campanile (partly designed by Giotto) and the Baptistery buildings are also highlights. The dome, 600 years after its completion, is still the largest dome built in brick and mortar in the world.^[101] In 1982, the historic centre of Florence (Italian: centro storico di Firenze) was declared a World Heritage Site by the UNESCO.^[102] The centre of the city is contained in medieval walls that were built in the 14th century to defend the city. At the heart of the city, in Piazza della Signoria, is Bartolomeo Ammannati's Fountain of Neptune (1563–1565), which is a masterpiece of marble sculpture at the terminus of a still functioning Roman aqueduct.

The layout and structure of Florence in many ways harkens back to the Roman era, where it was designed as a garrison settlement.^[11] Nevertheless, the majority of the city was built during the Renaissance.^[11] Despite the strong presence of Renaissance architecture within the city, traces of medieval, Baroque, Neoclassical and modern architecture can be found. The Palazzo Vecchio as well as the Duomo, or the city's Cathedral, are the two buildings which dominate Florence's skyline.^[11]

The river Arno, which cuts through the old part of the city, is as much a character in Florentine history as many of the people who lived there. Historically, the locals have had a love-hate relationship with the Arno – which alternated between nourishing the city with commerce, and destroying it by flood.

Florence at night from Piazzale Michelangelo

Palazzo Pitti

One of the bridges in particular stands out – 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 carries Vasari's elevated corridor linking the Uffizi to the Medici residence (Palazzo Pitti). Although the original bridge was constructed by the Etruscans, the current bridge was rebuilt in the 14th century. It is the only bridge in the city to have survived World War II intact. It is the first example in the western world of a bridge built using segmental arches, that is, arches less than a semicircle, to reduce both span-to-rise ratio and the numbers of pillars to allow lesser encumbrance in the riverbed (being in this much more successful than the Roman Alconétar Bridge).

Ponte Santa Trinita with the Oltrarno district

The city of Florence as seen from the hill of Fiesole

The church of 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 museums in the world – founded on a large bequest from the last member of the Medici family.

Florence Duomo as seen from Michelangelo hill

The Uffizi is located at the corner of Piazza della Signoria, a site important for being the centre of Florence's civil life and government for centuries. The Palazzo della Signoria facing it is still home of the municipal government. Many significant episodes in the history of art and political changes were staged here, such as:

• In 1301, Dante Alighieri was sent into exile from here (commemorated by a plaque on one of the walls of the Uffizi).
• On 26 April 1478, Jacopo de' Pazzi and his retainers tried to raise the city against the Medici after the plot known as La congiura dei Pazzi (The Pazzi conspiracy), murdering Giuliano di Piero de' Medici and wounding his brother Lorenzo. All the members of the plot who could be apprehended were seized by the Florentines and hanged from the windows of the palace.
• In 1497, it was the location of the Bonfire of the Vanities instigated by the Dominican friar and preacher Girolamo Savonarola
• On 23 May 1498, the same Savonarola and two followers were hanged and burnt at the stake. (A round plate in the ground marks the spot where he was hanged)
• In 1504, Michelangelo's David (now replaced by a replica, since the original was moved in 1873 to the Galleria dell'Accademia) was installed in front of the Palazzo della Signoria (also known as Palazzo Vecchio).

The Loggia dei Lanzi in Piazza della Signoria is the location of a number of statues by other sculptors such as Donatello, Giambologna, Ammannati and Cellini, although some have been replaced with copies to preserve the originals.

Monuments, museums and religious buildings

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Baptistry, cathedral and campanile

Piazzale degli Uffizi

Florence contains several palaces and buildings from various eras. The Palazzo Vecchio is the town hall of Florence and also an art museum. This large Romanesque crenellated fortress-palace overlooks the Piazza della Signoria with its copy of Michelangelo's David statue as well as the gallery of statues in the adjacent Loggia dei Lanzi. Originally called the Palazzo della Signoria, after the Signoria of Florence, the ruling body of the Republic of Florence, it was also given several other names: Palazzo del Popolo, Palazzo dei Priori, and Palazzo Ducale, in accordance with the varying use of the palace during its long history. The building acquired its current name when the Medici duke's residence was moved across the Arno to the Palazzo Pitti. It is linked to the Uffizi and the Palazzo Pitti through the Corridoio Vasariano.

Palazzo Medici Riccardi, designed by Michelozzo di Bartolomeo for Cosimo il Vecchio, of the Medici family, is another major edifice, and was built between 1445 and 1460. It was well known for its stone masonry that includes rustication and ashlar. Today it is the head office of the Metropolitan City of Florence and hosts museums and the Riccardiana Library. The Palazzo Strozzi, an example of civil architecture with its rusticated stone, was inspired by the Palazzo Medici, but with more harmonious proportions. Today the palace is used for international expositions like the annual antique show (founded as the Biennale dell'Antiquariato in 1959), fashion shows and other cultural and artistic events. Here also is the seat of the Istituto Nazionale del Rinascimento and the noted Gabinetto Vieusseux, with the library and reading room.
There are several other notable places, including the Palazzo Rucellai, designed by Leon Battista Alberti between 1446 and 1451 and executed, at least in part, by Bernardo Rossellino; the Palazzo Davanzati, which houses the museum of the Old Florentine House; the Palazzo delle Assicurazioni Generali, designed in the Neo-Renaissance style in 1871; the Palazzo Spini Feroni, in Piazza Santa Trinita, a historic 13th-century private palace, owned since the 1920s by shoe-designer Salvatore Ferragamo; as well as various others, including the Palazzo Borghese, the Palazzo di Bianca Cappello, the Palazzo Antinori, and the Royal building of Santa Maria Novella.^[103]

