History of Florence
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Prehistoric origins
For much of the Quaternary Age, the Florence-Prato-Pistoia plain was occupied by a great lake bounded by Monte Albano in the west, Monte Giovi in the north and the foothills of Chianti in the south. Even after most of the water had receded, the plain, 50 metres (160 ft) above sea level, was strewn with ponds and marshes that remained until the 18th century, when the land was reclaimed. Most of the marshland was in the region of Campi Bisenzio, Signa and Bagno a Ripoli.
It is thought that there was already a settlement at the confluence of the Mugnone River with the
Classical Florence
Some historians[
Written history of Florence traditionally begins in 59 BC, when the Romans founded the village for army veterans, and reportedly dedicated it to the god Mars. According to some stories, the city was founded for precise political and strategic reasons; in 62 BC, Fiesole (a region in Florence) was a cove for Catilines, and Caesar wanted an outpost nearby to monitor the roads and communications. It was originally named Fluentia, owing to the fact that it was built between two rivers, which was later changed to Florentia ("flowering").[1]
The Romans built ports on the Arno and the Mugnone to create advantageous transport positions; old Florence was on the Via Cassia, forming a wedge controlling the end of the Apennine valley of the Arno and the beginning of the plain that led to the sea in the direction of Pisa. In AD 123, a bridge was constructed over the Arno. Buildings began to accumulate around the Roman military camp, including an aqueduct (from Monte Morello), a forum (in today's Piazza della Repubblica), spas, the Roman Theatre of Florence, and the Roman Amphitheatre of Florence, while the surrounding land was organized by centuriation. A nearby river port allowed trade up to Pisa. The outlines of the Roman city are still recognizable in the city's plan, notably the city walls.
In AD 285, Diocletian established a commander seat in Florence who was responsible for all of Tuscia. Eastern merchants (some from the quarter of Oltrarno) brought the cult of Isis, and later Christianity.
Because Florence rapidly developed over the next several centuries and into the Middle Ages, few monuments from the Roman period remain in Florence today. Some of the remaining structures include the thermal complex discovered in the Piazza della Signoria, the amphitheater (or at least its road structure), and artifacts remaining at the Florentine National Archaeological Museum and the Museo di Firenze com'era (English: The Museum of Florence as it Was).
Early Middle Ages
The seat of a
Peace returned under Lombard rule in the 6th century. Conquered by Charlemagne in 774, Florence became part of the March of Tuscany, whose capital was Lucca. The population began to grow again and commerce prospered. In 854, Florence and Fiesole were united in one county.[3]
Middle Ages
Florence experienced a long period of civic revival beginning in the 10th century and was governed from 1115 by an autonomous
Political conflict did not, however, prevent the city's rise to become one of the most powerful and prosperous in Europe, assisted by its own strong gold currency. The "fiorino d'oro" of the
While visiting the ruins of Rome during the
Renaissance
In 1338, there were about 17,000 beggars in the city. Four thousand were on public relief. There were six primary schools with 10,000 pupils, including girls. Four high schools taught 600 students, including a few girls. They studied literature and philosophy.[6]
Of a population estimated at 80,000 before the
After Lorenzo's death in 1492, his son Piero the Unfortunate took the reins of government, however his rule was short. In 1494, King Charles VIII of France invaded Italy and entered Tuscany on his way to claim the throne of the Kingdom of Naples. After Piero made a submissive treaty with Charles, the Florentines responded by forcing him into exile, and the first period of Medici rule ended with the restoration of a republican government. Anti-Medici sentiment was much influenced by the teachings of the radical Dominican prior Girolamo Savonarola. However, in due time, Savonarola lost support and was hanged in 1498. Medici rule was not restored until 1512. The Florentines drove out the Medici for a second time and re-established the Republic on May 16, 1527.
