The City in Details

The city in

Details

The personal guide to Florence

EVELINA PHEMISTER PRESS SAN FRANCISCO, 2011

First Edition Design and photography

by Evelina Phemister 2011 Parrott Dr. #1 San Mateo, CA 94402 SCHOOL Academy of Art University INSTRUCTOR Lian Ng CLASS Typography 4 Copyright

2011 by Evelina Phemister Press.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in retrieval systems or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Printed and bound in USA

The city in

Details The personal guide to Florence

EVELINA PHEMISTER PRESS SAN FRANCISCO, 2011

Table of Contents

Map Of Italy / Tuscany Region / Province Of Florence / Florence City.....

Introduction...................................................

Chapter 1 10.............The History Of Florence

Florence’s Foundations..................................

The Byzantine And Lombard Period.............

The Carolingian Period...................................

Early Middle Age..............................................

The Period Of The “Communes”.......................

The Thirteenth Century..............................

Guelphs And Ghibellines..............................

From The Fourteenth Century To The Renaissance.........................................

The Renaissance..............................................

The Sixteenth Century.................................

The Decline Of The Medici...........................

The Lorraine Period......................................

Florence In The ‘900........................................

Modern Era........................................................

6 8 12 13 15 16 18 22 24 28 31 32 33 34 35 36

38...............Chapter 2 Florentine Art Treasure

Florence Main Museums.................................. 41 Number Of Museums In Great Cities Of The World.......................................... 49

50...............Chapter 3 Architecture Of Florence

Museums...............................................................

Religious Architecture..................................

Palaces.................................................................

Parks And Gardens............................................

Villas...................................................................

Squares................................................................

The List Of The Main Architectural Works In Florence Area By Period...............

53 57 64 70 73 76

Leonardo Da Vinci............................................

Michelangelo Buonaroti...............................

Filippo Brunelleschi........................................

Giovanni Boccaccio.........................................

Dante Alighieri.................................................

88 89 91 92 93

86...............Chapter 4 Great Florentines

80

Finds................................................................... 96 Index................................................................... 100

City of Florence Area 39.4 sq miles Population 366,488

Province of Florence Area 1,356.8 sq miles Population 933,860

Tuscany Region Area 8,876 sq miles Population 3,677,048

8

Map Of Italy / Tuscany Region / Province Of Florence / Florence City

Italy Area 116,346 sq miles Population 60,681,514

9

Each object and detail in Florence conceals centuries of history. Before reading academic description of it, try to talk to it and listen what this detail have to tell personally to you. These two angels told me how easy to fell in love with Florence and it is forever.

10

INTRODUCTION

Welcome! >>> Benvenuto!/ Benvenuta! (female)

Welcome to

Hi! >>> Ciao!

Florence

•F

lorence (Italian: Firenze, alternate obsolete spel li ng : Fiorenza ; Latin : Florentia) is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with 367,569 inhabitants (1,500,000 in the metropolitan area).

The city lies on the River Arno; it is known for its histor y and its importance in the Midd le Ages and in the Renaissance, especially for its art and architecture and, more genera lly, for its cultural heritage. A centre of medieval European trade and finance and one of the wealthiest cities of the time, Florence is considered the birthplace of the Renaissance; it has been called the Athens of the Middle Ages. A turbulent political history included periods of rule by the powerful Medici family, religious and republican revolution. From 1865 to 1870 the city was also the capital of the recently established Kingdom of Italy.

Florence is often known as the “Jewel of the Renaissance�.

The historic centre of Florence attracts millions of tourists each year. It was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1982. Florence is regarded as one of the most beautiful cities in the world, and the impact of its artistic, historic and cultural heritage in the world remains to this day. The city has a major impact in music, architecture, education, cuisine, fashion, philosophy, science and religion.

INTRODUCTION

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CHAPTER 1

The History of

Florence

F

lorence has had a long and eventful history, being a Roman city, the birthplace of the Italian Renaiss a nce , a nd b e i n g con sid e re d , according to the EncyclopÌdia Britannica, as politically, economically, and culturally one of the most important cities in Europe and the world for around 250 years – from the 14th century to the 16th century.

Such was the artistic and cultural dominance of Florence, that the language spoken there during the 14th century was, and still is, accepted as a pan-Italian language. Almost all the writers and poets in the Italian literature of the golden age are somewhat connected with Florence, leading ultimately to the adoption of the Florentine dialect above all the local dialects, as a literary language of choice.

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“Municipium splendidissimum.” 1 LUCIUS ANNAEUS FLORUS 1

“Splendid town”

13

Florence’s Foundations

T

he foundation of Florence dates back to Roman times, despite evidence existing to show that Florence was already occupied in prehistoric times. The oldest part of the city bears the imprint of these Roman origins as it originated as one of Caesar’s colonies. For the sake of defense, the city was set at the conf luence of two streams, the Arno and the Mugnone, where the oldest populations had previously been located.

Rectangular in plan, it was enclosed in a wall about 1800 meters long. The built-up area, like all the cities founded by the Romans, was characterized by straight roads which crossed at right angles.

The two main roads led to four towered gates and converged on a central square, the forum urbis, now Piazza della Repubblica, where the Curia and the Temple dedicated to the Capitoline Triad (Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva) were later to rise. Archaeological finds, many of which came to light during the course of works which “gave new life”, to the old city center, have made it possible to locate and identify the remains of various important public works such as the Capitoline Baths, the Baths of Capaccio, the sewage system, the pavement of the streets and the Temple of Isis, in Piazza San Firenze. At that time the Arno time the Arno was outside the walls, with a river port that constituted an important infrastructure for the city, for in Roman times the river was navigable from its mouth up to its conf luence with the Affrico, upstream from Florence, and the first bridge in Florentine history was built in all likelihood somewhat upstream from today’s Ponte Vecchio, around the first century B.C. The city developed rapidly thanks to its favorable position and the role it played in the ambit of the territorial organization in the region and it soon superceded Arezzo as the leading center in northern Etruria. Economic power was the driving force behind the urban growth of the young colony. Commercial activity and trade thrived thanks to the fact that important communications routes, land and water, intersected at Florentia and offer an explanation for the presence of those oriental merchants, probably on their way from Pisa, who first introduced the cult of Isis and then, in the 2nd century, Christianity.

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The earliest indications of the Christian religion are bound to the cults of the deacon Lorenzo and the Palestinian saint, Felicita and so the first Florentine churches were built: San Lorenzo consecrated in 393, the first diocese, and Santa Felicita, whose origins go back to the 4th and 5th centuries. However, the Florentines do not seem to have had a bishop prior to the late 3rd century. The first one recorded is San Felice who participated in a Roman synod in 313.

materialization in different details, one of which is a clock.

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Good Evening >>> Buona sera

Yes/ No >>> Si/ No The Florence city is all about time. You feel how time get

Good Afternoon >>> Buon Pomeriggio

T

he Barbarian invasions seriously impaired the importance of Florentia. In 405, t he cit y m a naged to ha lt the hordes of Radagaisus, but later it could not avoid being involved in the disastrous Gotho- Byzantine war. Its strategic position as bridgehead on the Arno and strong point in the communications route between Rome and Padania explains why the city was so keenly contested between the Goths and the Byzantines. In 541-44 new city walls were built utilizing the structures of various large Roman buildings: the Campidoglio, the reservoir for the water of the Baths and the Theater. The wall was trapezoidal and its modest size testifies to the decline of the city, greatly depopulated; there may have been less than a thousand inhabitants.

Good Morning >>> Buongiorno

The Byzantine And Lombard Period

Con sider i ng t he i mpor t a nce of Ponte Vecc h io Br idge a s part of Florence history and as architecture heritage let us bring some words about the bridge.

The bridge spans the Arno at its narrowest point where it is believed that a bridge was first built in Roman times, when the via Cassia crossed the river at this point. The Roman piers were of stone, the superstructure of wood. The bridge first appears in a document of 996. After being destroyed by a f lood in 1117 it was reconstructed in stone but swept away again in 1333 save two of its central piers, as noted

by Giovanni Villani in his Nuova Cronica. It was rebuilt in 1345, Giorgio Vasari recorded the tradition in his day, that attributed its design to Taddeo Gaddi, besides Giotto one of the few artistic names of the trecento still recalled two hu nd red yea rs later. Moder n historia ns present Neri di Fioravanti as a possible candidate. Sheltered in a little loggia at the central opening of the bridge is a weathered ded icat ion stone, wh ic h once read Nel t rent at rè dopo i l mille-trecento, il ponte cadde, per diluvio dell ’ acque : poi dieci anni, come al Comun piacque, rifatto fu con questo a dor n a me nto. T he Tor re de i M a n ne l l i wa s b u i lt at t he southeast corner of the bridge to defend it.

T he bridge consists of th ree seg menta l a rches : the mai n a rch has a spa n of 30 meters (98 f t) the two side a rches e a c h s pa n 27 met e r s (88 f t) . T he r i se of t he a rc he s i s bet ween 3. 5 a nd 4.4 meters (11½ to 14½ feet) , a nd t he span-to-rise ratio 5 :1.

It has a lways hosted shops a nd mercha nts who displayed t hei r va r ious good s on tables before t hei r prem ises, a f t e r a u t h o r i z a t i o n o f t h e B a r g e l l o (a s o r t o f a l o r d m ayo r, a m a g i s t r a t e a n d a p ol ic e a u t h o r it y) . T h e b a c k s h o p s (retrobotteghe) that may be seen from upriver, were added in the seventeenth century.

It had been said that the econom ic concept of ba n k r uptc y originated here : when a merchant could not pay his debts, t he t able on wh ic h he sold h i s wa res (t he “ ba nco”) wa s physica l ly broken (“rot to”) by soldiers, a nd this practice wa s c a l le d “ ba ncorot to” ( b roke n t a ble ; p o s si bly it c a n come f rom “ ba nca rot t a” wh ic h mea n s “ broken ba n k ”) .

Not having a table anymore, the merchant was not able to sell anything.

During World War II, the Ponte Vecchio was not destroyed

by Germans during their retreat of August 4, 1944, unlike a l l other bridges i n Florence. T his was a l leged ly because of an express order by Hitler. Access to Ponte Vecchio was, however, obst r uc ted by t he dest r uc t ion of t he bu i ld i ngs a t t h e b o t h e n d s , w h ic h h ave s i n c e b e e n r e b u i l t u s i n g a combination of original and modern design.

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Good/ Bad/ So-So >>> Buono/ Cattico/ Così e così Vecchio’s two neighbouring bridges are the Ponte Santa

it, as was once com mon.

Trinita and the Ponte alle Grazie.

The Carolingian Period

I

n the Carolingian Period, 8th century, a feudal system was installed and Florence became a county of the Holy Roman Empire. Various facts seem to testify to a reviva l of the city in Carolingian times: in the 9th century a public ecclesiastic school was set up and the bridge over the Arno, which had previously been destroyed, seems to have been rebuilt. At the turn of the century new city-walls were built, probably for fear of the Hungarian invasions.

This third set of walls partly followed the line of the old Roman walls, widening on the south to enclose the suburbs which had grown with prosperity while to the north, for political rea-

sons, the Baptistery, Santa Reparata, the Bishop’s Palace, and the adjacent Palatium Regis where the Emperor’s representative held his court of justice, were excluded.

Towards the end of the 10th century, Countess Willa, widow of the Marquis of Tuscany, who owned an entire district within the city-walls, founded and richly endowed a Benedictine abbey in memory of her husband called the “Badia Fiorentina”. Countess Willa’s son, Hugo, greatly contributed to the development of Florence thanks to his decision to leave Lucca. His choice of the city on the banks of the Arno as his dwelling place reinforced its administrative character.

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And you? >>> E lei?

are jewellers, art dealers and souvenir sellers. The Ponte

River, in Florence, noted for still having shops built along

I’m fine, thanks! >>> Bene, grazie!

Butchers initially occupied the shops; the present tenants

closed-spandrel segmental arch bridge over the Arno

How are you? >>> Come state?

The Ponte Vecchio (“Old Bridge”) is a Medieval stone

Early Middle Age

A

round the middle of the 11th century the position of Florence in Tuscany became even more important because Lucca was no longer the seat of the marquisate and because of the city’s decisive participation in the movement for the reform of the church. The struggle to eliminate secular interference in ecclesiastical affairs and the affirmation of the independence of the papacy from imperial power were to have their leading representative in San Giovanni Gualberto, the son of a Florentine knight, who founded the order of Vallombrosa. of the Reform and the policies of San Giovanni Gualberto and during the struggle for investiture she gave her support to the most inf luential of the reformers, Hildebrand of Sovana who later became Pope Gregory VII, thus finding herself in open contrast with the emperor, Henry IV. Af ter the episode of Canossa, Henry IV’s victory in 1081 led to the official deposition of the Countess who was abandoned by all the Tuscan cities except Florence. This faithfulness to the deposed Countess cost the city an imperial siege in July of 1082, which failed. Matilda’s special attachment to Florence and the consequent rupture with the emperor led to the construction, in 1078, of a more efficient system of defense and the city was supplied with new walls - those which Dante was to call “la cerchia antica”. This fourth walled After the death of her mother and of her husenclosure for the most part followed along the band (Geoffrey the Bearded), Matilda, daughter lines of the Carolingian walls but on the north of Countess Beatrice, became the sole countess included the Baptistery, the cathedral of Santa of Tuscany. She had always adhered to the ideas Reparata and the residence of the Countess. In this period the city was divided into quarters which took their names from the four main gates: the Porta San Piero on the east, the so-called “Porta del Vescovo” to the north, the Porta San Pancrazio to the west and the Porta Santa Maria to the south.

In 1055 Florence even played host to a council, under Pope Victor II with the presence of Emperor Henry III and the participation of 120 bishops. Many old structures were rebuilt during the second half of the 11th century, the cathedral of Santa Reparata, the Baptistery and San Lorenzo among others. On November 6, 1059, Bishop Gerard, who had become pope under the name of Nicholas II, reconsecrated the ancient baptismal church of the city which had been rebuilt in more imposing form, much like what it is today. The building, octagonal in plan, with a semicircular apse on one side and three entrances, seems to have been covered by a pointed-arch dome divided into eight sectors and the outside was not yet faced with its fine marble casing.

Like all the early medieval cities, the town plan of 11th century Florence must have been characterized not only by the recovery of its antique urban structure (walls, various remnants of roads) but by a basic homogenity, expressed in a casual distribution of the various landmarks, the most important of which were probably the religious buildings.