Palazzo Pitti on Boboli Gardens' side

Florence contains numerous museums and art galleries where some of the world's most important works of art are held. The city is one of the best preserved Renaissance centres of art and architecture in the world and has a high concentration of art, architecture and culture.^[104] In the ranking list of the 15 most visited Italian art museums, ⅔ are represented by Florentine museums.^[105] The Uffizi is one of these, having a very large collection of international and Florentine art. The gallery is articulated in many halls, catalogued by schools and chronological order. Engendered by the Medici family's artistic collections through the centuries, it houses works of art by various painters and artists. The Vasari Corridor is another gallery, built connecting the Palazzo Vecchio with the Pitti Palace passing by the Uffizi and over the Ponte Vecchio. The Galleria dell'Accademia houses a Michelangelo collection, including the David. It has a collection of Russian icons and works by various artists and painters. Other museums and galleries include the Bargello, which concentrates on sculpture works by artists including Donatello, Giambologna and Michelangelo; the Palazzo Pitti, containing part of the Medici family's former private collection. In addition to the Medici collection, the palace's galleries contain many Renaissance works, including several by Raphael and Titian, large collections of costumes, ceremonial carriages, silver, porcelain and a gallery of modern art dating from the 18th century. Adjoining the palace are the Boboli Gardens, elaborately landscaped and with numerous sculptures.

The façade of the Cathedral

There are several different churches and religious buildings in Florence. The cathedral is Santa Maria del Fiore. The San Giovanni Baptistery located in front of the cathedral, is decorated by numerous artists, notably by Lorenzo Ghiberti with the Gates of Paradise. Other churches in Florence include the Basilica of Santa Maria Novella, located in Santa Maria Novella square (near the Firenze Santa Maria Novella railway station) which contains works by Masaccio, Paolo Uccello, Filippino Lippi and Domenico Ghirlandaio; the Basilica of Santa Croce, the principal Franciscan church in the city, which is situated on the Piazza di Santa Croce, about 800 metres (2,600 feet) southeast of the Duomo, and is the burial place of some of the most illustrious Italians, such as Michelangelo, Galileo, Machiavelli, Foscolo, Rossini, thus it is known also as the Temple of the Italian Glories (Tempio dell'Itale Glorie); the Basilica of San Lorenzo, which is one of the largest churches in the city, situated at the centre of Florence's main market district, and the burial place of all the principal members of the Medici family from Cosimo il Vecchio to Cosimo III; Santo Spirito, in the Oltrarno quarter, facing the square with the same name; Orsanmichele, whose building was constructed on the site of the kitchen garden of the monastery of San Michele, now demolished; Santissima Annunziata, a Roman Catholic basilica and the mother church of the Servite order; Ognissanti, which was founded by the lay order of the Umiliati, and is among the first examples of Baroque architecture built in the city; the Santa Maria del Carmine, in the Oltrarno district of Florence, which is the location of the Brancacci Chapel, housing outstanding Renaissance frescoes by Masaccio and Masolino da Panicale, later finished by Filippino Lippi; the Medici Chapel with statues by Michelangelo, in the San Lorenzo; as well as several others, including Santa Trinita, San Marco, Santa Felicita, Badia Fiorentina, San Gaetano, San Miniato al Monte, Florence Charterhouse, and Santa Maria del Carmine. The city additionally contains the Orthodox Russian church of Nativity, and the Great Synagogue of Florence, built in the 19th century.

Florence contains various theatres and cinemas. The Odeon Cinema of the Palazzo dello Strozzino is one of the oldest cinemas in the city. Established from 1920 to 1922^[106] in a wing of the Palazzo dello Strozzino, it used to be called the Cinema Teatro Savoia (Savoy Cinema-Theatre), yet was later called Odeon. The Teatro della Pergola, located in the centre of the city on the eponymous street, is an opera house built in the 17th century. Another theatre is the Teatro Comunale (or Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino), originally built as the open-air amphitheatre, the Politeama Fiorentino Vittorio Emanuele, which was inaugurated on 17 May 1862 with a production of Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor and which seated 6,000 people. There are several other theatres, such as the Saloncino Castinelli, the Teatro Puccini, the Teatro Verdi, the Teatro Goldoni and the Teatro Niccolini.

Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore

Florence Cathedral, formally the Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore, is the cathedral of Florence, Italy. It was begun in 1296 in the Gothic style to a design of Arnolfo di Cambio and was structurally completed by 1436, with the dome designed by Filippo Brunelleschi.

Squares, streets and parks

Piazza della Repubblica

Panorama composite, overview of Firenze, taken from the Giardino Bardini viewpoint

Aside from such monuments, Florence contains numerous major squares (piazze) and streets. The Piazza della Repubblica is a square in the city centre, location of the cultural cafés and bourgeois palaces. Among the square's cafés (like Caffè Gilli, Paszkowski or the Hard Rock Cafè), the Giubbe Rosse café has long been a meeting place for artists and writers, notably those of Futurism. The Piazza Santa Croce is another; dominated by the Basilica of Santa Croce, it is a rectangular square in the centre of the city where the Calcio Fiorentino is played every year. Furthermore, there is the Piazza Santa Trinita, a square near the Arno that mark the end of the Via de' Tornabuoni street.