An individual of highly unusual insight into political conditions of this time was Niccolò Machiavelli, whose prescriptions for Florence's regeneration under strong leadership have often been seen as a legitimization of political expediency and even evil. Machiavelli was tortured and exiled from Florence by the Medici family in 1513, due to accusations of conspiracy, which was exacerbated because of his ties to the previous republican government of Florence. Commissioned by the Medici, in 1520 Machiavelli wrote the Florentine Histories, a history of the city.[7]
The 10-month
During Renaissance Florence, mobs were both common and influential. Families were pitted against each other in a constant struggle for power. Politically, double-crossings and betrayals were not uncommon, sometimes even within families. Despite political violence, factionalism and corruption, Renaissance Florence did experiment with different forms of citizen government and power sharing arrangements. In order to reconcile the warring factions and families, a complex electoral system was developed as mechanism for sharing power.[9] Incumbent officers and appointees carried out a secret ballot every three or four years. They committed the names of all those elected into a series of bags, one for each sesto, or sixth, of the city. One name was drawn from each bag every two months to form the highest executive authority of the city, the Signoria. The selection scheme was controlled to ensure that no two members of the same family ended up in the same batch of six names.
This lottery arrangement organized the political structure of Florence until 1434, when the Medici family took power. To maintain control, the Medici undermined the selection process by introducing a system of elected committees they could effectively manipulate by fear and favour. Civic lotteries still took place, but actual power rested with the Medicis. In 1465, a movement to reintroduce civic lotteries was halted by an extraordinary commission packed with Medici supporters.[10]
Role in art, literature, music and science
The surge in artistic, literary, and scientific investigation that occurred in Florence in the 14th-16th centuries was facilitated by Florentines' strong economy, based on money, banking, trade, and with the display of wealth and leisure.
In parallel with leisure evolving from a strong economy, the crises of the
This renaissance thrived locally from about 1434 to 1534. It halted amid social, moral, and political upheaval. By then, the inspiration it had created had set the rest of Western Europe ablaze with new ideas.[6]
Florence benefited materially and culturally from this sea-change in social consciousness. In the arts, the creations of Florentine artists, architects, and musicians were influential in many parts of Europe. The culmination of certain speculations into the nature of ancient Greek drama by humanist scholars led to the birth of opera in the 1590s.
Modern and contemporary age
The extinction of the Medici line and the accession in 1737 of Francis Stephen, Duke of Lorraine, the husband of Maria Theresa of Austria, led to Tuscany's inclusion in the territories of the Austrian crown. Habsburg rule was to end in defeat at the hands of France and the Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont in 1859, and Tuscany became a province of the united Kingdom of Italy in 1861.
Florence replaced
20th century
In the 19th century, the population of Florence doubled to over 230,000, and in the 20th century reached over 450,000 at one point with the growth of tourism, trade, financial services and the industry. A foreign community came to represent one-quarter of the population in the second half of the 19th century and of this period and writers such as
During World War II, the city experienced a year-long German occupation (1943–1944). On September 25, 1943, Allied bombers targeted central Florence, destroying many buildings and killing 215 civilians.[12]
In late July 1944, the British 8th Army closed in as they liberated Tuscany. New Zealand troops stormed the Pian dei Cerri hills overlooking the city. After several days of fighting, German forces retreated and gave way.
During the German retreat, Florence was declared an undefended "open city", prohibiting further shelling and bombing in accordance with the Hague Convention. On 4 August, the retreating Germans decided to detonate charges along the bridges of the Arno linking the district of Oltrarno to the rest of the city, thus making it difficult for the New Zealand, South African and British troops to cross just before liberation. The German officer in charge of the demolitions, Gerhard Wolf, ordered that the Ponte Vecchio was to be spared. At 04:00 on 4 August 1944, an armored patrol of the South African Imperial Light Horse and Kimberley Regiments found the Ponte Vecchio bridge intact, crossed the bridge under heavy German shelling and subsequently became the first Allied soldiers to enter Florence.[13] Before the war, Wolf had been a student in the city, and his decision has been honored with a memorial plaque on the bridge. Instead, an equally historic area of streets directly to the south of the bridge, including part of the Corridoio Vasariano, was destroyed using mines.[14] Since then, the bridges have been restored exactly 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. The last days of battle for Florence were very intense because the Italian Fascists resistance skirmish known as Franchi Tiratori.[15] The Allied soldiers who died driving the Germans from Tuscany are buried in cemeteries outside the city, i.e. British and Commonwealth soldiers a few kilometers east of the center on the north bank of the Arno [1]), whilst Americans are about 9 kilometers (5.6 mi) south of the city [2].