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I really like it! >>> Mi piace davvero

Roman Catholic Church Hierarchy

Do you like it? >>> Ti piace

Pope: Head of the church, he is based at the Vatican. The pope is infallible in defining matters of faith and morals.

You’re welcome! (for “thank you”) >>> Prego!

Cardinal: Appointed by the pope, 178 cardinals worldwide, make up the College of Cardinals. As a body, it advises the pope and, on his death, elects a new pope.

Archbishop: An archbishop is a bishop of a main or metropolitan diocese, also called an archdiocese. A cardinal can concurrently hold the title.

Bishop: A bishop, like a priest, is ordained to this station. He is a teacher of church doctrine, a priest of sacred worship, and a minister of church government.

Thank you (very much)! >>> Grazie (molto)!

Priest: An ordained minister who can administer most of the sacraments, including the Eucharist, baptism, and marriage. He can be with a particular religious order or committed to serving a congregation.

Deacon: A transitional deacon is a seminarian studying for the priesthood. A permanent deacon can be married and assists a priest by performing some of the sacraments in a congregation.

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The Period Of The “Communes�

When Countess Matilda died in 1115 the Florentine populace to all effects already constit uted a Com mu ne. T he nu merous privi leges conceded by her and the events in which the Florentine community had played a leading role in the struggle against the emperor, induced the people to organize autonomously and to undertake action aimed at weakening imperial power.

It was therefore inevitable that in 1125, upon the death of the last emperor of the Franconian dynasty, Henry V, the Florentines decided to attack and destroy Fiesole, the neighboring rival city. As a result the two counties were conclusively united and remained as separate entities only on an ecclesiastic level with Fiesole maintaining its own diocese.

The first mention of an officially constituted Commune dates to 1138, when at a meeting of the Tuscan cities it was decided to constitute a League, for fear that Henry the Proud who had in precedence oppressed them as imperial legate might be elected emperor. At that time the community wasmade up of religious and secular representatives, with three dominant social groups: the nobles, grouped into consorterie, the merchants, and the horse soldiers, the backbone of the army. Although the nobles held most of the power in the 12th century, it was nevertheless mainly the merchants who were responsible for the growth of the city. The rise of the merchants accelerated in the second half of the century, as trade with distant countries was intensified and became a new and much richer source for the accumulation of capital. Extensive trade and its inseparable companion, credit, were the basis for the economic and demographic expansion of the city.

This process of expansion underwent a temporary halt when Frederick Barbarossa advanced south into Italy. In 1185 the emperor even deprived the city of its contado and restored the marquisate of Tuscany, but the provision had a brief life. In 1197, taking advantage of the death of Barbarossa’s successor, Henry VI, Florence regained control of her contado.

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The Palazzo della Signoria (also known as the Palazzo Vecchio) was a building in central Florence, and the centre of gover nmental power during the Italian Renaissance. Atop the building stood a noticeably offcentre clocktower, which also served as a holding cell.

Now Palazzo Vecchio is the hear t of Florentine civil life.

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Can I help you? >>> Posso aiutarla (polite)?

YI’m lost >>> Mi sono perso/ persa (feminine)

In the 12th century the skyline of the city was punctuated by numerous towers: in 1180 thirtyfive were documented, but there were certainly many more. Later the towers were used as houses, but in the 12th century the towers still served for military purposes and gave birth to the phenomenon of the “Tower Societies”, associations which reunited the owners of various towers enabling them to control a portion of the city. A considerable number of small and large churches also sprang up as the size of the city increased. In two centuries the number of churches in Florence was tripled, so that at the beginning of the 13th century the city had as many as 48 churches (12 priories and 36 parishes).

Can you help me? >>> Posso aiutarla?

Clear evidence of the power Florence had acquired in the course of the 12th century is to be found in the expansion of its urban territory. All around the circle of Matilda’s walls, in correspondence to the gates, populous suburbs had sprung up. In 1172 the Commune therefore decided to enlarge the city walls and incorporate the newest districts. The perimeter of the new city walls, raised in barely two years, from 1173 to 1175, was twice that of the “old circle” and enclosed an area that was three times as great. As far as the suburbs across the Arno were concerned, it was not until later that they were fortified, even though a small part of the “Oltrarno” was enclosed in the walls as early as 1173-1175. As a result the Arno became an infrastructure within the city, as a communications route, a source of energy and a water supply for industries.

The Baptitery is one of the oldest buildings in Florence although it is impossible to exactly deter mine the period. All the mosaics have a gilded background and were made between 1266 and the beginning of the 14th century by Byzantine ar tists from Venice, with the collaboration of vigorous Tuscans like Meliore, Coppo di Marcovaldo and above all Cimabue (re. 1272-1302), the master of Giotto.

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HISTORY OF FLORENCE

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23 Good Morning >>> Buongiorno

Good Afternoon >>> Buon Pomeriggio

Good Evening >>> Buonasera

The Thirteenth Century The speed with which the new walls were built is a sign of the prosperity that reigned in Florence.

The city had become the principal center of continental Tuscany, with a population that at this point must have been around 30,000 inhabitants, and which clearly showed signs of continued growth thanks to the arrival of immigrants from the countryside. The Commune thus experienced a period of peace during which the economic basis of the city continued to expand. The merchants, who had begun to organize in corporate association (the Arte dei Mercanti) in 1182, on the example of the Society of Knights, multiplied and spread well beyond the limits of their region.

Around the turn of the century Florence thus became an international economic center, with its operators in the principal fairs of the West.

The development of the economy went on at such a rate that in a few years the associations multiplied among the other categories of tradesmen and artisans, whose number increased considerably. The city still preserves some of the buildings which served as headquarters for the Guilds.

Generally they are buildings which date back to the fourteenth century, such as the headquarters of the Wool Guild, built in 1308 by restructuring an extant tower.

The increase in size and population, due not to a natural increment but to the accelerated immi

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gration from the countryside, lay at the basis of this economic expansion. The immigrants, members of a rural middle class that had been formed in consequence of the general economic development, settled in the city district which corresponded to the part of the contado from which they came. This was why the Oltrarno, on which the populous southern regions converged, increased enormously and a new bridge in wood on stone piers was constructed in 1128 and in 1237 a third bridge was built upstream.

This bridge, completely in stone, was set across the widest point of the Arno and was eventually called Ponte alle Grazie, after the small church which was built on one of its piers in the middle of the fourteenthh century.

On the picture above : Florence Orsanmichele wall carvings guild of carpenters.

ARTE DEI MERCANTI OF FIR ENZE : Arte di Calimala (Workers in wool, cloth merchants) Arte della Lana (Wool merchants) Arte dei Giudici e Notai (Judges, lawyers, and notaries) Arte del Cambio (Bankers) Arte della Seta (Silk weavers) Arte dei Medici e Speziali (Physicians and pharmacists) Arte dei Vaiai e Pellicciai (Furriers) Arte dei Calzolai (Shoemakers) Arte dei Fabbri (Iron workers) Arte dei Maestri di Pietra e Legname (Workers in stone and wood) Arte dei Linaioli e Rigattieri (Workers of f lax, tailors) Arti dei Vinattieri (Wine) Arti dei Oliandoli e Pizzicagnoli (Millworkers) Arti dei Cuoiai e Galigai (Leather workers) Arti dei Corazzai e Spadai (Armourers) Arti dei Fornai (Bakers)

Together with the new cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, whose construction began in 1294, the large churches erected by the mendicant orders in the last decades of the 13th century constituted the principal examples of Gothic religious architecture in Florence.

Ponte DA VERRAZZANO

Ponte S. NICCOLO

Where is the (bathroom/ pharmacy)? >>> Dove posso trovare (il bagno/ la farmacia?)

The new religious orders (Franciscan, Dominican, Augustinian, Servite, Carmelite) played a leading role in the structuralization of the late medieval city. The Dominicans, who had established themselves in Florence in 1221 in the small church of Santa Maria delle Vigne enlarged the original heart of their monastery for the first time in 1246 and then in 1278 began the present structure. The first church of the Franciscans, dedicated to the Holy Cross, Santa Croce, dates to the second quarter of the 13th centuryand in 1295 it was rebuilt as we see it today. And the same thing happened with the Augustinians of Santo Spirito, who established themselves in the heart of the Oltrarno in 1259, which was enlarged in 1296. In addition to restructuring the precedent churches, the new religious organism created vast convent complexes, full of cloisters and rooms for study and work; they organized the communitarian life of the urban population, playing a role in political and cultural as well as religious life.

Go straight! then turn left/ right! >>> Vada dritto! e poi giri a destra/ sinistra!

T he pressi ng need s of t rade a nd com me rce between the cities, the result of the urban expansion, led to the constr uction in 1952 of still another bridge across the Arno: the Ponte a Santa Trinita. The four bridges served the city’s needs up to the 19th century.

Ponte ALLE GRAZIE

Ponte VECCHIO Ponte S. TRINITA Ponte ALLA CARRAIA Ponte A. VESPUCCI

Ponte DELLA VITTORIA

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Guelphs And Ghibellines

T

he period of peace which fol lowed t he i nsta l lation of gover n ment u nder a podestà did not last long.

1216 saw the beginning of feuds which were to aff lict Florentine society for the entire century, dividing the citizens between Guelphs and Ghibellines. In 1244 the Ghibelline nobles, who were in power, decided to broaden the social base of the government, so as to obtain the favor of the merchant middle class. This was the prelude to the beginning of the period that was to be known as “Primo Popolo”. But only a few years later, in 1250, the merchants and the artisans as a whole managed to usurp the power of the Ghibelline nobles and initiate a new political policy.

The Societas militum were abolished, in the hopes of allaying the arrogance of the nobles and of preventing them from returning to power. So all the towers had to be cut down to a height of 29 meters. This was the beginning of another period of peace and prosperity and the city’s economic and financial power was affirmed. Outstanding evidence of this economic expansion was the coining in 1252 of the gold f lorin, which joined the silver f lorin coined as early as 1235. During the period of the “Primo Popolo” the population of the city grew and new public buildings went up. In 1255 construction began on what was to be called the Palazzo del Popolo, now the Bargello, which was erected to house the Councils of the Commune. With its imposing mass and its crenellated tower rising above all other city towers, it was the expression in architecture of the new political policy.

At the battle of Montaperti, 1260, the Florentines were defeated by the Sienese hosts, which resulted in the obliteration of all that the merchant middle

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Hold on please! (phone) >>> Attenda prego!

One moment please! >>> Un momento prego!

I’m looking for John >>> Sto cercando John

class had accomplished politically. When the Ghibellines resumed power and restored the old institutions they decreed the destruction of the palaces and towers and houses which the principal exponents of the Guelph party owned in the city and in the surroundings. The city was covered with rubble, and 103 palaces, 580 houses and 85 towers were totally demolished not to speak of the partial damage done to other buildings. For six years Florence was forced to submit to the outrages of the great Ghibellines and it would have been destroyed had it not been for the fearless defense of Farinata degli Uberti at the convention of Empoli. The Ghibellines, fearing the powThis was why work went on so slowly, interrupted er of the people were forced to accept the services more than once because of war and not finished of Clement IV as peacemaker between the opposuntil 1333. Much of the wall was demolished in ing factions. The pope openly favored the Guelph the 19th century and only a few tracts, Oltrarno, faction which thus succeeded in reconquering the and the principal gates still exist. power and they reintroduced the political institutions abrogated by the Ghibellines.

At the end of the 13th century Florence could rightly consider itself the main city of the West.

In the meantime, two new parties began to shape The entrepreneurs then in power decided to conup among the people at large: the “Magnati” or struct two great buildings which were in a sense entrepeneurs (persons whose aims were deemed to be symbols of the wealth and power of the city: dangerous to the populace as a whole, in other the new cathedral and Palazzo della Signoria. words the noble Guelphs and the repatriated GhiArnolfo di Cambio was the outstanding figure bellines, mostly large holders of houses and lands) who designed both buildings, as well as all the and the “Popolani” or workers (merchant and artiother important works promoted by the governsans organized in guilds and in turn divided into ment of the Guilds, including the new walls. In “grassi” and “minuti” depending on the extent of 1296 the reconstruction of the old cathedral of their interests). In 1293, the historical process Santa Reparata was begun. The new building, no begun in the 12th century was to reach its natulonger dedicated to the Palestinian saint, but to ral conclusion - the Magnati were prohibited from the Madonna, was to undergo various changes taking part in the political life of the city. In the in size and plan in the course of its construction latter part of the 13th century Florence reached the which lasted for almost a century. Arnolfo’s bold zenith of its economic and demographic developproject was however basically maintained. The ment. This was the period when great things were constr uction of t he g reat Fra ncisca n church done in the fields of architecture and town planof Santa Croce is also attributed to Arnolfo di ning, made possible by the formidable accumulaCambio, and represents one of the most prestigious tions of capital that resulted from the expanding monuments erected at the end of the 13th century. commercial and financial activities. The population had continued to increase and so new city When the city and the countryside were organized walls were needed and in 1282 a belt 8,500 meters into districts in 1292 and the building of the new long was planned, enclosing an area of 430 hectcity walls was begun, a whole new series of urban ares, five times that of the precedent urban area. measures were undertaken. The numerous towThese sixth, and last, city walls were the greaterhouses were f lanked by the palaces which the est financial commitment ever undertaken by the middle class merchants were building as a symbol Florentine Commune. and visible sign of their wealth and power.

The Florentine area during the spring was (and still is) characterized with the presence of a particular type of flower : the white Florentine iris (erroneously called by everybody lily). It has been therefore quite natural to associate this flower to this city and to take it as its symbol. At first the coat of Florence had a white flower on a red field, but, after the final defeat of the Ghibellines in 1251, it was transformed by changing the colors: red flower on white field.

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This is the lily that we can recognize on the many monuments of Florence including Palazzo Vecchio and the Duomo which, not by cohincidence, is called Santa Maria del Fiore (S. Mary of the Flower).