Replica of David and other statues, Piazza della Signoria

Other squares include the Piazza San Marco, the Piazza Santa Maria Novella, the Piazza Beccaria and the Piazza della Libertà. The centre additionally contains several streets. Such include the Via Camillo Cavour, one of the main roads of the northern area of the historic centre; the Via Ghibellina, one of central Florence's longest streets; the Via dei Calzaiuoli, one of the most central streets of the historic centre which links Piazza del Duomo to Piazza della Signoria, winding parallel to via Roma and Piazza della Repubblica; the Via de' Tornabuoni, a luxurious street in the city centre that goes from Antinori square to ponte Santa Trinita, across Piazza Santa Trinita, characterised by the presence of fashion boutiques; the Viali di Circonvallazione, 6-lane boulevards surrounding the northern part of the historic centre; as well as others, such as Via Roma, Via degli Speziali, Via de' Cerretani, and the Viale dei Colli.

Florence also contains various parks and gardens. Such include the Boboli Gardens, the Parco delle Cascine, the Giardino Bardini and the Giardino dei Semplici, amongst others.

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Florence Cathedral

Florence Cathedral

Florence Cathedral, formally the Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore, is the cathedral of Florence, Italy. It was begun in 1296 in the Gothic style to a design of Arnolfo di Cambio and was structurally completed by 1436, with the dome engineered by Filippo Brunelleschi. The exterior of the basilica is faced with polychrome marble panels in various shades of green and pink, bordered by white, and has an elaborate 19th-century Gothic Revival façade by Emilio De Fabris.

Palazzo Vecchio

Palazzo Vecchio

The Palazzo Vecchio is the town hall of Florence, Italy. It overlooks the Piazza della Signoria, which holds a copy of Michelangelo's David statue, and the gallery of statues in the adjacent Loggia dei Lanzi.

Ponte Vecchio

Ponte Vecchio

The Ponte Vecchio is a medieval stone closed-spandrel segmental arch bridge over the Arno River, in Florence, Italy. The only bridge in Florence spared from destruction during the Second World War, it is noted for the shops built along it; building shops on such bridges was once a common practice. Butchers, tanners, and farmers initially occupied the shops; the present tenants are jewelers, art dealers, and souvenir sellers. The Ponte Vecchio's two neighboring bridges are the Ponte Santa Trinita and the Ponte alle Grazie.

Filippo Brunelleschi

Filippo Brunelleschi

Filippo Brunelleschi, considered to be a founding father of Renaissance architecture, was an Italian architect, designer, goldsmith and sculptor, and is now recognized to be the first modern engineer, planner, and sole construction supervisor. In 1421, Brunelleschi became the first person to receive a patent in the Western world. He is most famous for designing the dome of the Florence Cathedral, a feat of engineering that had not been accomplished since antiquity, as well as the development of the mathematical technique of linear perspective in art which governed pictorial depictions of space until the late 19th century and influenced the rise of modern science. His accomplishments also include other architectural works, sculpture, mathematics, engineering, and ship design. His principal surviving works can be found in Florence.

Giotto's Campanile

Giotto's Campanile

Giotto's Campanile is a free-standing campanile that is part of the complex of buildings that make up Florence Cathedral on the Piazza del Duomo in Florence, Italy.

Historic Centre of Florence

Historic Centre of Florence

The historic centre of Florence is part of quartiere 1 of the Italian city of Florence. This quarter was named a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1982.

Defensive wall

Defensive wall

A defensive wall is a fortification usually used to protect a city, town or other settlement from potential aggressors. The walls can range from simple palisades or earthworks to extensive military fortifications with towers, bastions and gates for access to the city. From ancient to modern times, they were used to enclose settlements. Generally, these are referred to as city walls or town walls, although there were also walls, such as the Great Wall of China, Walls of Benin, Hadrian's Wall, Anastasian Wall, and the Atlantic Wall, which extended far beyond the borders of a city and were used to enclose regions or mark territorial boundaries. In mountainous terrain, defensive walls such as letzis were used in combination with castles to seal valleys from potential attack. Beyond their defensive utility, many walls also had important symbolic functions – representing the status and independence of the communities they embraced.

Piazza della Signoria

Piazza della Signoria

Piazza della Signoria is a w-shaped square in front of the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, Italy. It was named after the Palazzo della Signoria, also called Palazzo Vecchio. It is the main point of the origin and history of the Florentine Republic and still maintains its reputation as the political focus of the city. It is the meeting place of Florentines as well as the numerous tourists, located near Palazzo Vecchio and Piazza del Duomo and gateway to Uffizi Gallery.

Bartolomeo Ammannati

Bartolomeo Ammannati

Bartolomeo Ammannati was an Italian architect and sculptor, born at Settignano, near Florence. He studied under Baccio Bandinelli and Jacopo Sansovino and closely imitated the style of Michelangelo.

Fountain of Neptune, Florence

Fountain of Neptune, Florence

The Fountain of Neptune in Florence, Italy, is situated in the Piazza della Signoria, in front of the Palazzo Vecchio. The fountain was commissioned by Cosimo I de' Medici in 1559 to celebrate the marriage of Francesco de' Medici I to Grand Duchess Joanna of Austria. Cosimo I de' Medici was the Duke of Florence from 1537-1569 and responsible for a vast number of architectural and artistic elements in Florence that still exist today.