On November 4, 1966, the
On May 28, 1993, a powerful car bomb
21st century
In 2002, Florence was the seat of the first
See also
References
- ^ Leonardo Bruni, History of the Florentine People I.1, 3
- ISBN 0-14-016644-0
- ^ Bleek, Ulrike. Explore the World Nelles Pocket: Florence – Fiesole, Prato, Pistoia, San Gimignano, Voltera, Siena. Munich: Gunter Nelles. p. 13.
- ^ "13th C". washington.edu.
- ^ "First impressive impressions of florence in Italy". 6 February 2006. Archived from the original on 6 February 2006. Retrieved 17 February 2018.
- ^ ISBN 978-1567310238.
- ^ Machiavelli: A Very Short Introduction By Quentin Skinner
- ^ Sir Francis Adams Hyett (1903). Florence: her history and art to the fall of the republic. Methuen. pp. 505–21.
- ^ Oliver Dowlen, Sorted: Civic Lotteries and the Future of Public Participation, (MASS LBP: Toronto, 2008) pp 36
- ^ Dowlen, Sorted
- ISBN 5-85050-825-2
- ^ "25 settembre 1943 bombardamento di Firenze - Zoomedia.it". zoomedia.it.
- ^ Dickens, Peter. "Little known WW2 fact - the South Africans liberated Florence". South African Modern Military History. The Observation Post: 1 – via Database.
- ISBN 0-520-04695-1.
- ^ Toni, De Santoli (2014). "Quando tra i fiorentini giunse l'ora di regolare i conti". La voce di New York.
- ^ Alison McLean (November 2006). "This Month in History". Smithsonian. 37 (8): 34.
- ^ Cowell, Alan (28 May 1993). "Bomb Outside Uffizi in Florence Kills 6 and Damages Many Works". The New York Times.
- ^ Filippo. "UrbanFile - Firenze | Nuovo Auditorium Nel Parco Della Musica E Della Cultura". Urbanfile.it. Archived from the original on 2011-07-18. Retrieved 2010-01-22.
Further reading
- Niccolò Machiavelli, Florentine Histories.
- Brucker, Gene A. Florence: The Golden Age 1138-1737 (1998)
- Brucker, Gene A. Renaissance Florence (2nd ed. 1983)
- Cochrane, Eric. Florence in the Forgotten Centuries, 1527-1800: A History of Florence and the Florentines in the Age of the Grand Dukes (1976)
- Crum, Roger J. and John T. Paoletti. Renaissance Florence: A Social History (2008) excerpt and text search
- Goldthwaite, Richard A. The Economy of Renaissance Florence (2009)
- ISBN 0-14-016644-0
- Holmes, George. The Florentine Enlightenment, 1400-50 (1969)
- Najemy. John M. A History of Florence 1200-1575 (2008) excerpt and text search
Primary sources
- Brucker, Gene A., ed. The Society of Renaissance Florence: A Documentary Study (1971)
Other readings
- Linda Proud's trilogy of novels beginning with A Tabernacle for the Sun gives an excellent introduction to Renaissance Florence, its culture, history and philosophy. http://www.lindaproud.com/
- Eve Borsook, Companion Guide to Florence, is a very in-depth guide to the city and the history of its districts and buildings.
- Oliver Dowlen, Sorted: Civic Lotteries and the Future of Public Participation. (MASS LBP: Toronto, 2008)