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From The Fourteenth Century To The Renaissance

T

owards the end of the 13th century and in the early 14th century the contrasts between the popolo minuto-middle and lower middle classes- and the popolo grasso-wealthy merchants-were accentuated. The latter had a firm grip on the power, but in the 14th century the popolo minuto tried several times to broaden the democratic base of the government by increasing the participation of the Arti minori in the government. In 1378, under the impulse of a movement set in motion by the proletariat, the popolo grasso were obliged to accept an institutional reform which provided for the constitution of new Guilds; Tintori, Farsettai, In addition to these internal struggles, the city Dyers, Corseteers and Ciompi, corresponding to had also to sustain the onerous burden of the wars the most humble activities and the workers. But against the powerful Ghibelline signorias of the due to internal divergent interests and an incapac- Visconti and the Scaligeri, joined by the Pisans ity to govern, these guilds were unable to with- and the Luccans. Two serious defeats, one in stand the reaction of the large merchant middle 1315 and the other ten years later, induced Florclasses which soon once more took over power. ence first to ask for the protection of the Angevin troops and then to place themselves under the The rivalry between two noble families resulted direct dominion of Charles, duke of Calabria, in much dissension and led to the formation of of the house of Anjou. The death of the duke in two antagonistic groups of political factions to be 1327 unexpectedly restored its freedom to the known as Neri and Bianchi or Blacks and Whites.

Florentine Commune. But it did not end there.A The former were generally exponents of the newnew attempt to take over Pisa and Lucca failed comers with easy profits and grouped together miserably. The Florentines, defeated by the Ghithe representatives of the old noble classes and belline forces under the leadership of the lord of the most intransigent Guelphists. The two parVerona, Martino della Scala in 1339, were once ties took turns at the priorate in the last decade more forced to ask King Robert for aid. This of the 13th century but from then on the conresulted in a brief tyranny until the people, tired f lict intensified. The Priors were forced to exile of violence and abuses of power, threw out the the heads of the two factions, and the situation tyrant and restored the civic liberties. precipitated. The Neri invoked the intervention of the pope who sent as his peacemaker Charles During the 14th century, internal strife and wars of Valois, the brother of Philip Le Belle, king of were aggravated by famine and epidemics, particFrance. He openly favored the Neri, and even had ularly the deadly plague of 1348, which aggravatthe heads of the Bianchi arrested and forced those ed a situation that was already precarious. Further who were most compromised, including Dante damage was caused by the disastrous f lood of Alighieri, into exile.

1333 which also swept away all the bridges over the Arno except the Rubaconte. The 14th century was therefore a century of political and economic crisis, it was a period of decisive juncture common to all Western economies. The crisis was also ref lected in the city’s architectural activity which continued at a much slower pace than before. Building activity turned first of all to finishing the great undertakings of the end of the 13th century (the walls, the cathedral, the Palazzo della Signoria, the large monastic complex) and to reconstructing the

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Good Evening >>> Buonasera Good Morning >>> Buongiorno

Good Afternoon >>> Buon Pomeriggio

bridges which had been destroyed. The first of these to be rebuilt, between 1334 and 1337, was the Ponte alla Carraia, apparently after a design by Giotto. The reconstructions of the other bridges, from the Ponte Vecchio on, were based on this bridge. The Ponte Vecchio was built by Taddeo Gaddi in three sweeping arches with a road much wider than before. After the impressive expansion of the 13th century, the city began to take shape and what might be called a real town planning policy attempted to provide the buildings with some degree of order and regularity. Throughout the 14th century one provision after another was taken in an effort to broaden the streets or modify their routes and to tear down ramshackle buildings or those with structures which impeded traffic. Naturally the Commune’s first obligations were in the reorganization of the city’s principal piazzas, Piazza della Signoria and Piazza del Duomo, and streets. As can often still be seen, the buildings from that period have a facade with rough-hewn blocks of pietraforte at least in the bottom part, and a series of regular arches in correspondence to the ground f loor. The typical “Florentine” arch consisted of a roundheaded or f lat intrados and a slightly pointed extrados.

It is time to look at the most famous building in Florence–Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore or Duomo.

After you made the usual tourist observation try to look at this architectural treasure from different point of view, for example from numerous side streets.

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During the years in which the merchant oligarchy governed Florence and in the early period of Medici rule, the increasingly frequent contacts with examples of Greek and Roman antiquity gave rise to a new spirit and the city became the center in which Humanism was forged. Man considered himself the ultimate end, eager for rational knowledge and bent on affirming his dominion over the nature which surrounded him and the history which preceded him. Literary culture, the sciences, arts and human activities come to the forefront and it was a golden period in European intellect and culture. Take for example Filippo Brunelleschi; between 1420 and 1446 he created a group of works which were to represent one of the most important moments in the history of Florentine architecture and town-planning.

It is then thanks first of all to Brunelleschi and secondly to the other exponents of the architectural culture of the early 15th century that Florence was to present itself from then on as the “Renaissance city” idealized by the humanists. An incredible number of artistic personalities determined the image of the Renaissance city of whom Donatello, Masaccio, Filippo Lippi, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Sandro Botticelli, Beato Angelico, Michelozzo, Giuliano da Sangallo and Benedetto da Maiano are but a few.

The Medici have long been associated with a load of balls.

Their family emblem—a number of red balls on a gold shield—is prominently displayed on buildings all over Florence and Tuscany which have Medicean connections or which were financed with Medici money. Families deriving their titles from popes have incorporated papal insignia in their arms, notably the papal tiara and the crossed keys.

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Hurry up! >>> Sbrigati!

Come with me! >>> Venga con me!

Excuse me! ( to pass by) >>> Permesso

When power returned to the popolo grasso at the end of the 14th century, an oligarchic regime was established in Florence and a small restricted number of the merchant middle class governed the city for about 40 years. However there followed a growing opposition to the oligarchy which was to ably exploit the malcontent of the populace. That part of the middle class which had been excluded from power joined arms with the people and found a leader in Giovanni de’ Medici, head of the richest and most powerful company of Calimala. After the death of Giovanni (1429) the contrast was accentuated while the current of opinion favorable to the Medici continued to grow. , Giovanni’s firstborn, was lord of the city, although he attempted to conceal the fact, leaving the old republican institutions intact, but emptied of any effective power. , who died in 1464, was followed by the mediochre Piero the Gouty (1464-1469) whose son, Lorenzo the Magnificent, was to continue his ancestor’s dissimulating policy up almost to the end of the century, maintaining the traditional offices, but with no doubts as to what he was to all effects: the true lord of Florence.

Excuse me ...! (to ask for something) >>> Mi scusi!

The Renaissance

The Sixteenth Century

L

orenzo the Magnif icent knew how t o i mp o se h i s p e r son a l powe r w it hout ove r t h row i ng the republican institutions. But upon his death in 1492 it took only a few years for the son who succeeded him, Pietro the Unlucky, to demolish the wonderful structure of Medici power. The cowardly policy of Pietro regarding the invader Charles VIII constrained the city to eliminate him and re-establish in full the republican regime.

But the people were divided between those who sided with the Medici and the bulk of citizens, inflamed by the sermons of Girolamo Savonarola, who preoceeded to reform the government, imposing a new regime in which an important role was given to a “Gran Consiglio” which reunited the members of the principal families. But it was not long before the Medici and their supporters made a comeback, thanks to the fact that Savonarola had been judged a heretic and burned at the stake in the Piazza della Signoria on May 23, 1498 on the order of Pope Alexander VI. This was when Michelangelo created his famous statue of David to be located in front of the Palazzo della Signoria as guardian to the Florentine freedom. Afterwards the city once more found itself under Medici rule, at the behest of the pope, allied with the king of Aragon whose word was law in Italy after the departure of the king of France. The elevation to the papal throne, first of Giovanni de’ Medici in 1512, and then of Giulio seemed to reinforce the Medici signoria even more. But when news of the sack of Rome in 1527 arrived, the people rebelled and once more ousted the Medici and proclaimed their freedom. This was the last desperate attempt to rei nstate t he republica n gover n ment . On August 12, 1530 the armies of the emperor and the pope together entered Florence and the following year, Alexander de’ Medici was declared “head of the government and of the state”. The new lord, whom a subsequent resolution was to call “Duke

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of the Florentine Republic”, installed a tyranny, with new institutions all under his control, and began a foreign policy of alliances with the most important reigning families in Europe, marrying a natural daughter of Emperor Charles V and giving his stepsister Caterina as wife to the second son of Francis I. The adversaries of the Medici, headed by Filippo Strozzi, tried in vain to overturn Duke Alessandro’s government. They were unsuccessful even when Lorenzino de’ Medici assassinated Ales-

sandro in 1537. The only possible successor was Cosimo il Giovane, son of Giovanni delle Bande Nere, a younger branch of the family, since the line of Cosimo the Elder had been extinguished.

At seventeen the new duke managed to command respect and gradua lly insta lled an autocratic regime. In his lifetime he succeeded in crushing the adverse factions and reinforcing the state, bringing Siena under Florentine rule in 1555. He obtained a sovereign title from the pope and on March 5th 1570 was crowned grand duke of Tuscany by Pius V. When he died in 1574 he left the government in the hands of his son Francesco who reigned till 1587 when he was succeeded by his brother Ferdinando I (1587-1609).

Ferd i na ndo I wa s succeeded by t he sick ly II (1609-1621) who died leaving the government in the hands of his wife Maria Magdalena of Austria and his mother Christine of Lorraine. In 1628 Ferdinando II mounted the throne and reigned until 1670. Even though he was reputed to be among the best of the Medici dynasty, he could do nothing to arrest the inexorable decline of Florence and of the Tuscany of the grand dukes.

Nor could his successors, and the last of the Medici dynasty, Gian Gastone, who died without heirs in 1737. Even so, as far as culture was concerned, the city, by now condemned to a provincial role, still displayed a certain vitality which expressed itself in the field of music and in the phenomenon of the Academies. From the late 16th century and throughout the 17th century numerous academies of pure literature came into being. The Accademia della Crusca the first edition of which appeared in 1612, was founded in 1582. Of great importance for the sciences was t he ac t iv it y of t he Accadem ia del Ci mento, founded by Leopoldo de’ Medici in 1657 and sustained by his brother, the reigning Ferdinando II.

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Tomorrow/ Yesterday >>> Domani/ ieri Today/ Now >>> Oggi/ Adesso Big/ Small >>> Grosso/ Piccolo

F

erdinando I (1587-1609) conti nued his fat her’s polic y a nd succeeded in strengthening the g r a n d d u c hy, m a i n t a i n i n g a diff icult equilibrium between France and Spain. Signs of decadence became more obvious under the government of the two sons of I’s and were accelerated in the 17th century. Florence was still a great city, but its territory was small and it could certainly not compete with the great and powerful centralised states. Economically the situation had also changed. Trade and manufacturing were on the decline and, at least up to the end of the 16th century, only banking was still carried out on a European level, but in the end that too declined.

How much is this? >>> Quanto costa questo?

The Decline Of The Medici

The Lorraine Period

I

n 1859 the Lorraines left Florence for good. Following that and after the Second War of Independence and after Tusca ny joi ned t he Savoy Reig n of Unified Italy, Florence was the capital of Italy for 5 years from 1865 to 1870.

The historical city centre underwent intensive urban renovation, which completely destroyed the

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Old Market and its Jewish quarter, near to the present day Piazza della Repubblica. The square can be seen to represent the destruction of a thousand years of urbanistic stratification, substituted with an anonymous geometrical layout of buildings, amongst which some monuments have been left intact, emerging with no connection to the buildings around them.

Until the First World War, the city’s problems apparently accumulated without tangible intervention from the public authorities. On a social level, the workers’ movement developed in defence of a class living in great hardship.

Between 1890 and 1915, the population grew by fifty thousand.

Between 1905 and 1913, 36,652 rooms were constructed and about 2,000 low-rent dwellings were built. The terraces of middle class two-storey houses known as “trenini” (“toy trains”) from Ricorboli to San Gervasio and from the Mugnone valley to San Jacopino and Rifredi are a somewhat provincial version of a modern European form which, however, now appears as not devoid of quality in its neatness and dignity with respect to the constructional anarchy of today.

The character of the new middle class residential areas emerges from this passage by Aldo Palazzeschi: “Two months later, I found myself on the opposite side of the city in what were - and still are - the new districts of Florence at Barriera delle Cure, known to the Florentines simply as alle Cure. Here the farmland has only recently started to be licked, violated, strewn and invaded by the new buildings. Farewell to the grand and austere mansions, the severe and magnificent architecture, the cantilever roofs, capitals and cornices. Another life, another light, a different air.

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Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten >>> Sette, Otto, Nove, Dieci Four, Five, Six >>> Quattro, Cinque, Sei

T

hroughout this century, Florence has been suffering from a process of degradation.

The old structure can no longer cope with the demands of modern urban life and has become the “problem” of a complex reality. Its meaning must be recuperated in a new context which never quite reaches an organic equilibrium to thus become a new and successful urban form. After Giuseppe Poggi’s plan for “Florence, capital of Italy” (1864-1870) and its implementation - with demolition of the city walls to construct the ring road boulevards, creation of Viale dei Colli and Piazzale Michelangelo and the initial development of new residential districts both inside the ring road (the Mattonaia district around Piazza dell’Indipendenza and the Maglio district around Piazza d’Azeglio) and outside (Savonarola, San Jacopino, Piagentina) - and after demolition of the city centre around the old market (1885-1889) to create the grand Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II (now Piazza della Repubblica) and construct buildings mainly intended for office use, thus beginning the tertiarisation of the city centre, in the first decades of the 20th century, in line with Poggi’s urban planning scheme, the city spread rapidly as far as the foothills - to Via Vittorio Emanuele II to the west, to Viale Volta to the east and across the Arno along Via Pisana beyond Pignone, where the foundry represented the first industrial nucleus together with the associated workers’ housing.

One, Two, Three >>> Uno, Due, Tre

Florence In The ‘900

Modern Era

A

fter doubling during the 19th centur y, Florence’s population was to triple in the 20th, resulting from growth in tourism, trade, financial services and industry.

During World War II the city experienced a yearlong German occupation (1943–1944) and was declared an open city. The Allied soldiers who died driving the Germans from Tuscany are buried in cemeteries outside the city (Americans about nine kilometres (6 mi) south of the city, British and Commonwealth soldiers a few kilometres east of the centre on the right bank of the Arno). In 1944, the retreating Germans blew up the bridges along the Arno linking the district of Oltrarno to the rest of the city, making it difficult for the British troops to cross. However, at the last moment Charle Steinhauslin, at the time consulate of 26 countries in Florence, convinced the German general in Italy that the Ponte Vecchio was not to be blown up, as it was too beautiful.

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 murdered many freedom fighters and political opponents publicly, in streets and squares including the Piazza Santo Spirito.