Marble sculpture

Marble sculpture

Marble has been the preferred material for stone monumental sculpture since ancient times, with several advantages over its more common geological "parent" limestone, in particular the ability to absorb light a small distance into the surface before refracting it in subsurface scattering. This gives an attractive soft appearance that is especially good for representing human skin, which can also be polished.

Garrison

Garrison

A garrison is any body of troops stationed in a particular location, originally to guard it. The term now often applies to certain facilities that constitute a military base or fortified military headquarters. A garrison is usually in a city, town, fort, castle, ship, or similar site. "Garrison town" is a common expression for any town that has a military base nearby.

Stadio Artemio Franchi

In association football Florence is represented by ACF Fiorentina, which plays in Serie A, the top league of Italian league system. ACF Fiorentina has won two Italian Championships, in 1956 and 1969, and 6 Italian cups,^[107] since their formation in 1926. They play their games at the Stadio Artemio Franchi, which holds 47,282. The female squad of ACF Fiorentina have won the women's association football Italian Championship of the 2016–17 season.

The city is home of the Centro Tecnico Federale di Coverciano, in Coverciano, Florence, the main training ground of the Italian national team, and the technical department of the Italian Football Federation.

Florence was one of the host cities for cycling's 2013 UCI Road World Championships.^[108][109] The city has also hosted stages of the Giro d'Italia, most recently in 2017.

Since 2017 Florence is also represented in Eccellenza, the top tier of rugby union league system in Italy, by I Medicei, which is a club established in 2015 by the merging of the senior squads of I Cavalieri (of Prato) and Firenze Rugby 1931. I Medicei won the Serie A Championship in 2016–17 and were promoted to Eccellenza for the 2017–18 season.

Rari Nantes Florentia is a successful water polo club based in Florence; both its male and female squads have won several Italian championships and the female squad has also European titles in their palmarès.

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Association football

Association football

Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel a ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is to score more goals than the opposite team by moving the ball beyond the goal line into a rectangular-framed goal defended by the opposing side. Traditionally, the game has been played over two 45-minute halves, for a total match time of 90 minutes. With an estimated 250 million players active in over 200 countries and territories, it is considered the world's most popular sport.

ACF Fiorentina

ACF Fiorentina

ACF Fiorentina, commonly referred to as Fiorentina, is an Italian professional football club based in Florence, Tuscany, Italy. The original team was founded by a merger in August 1926, while the actual club was refounded in August 2002 following bankruptcy. Fiorentina have played at the top level of Italian football for the majority of their existence; only four clubs have played in more Serie A seasons.

Football in Italy

Football in Italy

Football is the most popular sport in Italy. The Italy national football team is considered to be one of the best national teams in the world. They have won the FIFA World Cup four times, trailing only Brazil, runners-up in two finals and reaching a third place (1990) and a fourth place (1978). They have also won two European Championships, also appearing in two finals, finished third at the Confederations Cup (2013), won one Olympic football tournament (1936) and two Central European International Cups.

Centro Tecnico Federale di Coverciano

Centro Tecnico Federale di Coverciano

Il Centro Tecnico Federale di Coverciano, is the central training ground and technical headquarters of the Italian Football Federation, located in the Coverciano quartiere of Florence, Italy.

Coverciano, Florence

Coverciano, Florence

Coverciano is a city quartiere in the southeastern part of Florence, Italy.

Italy national football team

Italy national football team

The Italy national football team has represented Italy in international football since its first match in 1910. The national team is controlled by the Italian Football Federation (FIGC), the governing body for football in Italy, which is a co-founder and member of UEFA. Italy's home matches are played at various stadiums throughout Italy, and its primary training ground and technical headquarters, Centro Tecnico Federale di Coverciano, is located in Florence. Italy are the reigning European champions, having won UEFA Euro 2020.

Italian Football Federation

Italian Football Federation

The Italian Football Federation, known colloquially as Federcalcio, is the governing body of football in Italy. It is based in Rome and the technical department is in Coverciano, Florence.

2013 UCI Road World Championships

2013 UCI Road World Championships

The 2013 UCI Road World Championships took place in Tuscany, Italy, between 22 and 29 September 2013.

Giro d'Italia

Giro d'Italia

The Giro d'Italia is an annual multiple-stage bicycle race primarily held in Italy, while also starting in, or passing through, other countries. The first race was organized in 1909 to increase sales of the newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport, and the race is still run by a subsidiary of that paper's owner. The race has been held annually since its first edition in 1909, except during the two world wars. As the Giro gained prominence and popularity the race was lengthened, and the peloton expanded from primarily Italian participation to riders from all over the world. The Giro is a UCI World Tour event, which means that the teams that compete in the race are mostly UCI WorldTeams, with some additional teams invited as 'wild cards'.

Rugby union

Rugby union

Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. Rugby is simply based on running with the ball in hand. In its most common form, a game is played between two teams of 15 players each, using an oval-shaped ball on a rectangular field called a pitch. The field has H-shaped goalposts at both ends.

Prato

Prato

Prato is a city and comune in Tuscany, Italy, the capital of the Province of Prato. The city lies north east of Tuscany, in the Florentine plain, at an elevation of 65 metres (213 ft), at the foot of Monte Retaia. With 195,213 inhabitants as of 1 January 2023, Prato is Tuscany's second largest city and the third largest in Central Italy.

RN Florentia

RN Florentia

Rari Nantes Florentia is an Italian water polo club from Florence. From the 2011-2012 season the men's team plays in the Serie A1, the top division of the Italian league.

Cars

The centre of Florence is closed to through-traffic, although buses, taxis and residents with appropriate permits are allowed in. This area is commonly referred to as the ZTL (Zona Traffico Limitato), which is divided into several subsections.^[110] 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 7.30 pm, or before 7.30 am. The rules shift during the tourist-filled summers, putting more restrictions on where one can get in and out.^[111]

Buses

ATAF&Li-nea was the bus company who run the principal public transit network in the city; it was one the companies of the consortium ONE Scarl^[112] to accomplish the contract stipulated with the Regione Toscana for the public transport in the 2018-2019 period. Individual tickets, or a pass called Carta Agile with multiple rides, are purchased in advance and must be validated once on board. These tickets may be used on ATAF&Li-nea buses, Tramvia and second-class local trains only within city railway stations. The bus fleet consisted of 446 urban, 5 suburban, 20 intercity and 15 tourism buses.

Intercity bus transit is run by the SITA, COPIT, and CAP Autolinee companies. The transit companies also accommodate travellers from the Amerigo Vespucci Airport, which is 5 km (3 mi) west of the city centre, and which has scheduled services run by major European carriers.

Since 1 November 2021 the public local transport is operated by Autolinee Toscane.^[113]

Trams

Tramway Sirio in Florence

Route map of the tramway

In an effort to reduce air pollution and car traffic in the city, a multi-line tram network called Tramvia is under construction. The first line began operation on 14 February 2010 and connects Florence's primary intercity railway station (Santa Maria Novella) with the southwestern suburb of Scandicci. This line is 7.4 km (4+5⁄8 mi) long and has 14 stops. The construction of a second line began on 5 November 2011, construction was stopped due to contractors' difficulties and restarted in 2014 with the new line opening on 11 February 2019. This second line connects Florence's airport with the city centre. A third line (from Santa Maria Novella to the Careggi area, where the most important hospitals of Florence are located) is also under construction.^{[114][115][116]}

Florence public transport statistics

The average amount of time people spend commuting with public transit in Firenze, for example to and from work, on a weekday is 59 min. 13% of public transit riders ride for more than 2 hours every day. The average amount of time people wait at a stop or station for public transit is 14 min, while 22% of riders wait for over 20 minutes on average every day. The average distance people usually ride in a single trip with public transit is 4.1 km, while 3% travel for over 12 km in a single direction.^[117]

Airport

Florence Airport

The Florence Airport, Peretola, is one of two main airports in the Tuscany region though it is not widely used by popular airlines. The other airport in the Tuscany region is the Galileo Galilei International Airport in Pisa.

Mobike (bike-sharing)

Mobikes at Parco delle Cascine, Florence

Mobike, a Chinese dockless bike sharing company, has been operating in Florence since July 2017. As of 2019, the company operates 4,000 bikes in Florence. The users scan the QR code on the bike using the Mobike app, and end the ride by parking curbside. The bikes have a fixed rate of €1 every 20 minutes. Since Mobike is a dock-less bike-sharing system, it does not provide stations, therefore the bikes can be left almost anywhere.

Railway station

Firenze Santa Maria Novella railway station is the main national and international railway station in Florence and is used by 59 million people every year.^[118] The building, designed by Giovanni Michelucci, was built in the Italian Rationalism style and it is one of the major rationalist buildings in Italy. It is located in Piazza della Stazione, near the Fortezza da Basso, a masterpiece of the military Renaissance architecture, and the Viali di Circonvallazione, and in front of the Basilica of Santa Maria Novella's apse from which it takes its name. As well as numerous high speed trains to major Italian cities Florence is served by international overnight sleeper services to Munich and Vienna operated by Austrian railways ÖBB.

Train tickets must be validated before boarding. The main bus station is next to Santa Maria Novella railway station. Trenitalia runs trains between the railway stations within the city, and to other destinations around Italy and Europe. The central railway station, Santa Maria Novella, is about 500 m (1,600 ft) northwest of the Piazza del Duomo. There are two other important stations: Campo di Marte and Rifredi. Most bundled routes are Firenze–Pisa, Firenze–Viareggio and Firenze–Arezzo (along the main line to Rome). Other local railways connect Florence with Borgo San Lorenzo in the Mugello area (Faentina railway) and Siena.

A new high-speed rail station is under construction and is contracted to be operational by 2015.^[119] It is planned to be connected to Vespucci airport, Santa Maria Novella railway station, and to the city centre by the second line of Tramvia.^[120] The architectural firms Foster + Partners and Lancietti Passaleva Giordo and Associates designed this new rail station.^[121]

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Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane

Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane

Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane S.p.A., previously only Ferrovie dello Stato S.p.A., in acronym FS, is Italy's national state-owned railway holding company that manages transport, infrastructure, real estate services and other services in Italy and other European countries.

Autolinee Toscane

Autolinee Toscane

Autolinee Toscane S.p.A. is a private Italian company, wholly owned by RATP Dev, active in the local public transport sector. It manages several urban and suburban bus lines in Tuscany for a total of 1.7 million kilometres travelled annually.

List of town tramway systems in Italy

List of town tramway systems in Italy

This is a list of town tramway systems in Italy by region. It includes all tram systems in Italy, past and present; cities with current operating systems, and those systems themselves, are indicated in bold and blue background colored rows. The use of the diamond (♦) symbol indicates where there were two or more independent tram systems operating concurrently within a single metropolitan area. Those tram systems that operated on other than standard gauge track are indicated in the 'Notes' column.