In November 1966, the Arno river f looded parts of t he centre, da m agi ng m a ny a r t t rea su res.

Around the city there are tiny placards on the walls noting where the f lood waters reached at their highest point.

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In 2002, Florence was the seat of the first European Social Forum. There are also several new building and cultural projects, such as that of the Parco della musica e della cultura, which will be a vast musical and cultural complex which currently is being built in the “Parco della Cascine” (Cascine park). It will host a lyrical theatre containing 2,000 places, a concert hall for one thousand watchers, a hall with three thousand seats and an open-air amphitheatre with three thousand spaces. It will host numerous ballets, concerts, lyrical operas and numerous musical festivals. The theatre was inaugurated on 28 April 2011, in honour of the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the Italian unification

One of the most amazing things about the Florence is how this ancient city continues its life in the modern era. For you, as a tourist, every city detail is a historical treasury, for people who live there its everyday life.

Because many Florence streets are narrow a lot of residents use bicycles to move around the city.

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Good Afternoon >>> Buon Pomeriggio

Good Evening >>> Buonasera

CHAPTER 2

Florentine

Art Treasure

F

lorence 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. In the ranking list of the 15 most visited Italian art museums, 2/3 are represented by Florentine museums. Florence has a legendary artistic heritage. Cimabue and Giotto, the fathers of Italian painting, lived in Florence.

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”, 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 Buonarroti’ s house with the sculptures of Michelangelo, and many others.

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“There is the noble city, the queen of the Middle Ages. It is inside these walls that civilization began again!”

STENDHAL (MARIE-HENRI BEYLE)

42

Galleria dell’ Accademia

Housing a Michelangelo collection, including the David. It has a collection of Russian icons and works by Bronzino, Botticelli, Perugino, Ghirlandaio, Paolo Uccello, Giambologna, Pontormo, Lorenzo Monaco, Lorenzo Bartolini and others artists.

Palazzo Vecchio, the political heart of the city for two centuries, before to become the residence of Grand Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici. It homes in numerous halls works by Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Donatello, Baccio Bandinelli, Bronzino, Giambologna, Giorgio Vasari, Ammannati, Francesco Salviati, Pontormo and many f lorentine artists.

Bargello

This museum houses artworks by Michelangelo, such as his Bacchus, Pitti Tondo (or Madonna and Child), Brutus and David-Apollo. Its collection includes Donatello’s David and St. George Tabernacle, Vincenzo Gemito’s Pescatore (“fisherboy”), Jacopo Sansovino’s Bacco, Giambologna’s L’Architettura and his Mercurio and many works from the Della Robbia family. Benvenuto Cellini is represented with his bronze bust of Cosimo I.

National Museum of San Marco

It is worth visiting the setting of the Museum of San Marco for its architecture alone. This consists of the former Dominican convent restored and enlarged to its present size for Cosimo the Elder de’ Medici by his favourite architect Michelozzo (1396-1472).

Fra’ Angelico was a Dominican monk who later became Prior of the convent and who decorated in a style perfectly adapted to the architecture of the chapter house, cloister and the brothers’ first f loor cells. The museum offers the visitor an example of a perfectly preserved fifteenth century convent, its rational and harmonious plan based on Brunelleschi’s innovations.

In Florence it is not allowed to make pictures inside museums, but even some outside wall paintings as this one the right from the Museum of San Marco impress a lot.

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Nice to meet you! >>> È un piacere conoscerla

It is one of the most famous and important art galleries in the world, with a very large collection of international and Florentine art. The gallery is articulated in many halls, cataloged by schools and chronological order.

Engendered by the Medici family’s artistic collections through the centuries, it houses works of art by Giotto, Cimabue, Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Donatello, Michelangelo, Raffaello, Tiziano, Caravaggio, Bernini, Beato Angelico, Rembrandt, Peter Paul Rubens, Francisco Goya, Tintoretto, Paolo Uccello, Chardin, Piero della Francesca, Masaccio, Giorgio Vasari, Correggio, Canaletto, El Greco, Dürer, Lucas Cranach, Antonello da Messina, Mantegna, Simone Martini and many others. It has the largest collection of Botticelli’s works in the world.

My name is ... >>> Mi chiamo ...

Uffizi

What’s your name? >>> Quale è il suo nome?

Florence Main Museums

Pitti Palace

Housing a large art museum, with five main art galleries and eight museums: THE PALATINE GALLERY, on the first f loor of the piano nobile, contains a large ensemble of over 500 principally Renaissance paintings, which were once part of the Medicis’ and their successors’ private art collection.

The gallery contains works by Raphael, Titian, Correggio, Rubens, and Pietro da Cortona. The character of the gallery is still that of a private collection, and the works of art are displayed and hung much as they would have been in the grand rooms for which they were intended rather than following a chronological sequence, or arranged according to school of art.

ROYAL APARTMENTS, a suite of 14 rooms, formerly used by the Medici family, and lived in by their successors. These rooms have been largely altered since the era of the Medici, most recently in the 19th century. They contain a collection of Medici portraits, many of them by the artist Giusto Sustermans. In contrast to the great salons containing the Palatine collection, some of these rooms are much smaller and more intimate, and, while still grand and gilded, are more suited to day-to-day living requirements.

MODERN ART GALLERY. This gallery originates from the remodeling of the Florentine academy in 1748, when a gallery of modern art was established. The gallery was intended to hold those art works which were prize-winners in the academy’s competitions. The Palazzo Pitti was being redecorated on a grand scale at this time and the new works of art were being collected to adorn the newly decorated salons. By the mid-19th century so numerous were the Grand Ducal paintings of modern art that many were transferred to the Palazzo Croncetta, which became the first home of the newly formed “Modern Art Museum”.

Following the Risorgimento and the expulsion of the Grand Ducal family from the palazzo, all the Grand Ducal modern art works were brought together under one roof in the newly titled “Modern gallery of the Academy”. The collection continued to expand, particularly so under the patronage of Vittorio Emanuele II. However it was not until 1922 that this gallery was moved to the Palazzo Pitti where it was complemented by further modern works of art in the ownership of both the state and the municipality of Florence. The collection was housed in apartments recently vacated by members of the Italian Royal family. The gallery was first opened to public viewing in 1928. Today, further enlarged and spread over 30 rooms, this large collection includes works by artists of the Macchiaioli movement and other modern Italian schools of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The title “gallery of modern art” to some may sound incorrect, as the art in the gallery covers the period from 1700 to early 1900. No examples of later art are included in the collection since In Italy, “modern art” refers to the period before World War II.

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You’re very kind! >>> Lei è molto gentile

SILVER MUSEUM contains a collection of silver, cameos, and works in semi-precious gemstones, many of the latter from the collection of Lorenzo de’ Medici, including his collection of ancient vases, many with delicate silver gilt mounts added for display purposes in the 15th century. The Silver Museum also contains a fine collection of German gold and silver artifacts purchased by Grand Duke Ferdinand after his return from exile in 1815, following the French occupation.

Mr.../ Mrs.…/ Miss… >>> Signor …/ Signora …(usually for both Mrs. & Ms)

COSTUME GALLERY. Situated in a wing known as the “Palazzina della Meridiana”, this gallery contains a collection of theatrical costumes dating from the 16th century until the present. It is also the only museum in Italy detailing the history of Italian fashions. One of the newer collections to the palazzo, it was founded in 1983 by Kristen Aschengreen Piacenti; a suite of fourteen rooms, the Meridiana apartments, were completed in 1858. In addition to theatrical costumes, the gallery displays garments worn between the 18th century and the present day. Some of the exhibits are unique to the Palazzo Pitti; these include the 16th-century funeral clothes of Grand Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici, and Eleonora of Toledo and her son Garzia, both of whom died of malaria. The gallery also exhibits a collection of mid-20th century costume jewellery.

PORCELAIN MUSEUM. First opened in 1973, this museum is housed in the Casino del Cavaliere in the Boboli Gardens. The porcelain is from many of the most notable European porcelain factories, with Sèvres and Meissen near Dresden being well represented. Many items in the collection were gifts to the Florentine rulers from other European sovereigns, while other works were specially commissioned by the Grand Ducal court. Of particular note are several large dinner services by the Vincennes factory, later renamed Sèvres, and a collection of small biscuit figurines.

CARRIAGES MUSEUM. This ground f loor museum exhibits carriages and other conveyances used by the Grand Ducal court mainly in the late 18th and 19th century. The extent of the exhibition prompted one visitor in the 19th century to wonder, “In the name of all that is extraordinary, how can they find room for all these carriages and horses”. Some of the carriages are highly decorative, being adorned not only by gilt but by painted landscapes on their panels. Those used on the grandest occasions, such as the “Carrozza d’Oro” (golden carriage), are surmounted by gilt crowns which would have indicated the rank and station of the carriage’s occupants.

BOBOLI GARDENS. Connected to the Belvedere fort, the garden receives every year further 800.000 visitors, and it’s one of the most important Italian garden in the world. It’s real open-air museum, due to the architectural and landscape’s layout, and the sculptures collections, since the roman antiquity to the XIX century.

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The Museum of the“Cathedral”

The present museum was founded in 1891 and has continued to receive all the works that were removed and continue to be removed (to grant their preservation) from S. Maria del Fiore and from the Baptistery. The collection is therefore the best guide to the several changes that have occurred in Florentine official sculpture originating with the building of the cathedral and extending over the centuries. The most important works in the museum are by Michelangelo (“Pietà”), Donatello (“Mary Magdalen”), Arnolfo di Cambio (“Boniface VIII”) and Luca della Robbia (“Cantoria”).

The Museum of the “History of the Science”

The Museum of the History of the Science houses an important collection of scientific instruments in a carefully arranged layout, the proof that Florence’s interest in science from the thirteenth century onwards was as great as its interest in art. It was the interest of the Medici and Lorraine families in the natural sciences, physics and mathematics which prompted them to collect precious and visually beautiful scientific instruments along with paintings and other objects of art and natural curiosities; this provided the nucleus for this museum. It is well-known that Cosimo I and Francesco de’ Medici encouraged the scientific and artistic researches carried out in the Grand Ducal workshops, but also members of the Medici family in the seventeenth century protected and personally followed physics experiments in the full light of Galileo’s method. Very important the original scientific instruments used by Galileo Galilei.

Palazzo Vecchio Museum

The Building symbol of Florence and Medici family is visitable almost entirely (except the rooms of the Mayor) and it’s a must for anyone visiting Florence. Palazzo Vecchio is one of the most important symbols of Florence. Built as Palazzo dei Priori by Arnolfo di Cambio it has become a symbol of the Florentine Republic in 1300, and continues to be the center of power with the Signoria of the Medici (and the restructuring of the Vasari dated 1540). The tradition doesn’t stop even in our times as Palazzo Vecchio is now the seat of the Municipality of Florence.

Although the functions of representation due to municipal councils who meet in the amazing Hall called “Salone del Dugento” thanks to the Museum of “Monumental Quarters” you can visit most of the building that hosted the most famous Florentine People in the cultural and political life.

The insignia of the papacy includes the image of two Crossed Keys bound with a cord.

This represents the “keys to the Kingdom of Heaven” (Matthew 16:19; cf. Isaiah 22:22) and is in many ways the quintessential symbol of the Papacy as an institution and of its central role within the Catholic Church. Jesus’s statement to Simon Peter, “whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven”, is understood in Roman Catholic theology as establishing two jurisdictions, Heaven and Earth; the keys are said to represent these two jurisdictions.

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47 Good Morning >>> Buongiorno

Good Afternoon >>> Buon Pomeriggio

Good Evening >>> Buonasera

The Baptistry is crowned by a magnificent mosaic ceiling.

The earliest mosaics, works of art of many unknown Venetian craftsmen (including probably Cimabue), date from 1225. The covering of the ceiling started under the direction of the Franciscan friar Jacopo da Torrita and was probably not completed until the fourteenth century.

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It is a covered walk, almost a kilometre in length, an overhead passageway that starts out from the West Corridor of the Gallery, heads towards the Arno and then, raised up by huge arches, follows the river as far as the Ponte Vecchio, which it crosses by passing on top of the shops. On the other side of the Arno, the corridor passes through the interior of the church of Santa Felicita, Down the tops of the houses and the gardens of the Guicciardini family until it finally reaches the Boboli gardens and the apartments in the Pitti Palace. This collection, unique in the world, was created by Cardinal Leopoldo de’ Medici in the mid 17th century, a golden century for collections, and receives regular additions to this day. It displays self-portraits by Andrea del Sarto, Beccafumi, Bernini, Annibale Carracci, Guido Reni, Salvator Rosa, Rubens, Canova, Hayez, Corot, Ingres, Delacroix, Ensor and many others.

Palazzo Medici

Perhaps the most important section of the palace is still today the Chapel frescoed in 1459 by Benozzo Gozzoli representing the Magi. The frescoes explicitly referred to the train of the Concilium that met in Florence in 1439.

As a matter of fact many of the personalities portrayed are wealthy protagonists of the time and members of the Medici family.

Gallery of the“Hospital of the Innocents”

The Gallery of the “Hospital of the Innocents” is set in one of the best known and most important architectural complexes of the early fifteenth century in Florence. This was commissioned and financed by the Arte della Lana to the designs of Filippo Brunelleschi. The “hospital” aimed to raise abandoned children and teach them some useful trade enabling them to take their place in society. In the buildings of the refectory, cloisters, dormitories, infirmary, nurses’ rooms and porticoes, Brunelleschi created a perfect example of rational and harmonious hospital architecture subsequently enlarged and decorated with frescoes documenting the continuing activities of the institution and the favours of the reigning Medici family. After the 1966 f lood, the entire complex of buildings was completely restored in an attempt to return to its original fifteenth century appearance. The Gallery is placed in the loggia above the cloister and in the former dayroom of the children above the main portico. The Gallery contains also fine works of a collections made up over the centuries by gifts, bequestes and loans, apart from works, specifically executed for the Innocenti itself.

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I’m (American) >>> Sono americano

Vasari Corridor

I’m from (the U.S/ Italy) >>> Sono (statunitense, italiano)

The external sculptures and basreliefs above the doors and on the doors themselves are the most important works ever made in Tuscany. The gilded bronze doors were made respectively by Andrea Pisano in 1336 (the door now facing south) and by Lorenzo Ghiberti in 1427 and in 1452 (the two doors facing to the north and east). The latter door is known with the name of Gate of “Paradise” and represents one of the best artistic results ever achieved by the artist, who combines the rhythms of the late Gothic period to a newly learnt classical language.