Trams in Florence

Trams in Florence

The Florence tramway network is an important part of the public transport network of Florence, Italy. It consists of two operational light rail lines.

Firenze Santa Maria Novella railway station

Firenze Santa Maria Novella railway station

Firenze Santa Maria Novella or Stazione di Santa Maria Novella is the main railway station in Florence, Italy. The station is used by 59 million people every year and is one of the busiest in Italy.

Scandicci

Scandicci

Scandicci is a comune (municipality) of c. 50,000 inhabitants in the Metropolitan City of Florence in the Italian region Tuscany, located about 6 kilometres southwest of Florence.

Florence Airport

Florence Airport

Florence Airport, Peretola, Italian: Aeroporto di Firenze-Peretola and formally Amerigo Vespucci Airport, is the international airport of Florence, the capital of the Italian region of Tuscany. It is the second-busiest Tuscan airport in terms of passengers after Pisa International Airport.

Mobike

Mobike

Mobike, also known as Meituanbike, founded by Beijing Mobike Technology Co., Ltd., is a fully station-less bicycle-sharing system headquartered in Beijing, China. It is, by the number of bicycles, the world's largest shared bicycle operator, making Shanghai the world's largest bike-share city in December 2016. In April 2018, it was acquired by a Chinese web company Meituan-Dianping for US$2.7 billion.

QR code

QR code

A QR code is a type of matrix barcode invented in 1994 by Japanese company Denso Wave. A barcode is a machine-readable optical label that can contain information about the item to which it is attached. In practice, QR codes often contain data for a locator, identifier, or tracker that points to a website or application. QR codes use four standardized encoding modes to store data efficiently; extensions may also be used.

Rectorate's auditorium of University of Florence

The University of Florence was first founded in 1321, and was recognized by Pope Clement VI in 1349. In 2019, over 50,000 students were enrolled at the university. The European University Institute has been based in the suburb of Fiesole since 1976. Several American universities host a campus in Florence. Including New York University, Marist College, Pepperdine, Stanford, Florida State and James Madison.The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies is based in Villa I Tatti. The center for arts and humanities advanced research has been located on the border of Florence, Fiesole and Settignano since 1961. Over 8,000 American students are enrolled for study in Florence, although mostly while studying in US based degree programmes.^[122]

The private school, Centro Machiavelli which teaches Italian language and culture to foreigners, is located in Piazza Santo Spirito in Florence.

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University of Florence

University of Florence

The University of Florence is an Italian public research university located in Florence, Italy. It comprises 12 schools and has around 50,000 students enrolled.

Pope Clement VI

Pope Clement VI

Pope Clement VI, born Pierre Roger, was head of the Catholic Church from 7 May 1342 to his death in December 1352. He was the fourth Avignon pope. Clement reigned during the first visitation of the Black Death (1348–1350), during which he granted remission of sins to all who died of the plague.

European University Institute

European University Institute

The European University Institute (EUI) is an international postgraduate and post-doctoral teaching and research institute and an independent body of the European Union with juridical personality, established by the member states to contribute to cultural and scientific development in the social sciences, in a European perspective. EUI is designated as an international organisation. It is located in the hills above Florence in Fiesole, Italy. In 2021, EUI's School of Transnational Governance, with its flagship graduate and executive programmes, moved to the Casino Mediceo di San Marco, which is a late-Renaissance or Mannerist style palace in the historic centre of Florence.

Fiesole

Fiesole

Fiesole is a town and comune of the Metropolitan City of Florence in the Italian region of Tuscany, on a scenic height above Florence, 5 km northeast of that city. It has structures dating to Etruscan and Roman times.

New York University

New York University

New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin.

Marist College

Marist College

Marist College is a private university in Poughkeepsie, New York. Founded in 1905, Marist was formed by the Marist Brothers, a Catholic religious institute, to prepare brothers for their vocations as educators. In 2003, it became a secular institution.

Pepperdine University

Pepperdine University

Pepperdine University is a private research university affiliated with the Churches of Christ with its main campus in Los Angeles County, California. Pepperdine's main campus consists of 830 acres overlooking the Pacific Ocean and the Pacific Coast Highway near Malibu, California. Founded by entrepreneur George Pepperdine in South Los Angeles in 1937, the school expanded to Malibu in 1972. Courses are now taught at a main Malibu campus, three graduate campuses in Southern California, a center in Washington, DC, and international campuses in Buenos Aires, Argentina; London, United Kingdom; Heidelberg, Germany; Florence, Italy; and Lausanne, Switzerland.

Stanford University

Stanford University

Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies 8,180 acres, among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students.

Florida State University

Florida State University

Florida State University (FSU) is a public research university in Tallahassee, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida. Founded in 1851, it is located on the oldest continuous site of higher education in the state of Florida.

James Madison University

James Madison University

James Madison University is a public research university in Harrisonburg, Virginia. Founded in 1908 as the State Normal and Industrial School for Women at Harrisonburg, the institution was renamed Madison College in 1938 in honor of President James Madison and then James Madison University in 1977. It is situated in the Shenandoah Valley, just west of Massanutten Mountain.

Harvard University

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and is widely considered to be one of the most prestigious universities in the world.

Villa I Tatti

Villa I Tatti

Villa I Tatti, The Harvard Center for Italian Renaissance Studies is a center for advanced research in the humanities located in Florence, Italy, and belongs to Harvard University. It houses a collection of Italian primitives, and of Chinese and Islamic art, as well as a research library of 140,000 volumes and a collection of 250,000 photographs. It is the site of Italian and English gardens. Villa I Tatti is located on an estate of olive groves, vineyards, and gardens on the border of Florence, Fiesole and Settignano.

Dante Alighieri

Lorenzo de' Medici

Amerigo Vespucci

Niccolò Machiavelli

• Antonia of Florence, saint
• Agnes of Montepulciano, saint
• Harold Acton, author and aesthete
• John Argyropoulos, scholar
• Leone Battista Alberti, polymath
• Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), poet
• Giovanni Boccaccio, poet
• Cesare Bomboni, architect
• Baldassarre Bonaiuti (1336-1385), 14th-century chronicler
• Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510), painter
• Egisto Bracci (1830–1909), architect
• Aureliano Brandolini, agronomist and development cooperation scholar
• Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 19th-century English poets
• Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446), architect
• Michelangelo Buonarroti, sculptor, painter, author of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and David
• Francesco Casagrande, cyclist
• Roberto Cavalli, fashion designer
• Carlo Collodi, writer
• Enrico Coveri, fashion designer
• Donatello, sculptor
• Oriana Fallaci, journalist and author
• Salvatore Ferragamo, fashion designer and shoemaker
• Mike Francis (born Francesco Puccioni), singer and composer
• Silpa Bhirasri (born Corrado Feroci), sculptor, credited as the principal figure of modern art in Thailand.^[123]
• Frescobaldi family, notable bankers and wine producers
• Galileo Galilei, Italian physicist, astronomer, and philosopher
• Giotto (1267-1337), early 14th-century painter, sculptor and architect
• Lorenzo Ghiberti (1378-1455), sculptor
• Guccio Gucci (1881-1953), founder of the Gucci label
• Pauline von Hügel (1858-1901), baroness, writer, philanthropist
• Bruno Innocenti (1906–1986), sculptor
• Robert Lowell, poet
• Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527), poet, philosopher and political thinker, author of The Prince and The Discourses
• Masaccio, painter
• Rose McGowan, Florence-born actress
• Medici family
• Girolamo Mei, historian and humanist
• Antonio Meucci (1808-1889), inventor of the telephone
• Pirrho Musefili, Florentine cryptographer and cryptanalyst
• Florence Nightingale, pioneer of modern nursing, and statistician
• Virginia Oldoini (1837-1899), Countess of Castiglione, early photographic artist, secret agent and courtesan
• Valerio Profondavalle, Flemish painter
• Giulio Racah (1909–1965), Italian-Israeli mathematician and physicist; Acting President of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
• Raphael, painter
• Anna Sarfatti (born 1950), children's author
• Girolamo Savonarola, reformist
• Adriana Seroni, politician
• Giovanni Spadolini (1925-1994), politician
• Antonio Squarcialupi (1416-1480), organist and composer
• Andrei Tarkovsky, film director. Lived in the city during his exile.^[4]
• Evangelista Torricelli, Italian physicist
• Anna Tonelli (c.1763–1846), Florence born portrait painter in the late 17th century and early 18th century.^[124]
• Giorgio Vasari, painter, architect, and historian
• Amerigo Vespucci (1451-1512), explorer and cartographer, namesake of the Americas
• Coriolano Vighi, (1846-1905), landscape painter
• Leonardo da Vinci, polymath
• Lisa del Giocondo, model of the Mona Lisa
• Giorgio Antonucci, physician, psychoanalyst and an international reference on the questioning of the basis of psychiatry

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Dante Alighieri

Dante Alighieri

Dante Alighieri, probably baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri and often referred to as Dante, was an Italian poet, writer and philosopher. His Divine Comedy, originally called Comedìa and later christened Divina by Giovanni Boccaccio, is widely considered one of the most important poems of the Middle Ages and the greatest literary work in the Italian language.

Amerigo Vespucci

Amerigo Vespucci

Amerigo Vespucci was an Italian merchant, explorer, and navigator from the Republic of Florence, from whose name the term "America" is derived.

Antonia of Florence

Antonia of Florence

Antonia of Florence is an Italian blessed. She was abbess of the monastery of Corpus Christi in L'Aquila.

Agnes of Montepulciano

Agnes of Montepulciano

Agnes of Montepulciano was a Dominican prioress in medieval Tuscany, who was known as a miracle worker during her lifetime. She is honored as a saint by the Catholic Church.

Harold Acton

Harold Acton

Sir Harold Mario Mitchell Acton was a British writer, scholar, and aesthete who was a prominent member of the Bright Young Things. He wrote fiction, biography, history and autobiography. During his stay in China, he studied the Chinese language, traditional drama, and poetry, some of which he translated.

Giovanni Boccaccio

Giovanni Boccaccio

Giovanni Boccaccio was an Italian writer, poet, correspondent of Petrarch, and an important Renaissance humanist. Born in the town of Certaldo, he became so well known as a writer that he was sometimes simply known as "the Certaldese" and one of the most important figures in the European literary panorama of the fourteenth century. Some scholars define him as the greatest European prose writer of his time, a versatile writer who amalgamated different literary trends and genres, making them converge in original works, thanks to a creative activity exercised under the banner of experimentalism.

Cesare Bomboni

Cesare Bomboni

Cesare Bomboni was an Italian architect.

Baldassarre Bonaiuti

Baldassarre Bonaiuti

Baldassarre Bonaiuti, also known as Marchionne di Coppo Stefani, was a chronicler (historian), statesman, politician, businessman and diplomat from Florence, Italy.