Where are you from? >>> Di dove è?

Baptistery

City population

Number of museums

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Number Of Museums In Great Cities Of The World Florence

Paris

New York

London

Madrid

Rome

San Francisco

Berlin

Vienna

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The architecture of

Florence

F

lorence, like many cities of the Renaissance, had been built over m a ny yea rs a nd so wa s home to nu merous chu rches, public buildings, and houses constructed with Romanesque or Gothic architecture. Therefore, when a revival of classical styles became popular, new edifices in the classical style were built alongside or added to buildings of older styles.

Italian Renaissance architects based their theories and practices on Classical Roman examples.

The Renaissance revival of Classical Rome was as important in architecture as it was in literature. A pilgrimage to Rome to study the ancient buildings and ruins, especially the Colosseum and Pantheon, was considered essential to an architect’s training. Classical orders and architectura l elements such as colum ns, pilasters, pediments, entablatures, arches, and domes form the vocabulary of Renaissance buildings. Vitruvius’s writings on architecture also inf luenced the Renaissance definition of beauty in architecture.

As in the Classical world, Renaissance architecture is characterized by harmonious form, mathematical proportion, and a unit of measurement based on the human scale.

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“Florence is all that I have dreamed and more.”

CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON

HISTORY OF FLORENCE

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If you are overloaded by the Uffizi art collection you can enjoy the Uffizi terrace with amazing view on the city.

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Vasari Corridor

The Vasari Corridor was built in 5 months by order of Grand Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici in 1564, to the design of Giorgio Vasari. It was commissioned in connection with the marriage of Cosimo’s son, Francesco, with Johanna of Austria. The idea of an enclosed passageway was motivated by the Grand Duke’s desire to move freely between his residence and the government palace, when, like most monarchs of the period, he felt insecure in public, in his case especially because he had replaced the Republic of Florence. The meat market of Ponte Vecchio was moved to avoid its smell reaching into the passage, its place being taken by the goldsmith shops that still occupy the bridge. At the latter extremity, the corridor was forced to pass around the Mannelli’s Tower, after the staunch opposition of that family to its destruction.

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I live in (the U.S/ Italy) >>> Vivo (negli stati uniti / in Italia)

Building of the palace was begun by Uffizi Giorgio Vasari in 1560 for Cosimo I de’ Medici as the offices for the Florentine magistrates — hence the name “uffizi” (“offices”). Construction was continued to Vasari’s design by Alfonso Parigi and Bernardo Buontalenti and ended in 1581. The cortile (internal courtyard) is so long and narrow, and open to the Arno River at its far end through a Doric screen that articulates the space without blocking it, that architectural historians treat it as the first regularized streetscape of Europe. Vasari, a painter as well as architect, emphasized the perspective length by the matching facades’ continuous roof cornices, and unbroken cornices between storeys and the three continuous steps on which the palace-fronts stand. The niches in the piers that a lternate with colum ns were f illed with sculptures of famous artists in the 19th century.

Where do you live? >>> Dove vive?

Museums

Bargello

The Bargello pa lace was built to house first the Capitano del Popolo and later, in 1261, the ‘podestà’, the highest magistrate of the Florence City Council.

This Palazzo del Podestà, as it was originally called, is the oldest public building in Florence.

This austere crenellated building served as model for the construction of the Palazzo Vecchio. In 1574, the Medici dispensed with the function of the Podestà and housed the bargello, the police chief of Florence, in this building, hence its name. It was employed as a prison; executions took place in the Bargello’s yard until they were abolished by Grand Duke Peter Leopold in 1780, but it remained the headquarters of the Florentine police until 1859. When Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor Peter Leopold was exiled, the makeshift Governor of Tuscany decided that the Bargello should no longer be a jail, and it then became a national museum.

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Oh! That’s good! >>> Grande!

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I’ve been learning Italian for 1 month >>> imparo l’italiano da un mese

T he bui ld i ng t hat houses t he Musem (t hat wa s opened to t he public in 1869) is the old convent of Dominican order, restored and enlarged to its present size for Cosimo the Elder de’ Medici by the architect Michelozzo (1396-1472). Consacrated in 1443, this building was the scene of fervent religious activity and played host to personalities like S. Antonino Pierozzi, Bishop of Florence, Beato Angelico (c. 14001450) and later Girolamo Savonarola. The Museum offers visitors an example of a perfectly preserved 15th century convent, based on the rational and harmonious plan inspired by Bruschelleschi’s innovations. On the other hand, the complex also contains the works of Fra’ Angelico, a Dominican monk who closely collaborated with Michelozzo and his pupils to the fresco of the large alms-house, the refectory, the cloister and the monks’ cells on the first f loor. One of the most famous frescoes is the Crucifixion painted in the Chapter House, permeated by the contemplative melancholy found in the refined spirituality of the Dominicans. Among the frescoes of the cells, which are austere yet full of meditative inspiration for the brethren, we can find the Annunciation, the Three Maries at the Tomb , and the Noli me tangere.

I like Italian >>> Mi piace l’italiano

Museum of San Marco

Michelangelo referred to the Baptistry doors as the “Gates of Paradise”, and they are still invariably referred to by this name.

Giorgio Vasari described them as “undeniably perfect in every way and must rank as the finest masterpiece ever created” ANDREA PISANO As recommended by Giotto, Andrea Pisano was awarded the commission to design the first set of doors in 1329. The south doors were originally installed on the east side, facing the Duomo, and were transferred to their present location in 1452. The bronze-casting and gilding was done by the Venetian Leonardo d’Avanzano, widely recognized as one of the best bronze smiths in Europe. This took six years, the doors being completed in 1336. These proto-Renaissance doors consist of 28 quatrefoil panels, with the twenty top panels depicting scenes from the life of St. John the Baptist.

The eight lower panels depict the eight vir tues of hope, faith, charity, humility, for titude, temperance, justice and prudence. The moulded reliefs in the doorcase were added

by Lorenzo Ghiberti in 1452. There is a Latin inscription on top of the door : “Andreas Ugolini Nini de Pisis me fecit A.D. MCCCXXX” (Andrea Pisano made me in 1330).

T he g roup of bronze statues above the gate de pict T he Beheading of St John the Baptist. It is the masterwork of Vincenzo Danti from 1571.

LORENZO GHIBERTI In 1401, a competition was announced by the Ar te di Calimala to design doors which would eventually be placed on the nor th side of the baptistry. Ghiber ti won without a s in gle dissent ing voice. I t t ook G hiber t i 21 year s t o complete these doors. These gilded bronze doors consist of twenty-eight panels, with twenty panels depicting the life of Christ from the New Testament. The eight lower panels show the four evangelists and the Church Fathers S ain t Ambrose, Saint Jerome, Saint G re gor y and Saint Augustine. The panels are sur rounded by a framework of foliage in the door case and gilded busts of prophets and sibyls at the intersections of the panels. The bronze statues over the northern gate depict John the Baptist preaching to a Pharisee and Sadducee. They were sculpted by Francesco Rustici and are superior to any sculpture he did before.

Rustici may have been aided in his design by Leonardo da Vinci, who assisted him in the choice of his tools. Ghiberti was now widely recognized as a celebrity and the top artist in this field. He was showered with commissions, even from the pope. In 1425 he got a second commission, this time for the east doors of the baptistr y, on which he and his workshop (including Michelozzo and Benozzo Gozzoli) toiled for 27 years, excelling themselves. T hese had ten panels depicting scenes from the Old Testament.

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T he Ba si lica d i Sa nta Ma ria del Fiore, the Duomo, as it is ordinarily called, was begun in 1296 in the Gothic style to the design of Arnolfo di Cambio and completed structurally in 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.

The cathedral complex, located in Piazza del Duomo, includes the Baptister y and Giotto’s Campanile. The three buildings are part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site covering the historic centre of Florence and are a major attraction to tourists visiting the region of Tuscany.

The basilica is one of Italy’s largest churches, and until development of new structural materials in the modern era, the dome was the largest in the world. It remains the largest brick dome ever constructed.

San Giovanni Baptistery

The octagonal Baptistry stands in both the Pia zza del Duomo and the Piazza di San Giovanni, across from the Duomo cathedral and the Giotto bell tower (Campanile di Giotto). It is one of the oldest buildings in the city, built between 1059 and 1128. The architecture is in Florentine Romanesque style.

The Baptistry is renowned for its three sets of artistically important bronze doors with relief sculptures. The south doors were done by Andrea Pisano and the north and east doors by Lorenzo Ghiberti. The east pair of doors were dubbed by Michelangelo “the Gates of Paradise”.

The Italian poet Dante Alighieri and many other notable Renaissance figures, including members of the Medici family, were baptized in this baptistry. In fact, until the end of the nineteenth century, all Catholic Florentines were baptized here.

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Italy is a wonderful country >>> L’italia è un paese meraviglioso

Santa Maria del Fiore Cathedral

Did you like it here? >>> Ti piace qui?

Religious Architecture

On the right: Christ Among the Doctors

The Temptation

St. Mark

St. Luke

The Annunciation

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61 Good Morning >>> Buongiorno

Good Afternoon >>> Buon Pomeriggio

Good Evening >>> Buonasera

The Primo Chiostro, the main cloister, houses the Cappella dei Pazzi, built as the chapter house, completed in the 1470s. Filippo Br unelleschi (who had designed and executed the dome of the Duomo) was involved in its design which has remained rigorously simple and unadorned.

In 1560, the choir screen was removed as part of changes arising from the Counter-Reformation and the interior rebuilt by Giorgio Vasari. As a result, there was damage to the church’s decoration and most of the altars previously located on the screen were lost.

Basilica of Santa Croce

The Basilica is the largest Franciscan church in the world. Its most notable features are its sixteen chapels, many of them decorated with frescoes by Giotto and his pupils, and its tombs and cenotaphs.

Legend says that Santa Croce was founded by St Francis himself. The construction of the current church, to replace an older building, was begun on 12 May 1294, possibly by Arnolfo di Cambio, and paid for by some of the city’s wealthiest families. It was consecrated in 1442 by Pope Eugene IV. The building’s design ref lects the austere approach of the Franciscans. The f loorplan is an Egyptian or Tau cross (a symbol of St Francis), 115 metres in length with a nave and two aisles.

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A Jewish architect Niccolo Matas from Ancona, designed the church’s 19th century neo-Gothic facade, working a prominent Star of David into the composition. Matas had wanted to be buried with his peers but because he was Jewish, he was buried under the porch and not within the walls.

In 1866, the complex became public property, as a part of government suppression of most religious houses, following the wars that gained Italian independence and unity.

The Museo dell’Opera di Santa Croce is housed mainly in the refectory, also off the cloister. A monument to Florence Nightingale stands in the cloister, in the city in which she was born and after which she was named. Brunelleschi also built the inner cloister, completed in 1453.

ARCHITECTURE OF FLORENCE

Basilica of Santa Maria Novella

T his chu rch wa s ca l led Novel la (New) because it was built on the site of the 9th-century oratory of Santa Maria delle Vigne. When the site was assigned to Dominican Order in 1221, they decided to build a new church. The church was designed by two Dominican friars, Fra Sisto Fiorentino and Fra Ristoro da Campi.

Building began in the mid-13th century (about 1246), and was finished about 1360 under the supervision of Friar Iacopo Talenti with the completion of the Romanesque-Gothic bell tower and sacristy. At that time, only the lower part of the Tuscan gothic facade was finished. The church was consecrated in 1420.

Alberti attempted to bring the ideals of humanist architecture, proportion and classically-inspired detailing, to bear on the design while also creating harmony with the already existing medieval part of the facade. His contribution consists of a broad frieze decorated with squares and everything above it, including the four white-green pilasters and a round window, crowned by a pediment with the Dominican solar emblem, and f lanked on both sides by enormous S-curved volutes. The four columns with Corinthian capitals on the lower part of the facade were also added. The pediment and the frieze are clearly inspired by the antiquity, but the S-curved scrolls in the upper part are new and without precedent in antiquity. The scrolls (or variations of them), found in churches all over Italy, all find their origin here in the design of this church.

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I work as a (translator/ businessman) >>> Lavoro come (traduttore/ uomo d’affari) What do you do for a living? >>> Cosa fai per vivere?

On a commission from Giovanni di Paolo Rucellai, a local textile merchant, Leone Battista Alberti designed the upper part of the inlaid black and white marble facade of the church (1456–1470).

He was already famous as the architect of the Tempio Malatestiano in Rimini, but even more for his seminal treatise on architecture De Re Aedificatoria, based on the book De Architectura of the classical Roman writer Vitruvius. Alberti had also designed the facade for the Rucellai Palace in Florence.

T he mon k s m a ke fa mou s l ique u rs, honey a nd t i sa nes, wh ic h t hey sel l f rom a shop nex t to t he c hu rc h .

T he a m a zi ng nu merou s or na ment on t he Sa n M i n iato a l Monte faรงade capt u re you a nd you loose sen se of t i me look i ng at t hem .

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The mosaic depicting St. Miniato to the right of Christ holding a crown. The inscription reads: S. Located on the Via Calzaiuoli in Orsanmichele Florence, the church was originally built as a grain market in 1337 by Francesco Talenti, Neri di Fioravante, and Benci di Cione. Between 1380 and 1404 it was converted into a church used as the chapel of Florence’s powerful craft and trade guilds. On the ground floor of the square building are the 13th century arches that originally formed the loggia of the grain market. The second f loor was devoted to offices, while the third housed one of the city’s municipal grain storehouses, maintained to withstand famine or siege. Late in the 14th century, the guilds were charged by the city to commission statues of their patron saints to embellish the facades of the church. The sculptures seen today are copies, the originals having been removed to museums.

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I’m (twenty, thirty...) years old >>> Ho (venti, trenta …) anni

San Miniato al Monte (St. Minias on the Mountain) standing atop one of the highest points in the city. It has been described as one of the finest Romanesque structures in Tuscany and one of the most beautiful churches in Italy. There is an adjoining Olivetan monastery, seen to the right of the basilica when ascending the stairs. Construction of the present church was begun in 1013 by Bishop Alibrando and it was endowed by the Emperor Henry II. The adjoining monastery began as a Benedictine community, then passed to the Cluniacs and then in 1373 to the Olivetans, who still run it. The geometrically patterned marble façade was probably begun in about 1090, although the upper parts date from the 12th century or later, financed by the Florentine Arte di Calimala (cloth merchants’ guild), who were responsible for the church ’s upkeep from 1288. The eagle which crowns the façade was their symbol.