Egisto Bracci

Egisto Bracci

Egisto Bracci was an Italian architect, active mainly in Florence, who became resident professor of architecture at the Academy of Fine Arts of Florence in 1879.

Aureliano Brandolini

Aureliano Brandolini

Aureliano Brandolini was an Italian agronomist and development cooperation scholar.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Elizabeth Barrett Browning was an English poet of the Victorian era, popular in Britain and the United States during her lifetime.

Filippo Brunelleschi

Filippo Brunelleschi

Filippo Brunelleschi, considered to be a founding father of Renaissance architecture, was an Italian architect, designer, goldsmith and sculptor, and is now recognized to be the first modern engineer, planner, and sole construction supervisor. In 1421, Brunelleschi became the first person to receive a patent in the Western world. He is most famous for designing the dome of the Florence Cathedral, a feat of engineering that had not been accomplished since antiquity, as well as the development of the mathematical technique of linear perspective in art which governed pictorial depictions of space until the late 19th century and influenced the rise of modern science. His accomplishments also include other architectural works, sculpture, mathematics, engineering, and ship design. His principal surviving works can be found in Florence.

Twin towns – sister cities

Florence is twinned with:^[125]

Other partnerships

Florence has friendly relations with:^[125]

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List of twin towns and sister cities in Italy

List of twin towns and sister cities in Italy

This is a list of municipalities in Italy which have standing links to local communities in other countries known as "town twinning" or "sister cities".

Bethlehem

Bethlehem

Bethlehem is a city in the West Bank, Palestine, located about 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) south of Jerusalem. It is the capital of the Bethlehem Governorate, and has a population of approximately 25,000 people. The city's economy is largely tourist-driven; international tourism peaks around and during Christmas, when Christians embark on a pilgrimage to the Church of the Nativity, revered as the location of the Nativity of Jesus. At the northern entrance of the city is Rachel's Tomb, the burial place of biblical matriarch Rachel. Movement around the city is limited due to the Israeli West Bank barrier.

Budapest

Budapest

Budapest is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population of 1,752,286 over a land area of about 525 square kilometres. Budapest, which is both a city and county, forms the centre of the Budapest metropolitan area, which has an area of 7,626 square kilometres and a population of 3,303,786; it is a primate city, constituting 33% of the population of Hungary.

Dresden

Dresden

Dresden is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth largest by area, and the third most populous city in the area of former East Germany, after Berlin and Leipzig. Dresden's urban area comprises the towns of Freital, Pirna, Radebeul, Meissen, Coswig, Radeberg and Heidenau and has around 790,000 inhabitants. The Dresden metropolitan area has approximately 1.34 million inhabitants.

Edinburgh

Edinburgh

Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 council areas. The city was historically part of the county of Midlothian, but was administered separately from the surrounding county from 1482. It is located in Lothian on the southern shore of the Firth of Forth. Edinburgh is Scotland's second-most populous city, after Glasgow, and the seventh-most populous city in the United Kingdom.

Fez, Morocco

Fez, Morocco

Fez or Fes is a city in northern inland Morocco and the capital of the Fès-Meknès administrative region. It is the second largest city in Morocco, with a population of 1.11 million according to the 2014 census. Located to the north west of the Atlas Mountains, Fez is linked to several important cities of different regions; it is 206 km (128 mi) from Tangier to the northwest, 246 km (153 mi) from Casablanca, 189 km (117 mi) from Rabat to the west, and 387 km (240 mi) from Marrakesh to the southwest. It is surrounded by hills and the old city is centered around the Fez River flowing from west to east.

Isfahan

Isfahan

Isfahan, from its ancient designation Aspadana and, later, Spahan in middle Persian, rendered in English as Ispahan, is a major city in the Central District of the Isfahan Province of Iran. It is located 440 kilometres south of Tehran and is the capital of Isfahan Province. The city has a population of approximately 2,220,000, making it the second -largest city in Iran, after Tehran and the second-largest metropolitan area.

Kassel

Kassel

Kassel is a city on the Fulda River in northern Hesse, Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Regierungsbezirk Kassel and the district of the same name and had 201,048 inhabitants in December 2020. The former capital of the state of Hesse-Kassel has many palaces and parks, including the Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Kassel is also known for the documenta exhibitions of contemporary art. Kassel has a public university with 25,000 students (2018) and a multicultural population.

Kyiv

Kyiv

Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2022, its population was 2,952,301, making Kyiv the seventh-most populous city in Europe.

Kuwait City

Kuwait City

Kuwait City is the capital and largest city of Kuwait. Located at the heart of the country on the south shore of Kuwait Bay on the Persian Gulf, it is the political, cultural and economical centre of the emirate, containing Kuwait's Seif Palace, government offices, and the headquarters of most Kuwaiti corporations and banks. It is one of the hottest cities in summer on earth, with average summer high temperatures over 45 °C (113 °F) for three months of the year.

Kyoto

Kyoto

Kyoto, officially Kyoto City , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. As of 2020, the city had a population of 1.46 million. The city is the cultural anchor of a substantially larger metropolitan area known as Greater Kyoto, a metropolitan statistical area (MSA) home to a census-estimated 3.8 million people.

Nanjing

Nanjing

Nanjing, alternately romanized as Nanking, is the capital of Jiangsu province of the People's Republic of China. It is a sub-provincial city, a megacity, and the second largest city in Eastern China. The city has 11 districts, an administrative area of 6,600 km2 (2,500 sq mi), and a total recorded population of 9,423,400 as of 2021.