How old are you? >>> Quanti anni hai?

San Miniato al Monte

Palaces Palazzo Vecchio

In 1299, the commune and people of Florence decided to build a palace, worthy of the city’s importance and giving greater security, in times of turbulence, to the magistrates. Arnolfo di Cambio, the architect of the Duomo and the Santa Croce church, began constructing it upon the ruins of Palazzo dei Fanti and Palazzo dell ’Esecutore di Giustizia, once owned by the Uberti family. Giovanni Villani (1276–1348) wrote in his Nuova Cronica that the Uberti were “rebels of Florence and Ghibellines”, stating that the plaza was built so that the Uberti family homes would never be rebuilt on the same location. Giovanni Villani wrote that Arnolfo di Cambio incorporated the ancient tower of the Foraboschi family (the tower then known as “La Vacca” or “The Cow”) as the substructure of the tower into its facade; this is why the rectangular tower (height 94 m) is not directly centered in the building.

This tower contains two small cells, that, at different times, imprisoned Cosimo de’ Medici (the Elder) (1435) and Girolamo Savonarola (1498).

The tower is na med after its designer Torre d’Arnolfo. The solid cubicle shaped building is enhanced by the simple tower with its Giorgio Lederle’s clock. The large, one-handed clock was originally constructed by the Florentine Nicolò Bernardo, but was replaced in 1667 by a clock made by Vincenzo Viviani.

The cubical building is built in solid rusticated stonework, with two rows of two-lighted Gothic windows, each with a trefoil arch. Michelozzo Michelozzi added decorative bas-reliefs of the cross and the Florentine lily in the spandrels between the trefoils. The building is crowned with projecting crenellated battlement, supported by small arches and corbels. Under the arches are a repeated series of nine painted coats of arms of the Florentine republic. Some of these arches can be used as embrasures (spiombati) for dropping heated liquids or rocks on invaders.

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It is constructed in sandstone, with three large portals on the horizontal axis, and three stories of mullioned windows. The topmost floor has a loggia supported by four columns and two pilasters that was added in the 16th century. The façade displays the Davanzati coats of arms and has traces of other decorations.

The interior courtyard has arches, vaults, and capitals in 14th century-style.

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It’s 10 o’clock >>> Sono le dieci precise What time is it? >>> Che ore sono?

In 1910, Volpi opened the building as a private museu m (Museo Privato del la Ca sa Fiorentina Antica). The contents of this museum kept changing as Volpi sold the furniture at auctions, including in a major sale of 1916 in New York.

In the 1920s, Egyptian antique dealers Vitale and Leopoldo Bengujat acquired the building and its contents. In 1951 it was purchased by the Italian state and kept open as a museum. In 1995 it was closed for major restoration to consolidate the building that was falling down. The museum was partially reopened in 2005; the ground and first floors can now be visited. The palace consists of a facade that unifies a grouping of earlier, medieval tower homes that the owner purchased with the intent to put them together.

I will be right back! >>> Torno subito!

Palazzo Davanzati was erected in the second half of the 14th century by the Davizzi fa mily, who were wealthy members of the wool guild. In 1516 it was sold to the Bartolini and, later that century, to the Davanzati family, also rich merchants (1578), who held it until 1838. After the suicide of Carlo Davanzati, it was split into different quarters and modified. After escaping the numerous demolitions of 19th century Florence, it was bought by Elia Volpi, an antiquarian, who restored in (his impression of ) the original style.

I have to go >>> Devo andare

Palazzo Davanzati

Palazzo Medici Riccardi

The palace was designed by Michelozzo di Bartolomeo for Cosimo de’ Medici, head of the Medici banking family, and was built between 1445 and 1460. It was well known for its stone masonry that includes rustication and ashlar. The tripartite elevation used here expresses the Renaissance spirit of rationality, order, and classicism on human scale. This tripartite division is emphasized by horizontal stringcourses that divide the building into stories of decreasing height. The transition from the rusticated masonry of the ground f loor to the more delicately refined stonework of the third f loor makes the building seem lighter and taller as the eye moves upward to the massive cornice that caps and clearly defines the building’s outline.

Michelozzo di Bartolomeo was inf luenced in his building of this palace by both classical Roman and Brunelleschian principles. During the Renaissance revival of classical culture, ancient Roman elements were often replicated in architecture, both built and imagined in paintings. In the Palazzo Medici Riccardi, the rusticated masonry and the cornice had precedents in Roman practice, yet in totality it looks distinctly Florentine, unlike any known Roman building.

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Happy new year! >>> Felice anno nuovo!

Palazzo Strozzi is an example of civil architecture with its rusticated stone, inspired by the Palazzo Medici, but with more harmonious proportions.

Unlike the Medici Palace, which was sited on a corner lot, and thus has only two sides, this building, surrounded on all four sides by streets, is a free-standing structure. This introduced a problem new in Renaissance architecture, which, given the newly felt desire for internal symmetry of planning symmetry: how to integrate the crossaxis. The ground plan of Palazzo Strozzi is rigorously symmetrical on its two axes, with clearly differentiated scales of its principal rooms.

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Happy birthday! >>> Buon compleanno!

T he con st r uc t ion of t he pa l ace beg u n i n 1489 by B enedet to d a Maiano, for Filippo Strozzi the Elder, a rival of the Medici who had returned to the city in November 1466 and desired the most magnificent palace to assert his family’s continued prominence and, perhaps more important, a political statement of his own status. A great number of other buildings were acquired during the 70s and demolished to provide enough space for the new construction. Giuliano da Sangallo provided a wood model of the design. Filippo Strozzi died in 1491, long before the construction’s completion in 1538. Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici confiscated it in the same year, not returning it to the Strozzi family until thirty years later.

Good luck! >>> Buona fortuna!

Palazzo Strozzi

Palazzo Pitti might be overwhelming by its enormously reach collection. To restore your breath notice some small beautiful details around you like this handmade handrail.

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Enjoy! (for meals...) >>> Buon appetite!

Palazzo Pitti

Merry Christmas! >>> Buon natale!

Congratulations! >>> Congratulazioni!

The Pitti Pa lace is a vast mainly Renaissance palace in Florence. The construction of this severe and forbidding building was com missioned in 1458 by the Florentine banker Luca Pitti, a principal supporter and friend of Cosimo de’ Medici. The early history of the Palazzo Pitti is a mixture of fact and myth. Pitti is alleged to have instructed that the windows be larger than the entrance of the Palazzo Medici. The 16th-century art historian Giorgio Vasari proposed that Brunelleschi was the palazzo’s architect, and that his pupil Luca Fancelli was merely his assistant in the task but today it is Fancelli that is generally credited. Besides obvious differences from the elder architect’s style, Brunelleschi died 12 years before construction of the palazzo began. The design and fenestration suggest that the unknown architect was more experienced in utilitarian domestic architecture than in the humanist rules defined by Alberti in his book De Re Aedificatoria.

Though impressive, the original palazzo would have been no rival to the Florentine Medici residences in terms of either size or content. Whoever the architect of the Palazzo Pitti was, he was moving against the contemporary flow of fashion.

The rusticated stonework gives the palazzo a severe and powerful atmosphere, reinforced by the three-times-repeated series of seven arch-headed apertures, reminiscent of a Roman aqueduct. The Roman-style architecture appealed to the Florentine love of the new style all’antica. This original design has withstood the test of time: the repetitive formula of the façade was continued during the subsequent additions to the palazzo, and its inf luence can be seen in numerous 16th-centu ry imitations and 19th-century revivals. Work stopped after Pitti suffered financial losses following the death of Cosimo de’ Medici in 1464. Luca Pitti died in 1472 with the building unfinished.

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Giardino Delle Rose

In 1865 the City of Florence asked Giuseppe Poggi, the architect who masterminded the restructuring of the future Capital of the Kingdom of Italy, to turn his attention to the left bank of the Arno.

Poggi had the city buy about 2.5 acres of the hillside above Porta San Niccolò (upriver from the Ponte Vecchio) that Rose Garden, Poggi’s terraces towards the end of the century. It was May 1895, during the annual Festa di Belle Arti offer a magnificent view of the city. The which is patterned after similar French gardens, was planted on opened to the public in delle Arti e dei Fiori organized by the Society and the Italian Horticultural Society.

This public park, with its 160 hectares is the largest park in Florence; it begins at the Vittorio Veneto square on the Viali di Circonvallazione and ends at the Indiano Bridge, delimited by the Mugnone torrent and the Macinante canal. Popular sport place, it has many sports structures among others soccer fields, a velodrome, a shooting, the archery, swimming pools and two racetracks.

Besides locals and clubs it houses the memorial to the Indian prince Rajaram Chuttraputti, the Cascine’s pyramid, the amphitheater and the Military Aviation School Giulio Douhet.

Giardino Bardini

Giardino dei Semplici

The Giardino Bardini is an Italian Renaissance garden in Florence, Italy. Opened only recently to the public, it is relatively little-known. The garden boasts many statues and panoramic views over the city.

Wildlife in the garden includes rock pigeons, blackbirds and woodpigeons. Access is gained via the Via de’ Bardi, just over the road from the Museo Bardini in the Oltrarno district of the city, although the gardens exit onto the Costa di San Giorgio, onto which the Forte di Belevedere and the Giardino di Boboli connect in turn.

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Parco delle Cascine

Giardino dei Semplici is a botanical garden maintained by the University of Florence. The garden was established on December 1, 1545, by Cosimo I de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and is Europe’s third oldest. Today the garden contains some 9,000 plant specimens laid out in a roughly square site surrounded by walls, crossed by a grid of walkways, and with a central fountain. Some trees are quite old, including a Taxus baccata (1720) and Quercus suber (1805).

ARCHITECTURE OF FLORENCE

Boboli Gardens

T he BOBOL I G A R DENS we re not famous until the land became the property of the Medici family, who called in Niccolò Pericoli, known as Tribolo, to design them; this artist created a masterpiece of “landscape architecture” between 1550 and 1558. T he B obol i pa rk, on t he prope r t y of the Pitti Pa lace, was planned to occupy a scenographic setting on the slopes of the Boboli hill (covering 320.000 square metres). The park was enriched with many Mannerist inventions by Buontalenti (like the Grotta Grande), fountains and statues by Ammannati, Giambologna and

Tacca, and was eventually completed by Giulio and Alfonso Parigi (1631- 1656). The two architects, father and son, carried out the stone Amphitheatre, the unique setting for many celebrated theatrical performances, the cypress alley known as the “Viottolone” and the square and pool of Isolotto. The last additions, like the Coffeehouse (1774-76), the Lawn of the Columns (1776) and the Lemonary (1785), were later installed by the Lorriane family. Pietro Leopoldo decided to open the garden to the public in 1776. The design of the Boboli Gardens was used as a basis for all the royal gardens in Europe, including Versailles.

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Say hi to John for me >>> Saluta John da parte mia!

Bless you (when sneezing) >>> Salute!

Good night and sweet dreams! >>> Buona notte e sogni d’oro!

Park And Gardens

The Belvedere Fort

The Forte di Belvedere or Fortezza di Santa Maria in San Giorgio del Belvedere (often called simply Belvedere) is a fortification in Florence, Italy. It was built by Grand Duke Ferdinando I de’ Medici during the period 1590 –1595, with Bernardo Buontalenti as the designer, to protect the city and its rule by the Medici family. In particular, it was used to hold the Medici treasury. On the same side of the river as the Grand Ducal palace, the Pitti Palace in the Oltrarno district of the city, today the grounds provide spectacular outlooks over Florence; the buildings are used to hold works of art, and as a venue for exhibitions of contemporary sculpture.

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Villa Palmieri, Fiesole

The Villa Palmieri, is a patrician vi l la i n t he pict uresque tow n of Fiesole t hat overlooks Florence.

The villa’s gardens on slopes below the piazza S. Domenico of Fiesole are credited with being the paradisal setting for the frame story of Boccaccio’s Decamerone. The villa’s entrance from the town is in via Giovanni Boccaccio. The villa was certainly in existence at the end of the 14th century, when it was a possession of the Fini, who sold it in 1454 to the noted humanist scholar Marco Palmieri, whose name it still bears. In 1697, Palmiero Palmieri commenced a restructuring of the gardens, sweeping away all vestiges of the earlier garden to create a south-facing terrace, an arcaded loggia of five bays and the symmetrically paired curved stairs (a tenaglia) that lead to the lemon garden in the lower level.

The often-photographed lemon garden survives, though postwar renovation stripped the baroque decors from the villa’s stuccoed façade.

ARCHITECTURE OF FLORENCE

The Belvedere Fort

The Forte di Belvedere or Fortezza di Santa Maria in San Giorgio del Belvedere (often called simply Belvedere) is a fortification in Florence, Italy. It was built by Grand Duke Ferdinando I de’ Medici during the period 1590 –1595, with Bernardo Buontalenti as the designer, to protect the city and its rule by the Medici family. In particular, it was used to hold the Medici treasury. On the same side of the river as the Grand Ducal palace, the Pitti Palace in the Oltrarno district of the city, today the grounds provide spectacular outlooks over Florence; the buildings are used to hold works of art, and as a venue for exhibitions of contemporary sculpture.

Villa di Quarto

The Villa di Quarto is a villa on via di Quarto in Florence, in the hilly zone at the foot of the Monte Morello. Quarto (fourth) is one of the toponyms relati ng to t he Rom a n m i lestones, t he most famous of which in this area is Sesto Fiorentino, of 45,000 inhabitants. The villa was built in the 15th century and, after various changes of ownership, in 1613 it passed to the Pasquali family, who had it rebuilt by Alfonso Parigi, designer of the Boboli extension. In the 19th century the villa took on its present appearance – it then belonged to Jérôme Bonaparte, former king of Westphalia, who left it to his daughter Mathilde Bonaparte, wife of the Russian nobleman and industrialist Anatole Demidov. It then changed hands again a few more times before being acquired in 1908 by baron Ritter de Zahony, who totally restored it.

The villa’s guests included the French historian and statistician Adolphe Thiers and the American writer Mark Twain. – Twain’s wife died here.

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No Problem! >>> Non c’è problema!

Sorry (for a mistake) >>> Mi scusi!

The Villa Medici at Carreggi was a patrician Florentine house. The villa was among the first of a number of Medici villas, notable as the site of the Platonic academy founded by Cosimo de’ Medici, who died at the villa in 1464. Like most villas of Florentine families, the villa remained a working farm that helped render the family self-sufficient. Cosimo’s architect there, as elsewhere, was Michelozzo, who remodelled the fortified villa which had something of the character of a castello. Its famous garden is walled about, like a medieval garden, overlooked by the upper-storey loggias, with which Michelozzo cautiously opened up the villa’s structure.

Michelozzo’s Villa Medici in Fiesole has a more outward-looking, Renaissance character.

Villa Medici at Careggi

I’m Sorry! (if you don’t hear something) >>> Sono spiacente!

Villas

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HISTORY OF FLORENCE

HISTORY OF FLORENCE

CHAPTER 1

77 Good Morning >>> Buongiorno

Good Afternoon >>> Buon Pomeriggio

Good Evening >>> Buonasera

Piazza del Duomo

P i a z z a d e l D u o m o (i n E n gl i s h : “Cathedral Square”) is located in the heart of the historic center of Florence, (Tuscany - Ita ly) . It is one of the most visited places in Europe and the world; here we can find the Florence Cathedral with the Cupola del Brunelleschi, the Giotto’s Campanile, the Florence Baptistery, the Loggia del Bigallo, the Opera del Duomo Museum, and the Arcivescovile and Canonici’s palace. The west zone of this square is called San Giovanni square.

Piazza San Marco

Piazza San Marco was built in the first half of the 15th century when Cosi mo t he Elder com m issioned Michelozzo to build a church and a monastery for Dominican monks from the convent of San Domenico in Fiesole. The square was the site of dramatic clashes between the followers of Ferraran monks and their opponents.

At the entrance of Via Battisti is a palace that houses the central offices of the Rector of the University of Florence. The opposite corner houses the Academy of Fine Arts. In the center of the square lies the statue of General Manfredo Fanti, a famous Italian general during the era of Italian unification.

On another corner of the square lies the Monastery of St. Catherine. Another notable landmark on the piazza is the Farmacia di San Marco near via Cavour, once run by the Dominicans, who were considered expert in medicinal preparations.

Today the piazza is a transportation hub and meeting point for university students from the Universit y of Florence a nd t he a r t academy.

Numerous cafes line the streets of the piazza, including the Gran Caffè San Marco, a famous literary meeting place for philosophers, artists, painters, professors and students.

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In 1287, with a decreto of the Florentine Republic, Piazza of Santa Maria Novella was to be created and given to the Dominicans for decoro, or decorum and ornament, to the new church being built. Right away, the piazza became theater to festivals, tournaments and other contests.

The two obelisks of marble from Serravezza, each one sitting atop four bronze turtles by Giambologna and topped with a Florentine lily, were the “goals” for the “Palio dei Cocchi”.

On the side opposite the church, the Loggia of the San Paolo hospital was built at the beginning of the 13th century. In the second half of the 15th century, the hospital was enlarged and given the loggia with stone columns.

The arches between each colum n have round glazed terracotta reliefs of saints by Andrea della Robbia. The lunette shaped relief of The Embrace between St. Dominque and St. Francis over the right portal is also by Andrea della Robbia.

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Can you speak slowly? >>> Potrebbe parlare lentamente?

Piazza of Santa Maria Novella

Can you say it again? >>> Potrebbe ripetere per favore?

Squares

Piazza della Santissima Annunziata

One of the most beautiful piazzas in Florence, Piazza della Santissima Annunziata exemplifies the stylistic harmony of some of the greatest architects of the Renaissance. The church that gives the piazza its name, the Santissima Annunziata, lies behind the central portico of the piazza.

The area of the piazza was chosen in 1250 as a space for a little church. At the time the piazza lay in open countr yside outside the wa lls of Florence, in an area called Cafaggio. The church houses the Miraculous Annunciation, a masterpiece that according to legend was painted by an angel. The church became the destination of pilgrimages and processions and it soon became necessary to expand the church and the piazza, in addition to connecting it to the city center.

T he pia z z a i s f l a n ked by t he Br u nel lesc h idesigned and La Robbia-decorated façade of the Spedale degli Innocenti which was the first orphanage in Europe.

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The building is inspired by classical models that Brunelleschi studied in Rome. Under the loggia of the hospital, is still possible to observe the famous wheel where you could anonymously leave babies by placing them into a cavity that opened as the wheel turned. Ophans were called “Innocents”, which is still how they are com monly called in Florence. The Spedale today houses a museum as well as some offices of UNICEF. Giambologna’s last statue of Ferdinando I de’ Medici, was finished by his student Pietro Tacca and sits in the center of the piazza. Tacca also designed the two Baroque bronze fountains on the piazza.

On the south side of the piazza lies the Palazzo Gattai Puddings, formerly Palazzo Grifoni, built in 1563-1574 by Bartolomeo Ammannati for the Secretary of Cosimo di Jacopo Ugolino Grifoni.

Today the piazza is the spot for special festivals and holidays such as the March 25 Feast of the Annunciation and the September 7 Rificolona day.

ARCHITECTURE OF FLORENCE

I Don’t Know! >>> Non lo so!

I don’t understand! >>> Non capisco!

Piazza della Repubblica is one of the largest and most famous city squares in Florence. It is the original site of the Roman Forum and the center of Roman Florence. Centuries later it was home to the city’s Jewish ghetto, which was demolished during the period of the city’s i mprovement works i nitiated wh i le Florence was the capital of a reunited Italy. The ghetto’s remains can still be seen on the square.

The square today is full of street artists and impromptu shows, particularly after sunset. It is also home to the historical Caffé Gilli, Caffé Paskowski and Caffé delle Giubbe Rosse, which were meeting points for many of the city’s artists and writers in the past. Also facing onto the piazza are the Hotel Savoy on Via Roma and the central Post Office, located under the arches of the portico that extends to each side of the Arch of Triumph.

Piazza della Signoria

It is the focal point of the origin and of the history of the Florentine Republic and still maintains its reputation as the political hub of the city. The impressive 14th century Palazzo Vecchio is still preeminent with its crenellated tower. The square is also shared with the Loggia della Signoria, the Uffizi Gallery, the Palace of the Tribunale della Mercanzia (now the Bureau of Agriculture), and the Uguccioni Palace (16th century, with a facade by Raphael). Located in front of the Palazzo Vecchio is the Palace of the Assicurazioni Generali.

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Write it down, please! >>> Lo scriva per favore

Piazza della Repubblica

The List Of The Main Architectural Works In Florence Area By Period PRE-HISTORIC,

GREEK , ROMAN >>> ROMANESQUE >>> 82

8 BC

Necropoli of Palastreto

7 BC

Tomba della Mula

3-4 BC

Archaeological area of Fiesole

2 BC

Roman Amphitheatre of Florence

4-5 AD

Remainings of Santa Reparata

6 AD

Torre della Pagliazza

10 AD

Badia di San Salvatore

10 AD

Badia Fiorentina

10-11 AD

Church of Santi Apostoli

11-14 AD

Baptistery of San Giovanni

1018–1207

Church of San Miniato al Monte

1024–1028

Cathedral of Fiesole

1025–1028

Badia Fiesolana

10 AD

Church of San Salvatore al Vescovo

10-13 AD

Church of Santa Maria Maggiore

11-12 AD

Church of Santo Stefano al Ponte

11-16 AD

Church of San Michele a San Salvi

12 AD

Church of San Jacopo sopr’Arno

12-14 AD

Church of San Jacopo in Campo Corbolini

13-14 AD

Church of San Remigio

13 AD

Torre della Castagna

1256–1327

Palazzo del Bargello

Neri di Fioravante

13 AD

Torre dei Ghiberti

and Benci di Cione

13 AD

Torre dei Ricci

13 AD

Torri di Corso Donati

13 AD

Torre dei Marsili

13 AD

Torre degli Amidei

13 AD

Torre degli Alberti

1260-1273

Palazzo de’ Mozzi

1284

Porta San Gallo

1284

Porta al Prato

from 1289

Palazzo Spini-Feroni

1290

Torre dei Gianfigliazzi

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ARCHITECTURE OF FLORENCE

Santa Maria Novella and convent

Fra’ Sisto da Firenze and

1285

Belltower of Badia Fiorentina

Fra’ Ristoro da Campi

from 1294

Basilica of Santa Croce

1296–1421

Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore

1299–1314

Palazzo Vecchio (first phase)

1324

Porta San Niccolò

1326

Porta Romana

from 1330

Church of San Francesco (Fiesole)

1332

Porta San Frediano

1334–1357

Giotto’s Belltower

1337–1404

Orsanmichele

Giotto

from 1342

Certosa del Galluzzo

Francesco Talenti

1345

Ponte Vecchio

Simone Talenti

14 AD

Palazzo Castellani

Jacopo Passavanti

14 AD

Palazzo dell’Arte dei Beccai

1349–1404

Church of San Carlo dei Lombardi

Neri di Fioravante

1350

Palazzo Davanzati

Benci di Cione

1352–1358

Loggia del Bigallo

Alberto Arnoldi

14 AD

Palazzo Acciaiuoli

14 AD

Palazzo Canigiani

1374–1381

Loggia della Signoria

14-15 AD

Palazzo di Parte Guelfa

ARCHITECTURE OF FLORENCE

I’m hungry/ thirsty. >>> Sono Affamato/ Assetato

Church of Santa Trinita

1278–1360

Arnolfo di Cambio

CHAPTER 3

Here you go! (when giving something) >>> Eccolo!

GOTHIC >>>

1250–1380

83

RENAISSANCE (15TH CENTURY) >>>

1410

Palazzo Bardi

1418–1434

Dome of Santa Maria del Fiore

1418–1423

Sacristy of Santa Trinita

1419–1426

Spedale degli Innocenti

1419-1438

Convent of San Domenico

1419–1460

Basilica of San Lorenzo

1420–1429

Sagrestia Vecchia of San Lorenzo

1425

Barbadori Chapel in Santa Felicita

1427

Palazzo Capponi da Uzzano

1430

Palazzo Lenzi-Quaratesi

14-15 AD

Church of Sant’Ambrogio

15 AD

Church of San Niccolò sopr’Arno

1268–1475

Church of Santa Maria del Carmine

1380-1450

Monastery of Sant’Apollonia

1430–1473

Pazzi Chapel and Grand Cloister of Santa Croce

1435–1440

Chiostro degli Aranci

1437–1452

Church and San Marco

1439–1442

Façade of Santa Maria Novella

1375–1470

Former church of San Pancrazio

1444–1469

Palazzo Medici Riccardi

1444–1476

Basilica of Santissima Annunziata

1446–1451

Palazzo Rucellai

1446–1488

Church of Santo Spirito

1451–1469

Palazzo dello Strozzino

1456–1464

Badia Fiesolana

1457

Church of San Felice in Piazza

1457–1482

Villa Medici at Careggi

1457–1461

Villa Medici at Fiesole

1457–1470

First nucleus of Palazzo Pitti

1458–1469

Palazzo Pazzi

1460–1466

Loggia Rucellai

1461–1466

Palazzo Antinori

1472–1490

Palazzo Della Gherardesca

1480–1490

Palazzo Horne

1481–1500

Church of Santa Maria

Lorenzo Ghiberti Michelozzo

Lorenzo di Bicci

Filippo Brunelleschi

Giuliano da Maiano

Luca Fancelli Leon Battista Alberti

Maddalena dei Pazzi

84

1485-1494

Villa Medici of Poggio a Caiano

1488–1497

Sagrestia di Santo Spirito

1489–1496

Loggia di San Paolo

1489–1534

Palazzo Strozzi

1490–1501

Palazzo Gondi

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ARCHITECTURE OF FLORENCE

Giuliano da Sangallo

Church of San Salvatore al Monte

1500

Palazzo Cocchi-Serristori

1500

Palazzo Albizi

1500

Palazzo Panciatichi-Ximenes

1500

Palazzo Corsini-Serristori

1503–1504

Palazzo Taddei

1503–1506

Palazzo Guadagni

16 AD

Chiostro dello Scalzo

1510

Palazzo Ginori

1515–1520

Palazzo Pandolfini

1516–1525

Loggiato dei Serviti

1517

Palazzo Borgherini-Rosselli del Turco

1517–1520

Palazzo Bartolini Salimbeni

1519–1534

Sagrestia Nuova of San Lorenzo

1519–1559

Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana

1520

Church of San Giuseppe

Antonio da Sangallo

1534

Villa i Collazzi

the Elder

1534–1535

Fortezza da Basso

Niccolò Tribolo

1540–1592

Villa di Castello

1546–1564

Loggia del Mercato Nuovo

Baccio d’Agnolo

1550

Palazzo Uguccioni

Giovanni Battista del Tasso

1550

Church of San Giovannino dei Cavalieri

Michelangelo Buonarroti

1550

Palazzo Niccolini

1550–1588

Boboli Gardens

Antonio da Sangallo

1557–1563

Palazzo Grifoni-Budini Gattai

the Younger

1558–1577

Enlargement of Palazzo Pitti

1559–1580

Uffizi

1559–1585

Palazzo Capponi-Vettori

1565

Corridoio Vasariano

1565–1570

Palazzo Pucci

1567

Loggia del Pesce

1567–1570

Palazzo di Bianca Cappello

1565–1570

Palazzo Portinari Salviati

1567–1570

Ponte Santa Trinita

1568–1572

Palazzo Ramirez da Montalvo

1568–1574

Casino Mediceo

1576–1589

Villa La Petraia

1577

Palazzo Giugni

1578–1579

Palazzo Zuccari

Federico Zuccari

1580

Palazzo Larderel

Giovanni Dosio

1583–1593

Grotta del Buontalenti

1590–1595

Forte Belvedere

1593

Façade of Santa Trinita

1593–1604

Palazzo Nonfinito

1594–1596

Villa La Ferdinanda

Bernardo Buontalenti Giuliano Antonio da Sangallo il Vecchio

I need a doctor >>> Ho bisogno di un dottore!

Annexation of the Palazzo Vecchio

1500

I feel sick >>> Mi sento male!

Giuliano da Sangallo

Raffaello

Bartolomeo Ammannati

Giorgio Vasari

Bernardo Buontalenti

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I love you! >>> Ti amo!/ Ti voglio bene!o

<<< LATE RENAISSANCE AND MANNERISM (16TH CENTURY)

Il Cronaca

1495–1590

86

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<<< NEOCLASSICISM, EMPIRE AND ART NOUVEAU <<< MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY ARCHITECTURE

1857–1863

Facciata della basilica di Santa Croce

1862–1866

Piazza d’Azeglio

1865–1873

Piazza della Libertà

1865–1877

Piazza Beccaria

1865–1876

Piazza Giuseppe Poggi

1869–1874

Mercato Centrale di San Lorenzo

1871–1876

Viale dei Colli and piazzale Michelangelo

1873

Palazzo Serristori

Mariano Falcini

1874–1882

Tempio israelitico di Firenze

Vincenzo Micheli

1875–1910

Reconstruction of the Casa di Dante

Giuseppe Castellucci

1876–1887

Façade of Santa Maria del Fiore

Emilio De Fabris

1880–1888

Villa Stibbert

Gaetano Fortini

1883–1896

Piazza della Repubblica

1890-1910

Museo Bardini

Stefano Bardini

1899–1903

Chiesa Russa Ortodossa della Natività

Michail Preobragenski

1900

Villa il Gioiello and Torre del Gallo

1901–1910

Chiesa dei Sette Santi Fondatori

Luigi Caldini

1901–1903

Palazzo Pola e Todescan

Giuseppe Paciarelli

1904–1914

Palazzo delle Poste

Rodolfo Sabatini

1905

Ricostruzione del Palazzo dell’Arte della Lana

Enrico Lusini

1907–1910

Villino Lampredi

Giovanni Michelazzi

1910–1911

Villino Broggi-Caraceni

1911

Casa-galleria Vichi

1911–1912

Galleria Rinaldo Carnielo

Rinaldo Carnielo

1911–1935

Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze

Cesare Bazzani

1929–1934

Centrale termica e cabina apparati centrali

Angiolo Mazzoni

1929–1932

Stadio Artemio Franchi

Pier Luigi Nervi

1932–1934

Santa Maria Novella station

Gruppo Toscano

1934–1936

Casa del Mutilato

Rodolfo Sabatini

1935

Palazzina Reale di Santa Maria Novella

Raffaello Fagnoni

1937–1938

Scuola di guerra aerea

1939–1940

Manifattura Tabacchi and Teatro Puccini

1946–1953

Ponte alle Grazie

1952–1962

Residential complex at Monterinaldi

Leonardo Ricci

1953–1957

Headquarters of the Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze

Giovanni Michelucci

1954–1957

Ponte Vespucci

Riccardo Morandi

1956–1962

Chiesa del Sacro Cuore

Pier Luigi Nervi

1957

Edificio ex-Bica

Italo Gamberini

1959–1967

Sede della direzione provinciale delle poste telegrafi

1960–1964

Chiesa dell’Autostrada

1961–1966

Headquarters of La Nazione

1962–1968

RAI regional seat

1962–1980

Sorgane

1964–1967

Edificio residenziale di via Piagentina

1966

Villa Bayon

1967–1969

Ponte Giovanni da Verrazzano

1968–1972

Palazzo ex-Nuova Italia

Edoardo Detti

1969–1976

Ponte all’Indiano

Fabrizio De Mirandola

1972

Centro Leasing

Silvano Zorzi

1972–1978

Archivio di Stato di Firenze

Augusto Bianco

1973–1976

Residential building in piazza San Jacopino

Marco Dezzi Bardeschi

Niccolò Matas

Giuseppe Poggi

Ufficio tecnico dei Monopoli di Stato

Leonardo Savioli

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CHAPTER 4

Great

Florentines

F

lorence i s a bove a l l a c it y of art. Florence is the birthplace of many famous people such as Dante, Boccaccio, Machaivelli and Galileo Galilei. Florence was made more beautiful by the works of art of Michelangelo, Brunelleschi, Botticelli, Donatello and Giotto. Whoever visits Florence cannot ever be deluded. This thanks to its cultural and artistic inheritance almost unique in Europe and in the world, which has its base in the middle age and its maximum glory in the Renaissance.

Florence and Rome are the history of our civility.

In Florence , in the XV century, bases were set to ref lourish art and culture, here thanks to writers like Dante, Petrarca and Macchaivelli, culture and the Italian language were born. Artists like Botticelli , Michelangelo and Donatello made Florence to be one of the artistic capitals in the world.

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“I live in Florence in an excellent coole terrene, eat good melons, drink” wholesome wines, look upon excellent devout pictures, heer choyse musique.”

SIR TOBIE MATTHEW

HISTORY OF FLORENCE

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Leonardo Da Vinci Born on April 15, 1452, in Vinci, just outside Florence, Leonardo was the illegitimate son of a 25-year-old notary, Ser Piero, and a peasant girl, Caterina. Growing up in his father’s Vinci home, Leonardo had access to scholarly texts and was also exposed to Vinci’s longstanding painting tradition, and when he was about 15 his father apprenticed him to the renowned workshop of Andrea del Verrochio in Florence, where he was an apprentice until 1477 when he set up a shingle for himself.

In search of new challenges and money, he entered the service of the Duke of Milan in 1482, abandoning his first commission in Florence, “The Adoration of the Magi”. He spent 17 years in Milan, leaving only after Duke Ludovico Sforza’s fall from power in 1499. It was during these years that Leonardo reached new heights of scientific and artistic achievement, painting and sculpting and designing elaborate court festivals and designing weapons, buildings and machinery. His studies from this period contain designs for advanced weapons, including a tank and other war vehicles, various combat devices, and submarines. Also during this period, Leonardo produced his first anatomical studies.

After the invasion by the French and Ludovico Sforza’s fall from power in 1499, Leonardo was left to search for a new patron and over the next 16 years, Leonardo worked and traveled throughout Italy for a number of employers.

About 1503, Leonardo reportedly began work on the “Mona Lisa”.

From 1513 to 1516, he worked in Rome, maintaining a workshop and undertaking a variety of projects for the Pope. He continued his studies of human anatomy and physiology, but the Pope forbade him from dissecting cadavers.

Following the death of his patron Giuliano de’ Medici in March 1516, he was offered the title of Premier Painter and Engineer and Architect of the King by Francis I in France. Although suffering from a paralysis of the right hand, Leonardo was still able to draw and teach. He produced studies for the Virgin Mary from “The Virgin and Child with St. Anne”, studies of cats, horses, dragons, St. George, anatomical studies, studies on the nature of water, drawings of the Deluge, and of various machines.

Leonardo died on May 2, 1519 in Cloux, France. Legend has it that King Francis was at his side when he died, cradling Leonardo’s head in his arms.

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It was during this time that he completed the Madonna of the Stairs and the Battle of the Centaurs. Due to the political climate in Florence Michelangelo left the city, and went to Rome where he carved the Bacchus and then the Pietà, which is in St. Peter’s basilica in Rome.

Michelangelo returned to Florence where he began work on the David.

Called the “Giant” by his fellow Florentines, this statue was completed in 1504 and can now be found in the Accademia gallery in Florence. During this same time period, Michelangelo produced several Madonnas; including the painting the Holy Family, a statue of the Madonna and Child and two marble reliefs, the Taddei tondo and the Pitti tondo.

Michelangelo was called to Rome by Pope Julius II to create a tomb for him which was to contain forty lifesize figures, an endeavor that was never fully realized as in 1508, Michelangelo began work on the Sistine Chapel ceiling frescoes. Following Julius’ death in 1513, he worked for Pope Leo X, Lorenzo de’ Medici’s son. At the Medici family’s parish church, San Lorenzo, Michelangelo created tombs for Giuliano and Lorenzo de’ Medici II and designed the Laurentian library, an annex to San Lorenzo.

In 1534, Michelangelo left Florence for Rome, where he was to spend the remainder of his life. He returned to the Sistine Chapel where he created the Last Judgment on the end wall and designed the dome for St. Peter’s and the Capitoline Square. His last paintings were the frescoes of the Conversion of St. Paul and the Crucifixion of St. Peter in the Pauline Chapel in the Vatican. Michelangelo died on February 18, 1564.

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What does “gato” mean in English? >>> Cosa significa “scusami” in inglese?

Michelangelo Buonarroti was born on March 6, 1475 in Caprese, Italy. At the age of 13, he was apprenticed to Domenico Ghirlandaio, from whom he learned the technique of fresco; he would use this technique many years later in his work in the Sistine Chapel in Rome. At the age of fifteen, Michelangelo began to spend time in the home and gardens of Lorenzo de’ Medici, where he studied sculpture under Bertoldo di Giovanni. Michelangelo was to be a protégé of the Medici family for the rest of his life, even when he fought against them during the famous siege of Florence in 1530.

What’s that called in Italian? >>> Come si chiama quella cosa in italiano?

Michelangelo Buonarroti

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Dante’s first studies were mainly in rhetoric, grammar, philosophy, literature and theology. He was a disciple of Brunetto Latini, who strongly inf luenced Dante’s cultural growth. In his youth, he was a Stilnovo poet and had many friends among the other members of the Stilnovo Poetical School, especially Guido Cavalcanti. After the death of Bice di Folco Portinari, with whom Dante was in love, he began studying philosophy and theology in depth, also attending some of the Florentine cultural associations, which provided lessons mainly about Aristotle and St. Thomas.

His political career began when Dante joined a Medical Corporation in 1295. In the following five years his career grew quickly and culminated in his becoming a priore, a type of governor, in 1300. However, due to serious internal struggles between the white and black guelfi Dante made some hard-line political decisions, which resulted in him being sentenced to death.

From this moment on, Dante roamed many Italian courts never again to return to Florence, He died in Ravenna, in 1321 and was buried in San Pier Maggiore’s Church where his tomb still exists today.

Dante wrote many works including the Vita Nuova, Convivio and De Vulgari Eloquentia. However the Divina Commedia (Italian for “divine comedy”) is Dante’s masterpiece and is the best literal expression of medieval culture. The Dante’s original title of the work was simply Commedia, but then Giovanni Boccaccio suggested adding the adjective Divina (“divine”) in order both to explain the kind of content and to celebrate the greatness and beauty of the work. Dante’s main purpose in writing the Commedia was to preach the necessity of a moral and religious renewal for everybody, in order to get ready for the after-life and to ascend to Heaven, eternally saved.

Dante acts as a prophet who speaks on behalf of God to the whole mankind.

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Don’t worry! >>> non ti preoccupare !

What is this? >>> Cos’è questa cosa?

Durante Alighieri (Dante being a nickname) was born in Florence in May or June 1265, into a low-aristocracy family, who were not very wealthy, of the Guelfo party. Dante himself went onto become a white guelfo. In about 1285 he married Gemma di Manetto Donati, and they had three or maybe four children.

How do you say “Please” in Italian? >>> Come dite “please” in italiano?

Dante Alighieri

Filippo Brunelleschi Brunelleschi was born in Florence in 1377 and received his early training as an artisan in silver and gold. In 1401 he entered, and lost to Ghiberti, the famous design competition for the bronze doors of the Florence Baptistery.

He then turned to architecture and in 1418 received the commission to execute the dome of the unfinished Gothic Cathedral of Florence, also known as the Duomo. The dome, a great innovation both artistically and technically, consists of two octagonal vaults, one inside the other. Its shape was dictated by its structural needs—one of the first examples of architectural functionalism. This was the first time that a dome created the same strong effect on the exterior as it did on the interior. In other buildings in Florence, such as the Medici Church of San Lorenzo and the “Spedale degli Innocenti”, Brunelleschi devised an austere, geometric style inspired by ancient Rome. Brunelleschi’s style of “wall architecture,” with its flat facades, set the tone for many of the later buildings of the Florentine Renaissance.

Later in his career, notably in the unfinished Church of Santa Maria degli Angeli, the Basilica of Santo Spirito, and the Pazzi Chapel, he moved away from this linear, geometric style to a somewhat more sculptural, rhythmic style. This style, with its expressive interplay of solids and voids, was the first step toward an architecture that led eventually to the baroque.

Brunelleschi was also an important innovator in other areas. Along with the painter Masaccio, he was one of the first Renaissance masters to rediscover the laws of scientific perspective. He executed two perspective paintings (now lost), probably between 1415 and 1420, and he is also credited with having painted the architectural background in one of Masaccio’s early works. His inf luence on his contemporaries and immediate followers was very strong and has been felt even in the 20th century, when modern architects came to revere him as the first great exponent of rational architecture.

Brunelleschi died in Florence in 1446.

His revival of classical forms and his championing of an architecture based on mathematics, proportion, and perspective make him a key artistic figure in the transition from the Middle Ages to the modern era.

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See you later! >>> A dopo

In 1340 ha came back to Florence and on the death of his father in 1348, he became the guardian of a younger brother. He held certain public offices in Florence and was entrusted with diplomatic missions to Padua, the Romagna, Avignon, and elsewhere. After 1350 began his friendship with Petrarch, which lasted until the latter’s death in 1374. In spite of his advanced age and the political dissensions in Florence which aff licted him sorely, in 1373 he began his course of lectures in Florence on the poems of Dante. He died two years later at his ancestral home in Certaldo.

Boccaccio’s works include the “Filocolo”, his first work written in about 1340, the “Ameto”, “Amorosa Visione”, the “Teseide”, probably of the year 1341, is the first artistic work in ottava rima. The “Ninfale Fiesolano”, a short poem in ottava rima, is the best, in style and invention, of the minor works of Boccaccio. The “Vita di Dante” (about 1364), based chief ly on information furnished by contemporaries of Dante, remains one of the best lives of the poet.

The book with which Boccaccio’s name is inseparably linked is the “Decameron”, which was finished in 1353, but part of which had probably been written before the Black Death reached its height in 1348. The “Decameron” opens with a masterly description of the terrors of the pest, and we are then introduced to a gay company of seven ladies and three young men who have come together at a villa outside Naples to while away the time and to escape the epidemic. Each in turn presides for a day over the company and on each of the ten days each of the company tells a story, so that at the end one hundred stories have been told.

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Good night! >>> Buona notte!

Boccaccio’s father, a wealthy bank merchant from Certaldo and a man of some prominence in Florence, had gone into business in Paris although he soon abandoned Boccaccio’s mother and returned to Florence where he sent Boccaccio to school until he was ten and then took him into business. In 1327 Giovanni was sent to Naples to study law, but he gave himself up almost entirely to literature, and became intimately acquainted with some of the most prominent men and women of the court of Anjou.

Good bye! >>> Arrivederci!

Giovanni Boccaccio

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The modern Florentines are not less interesting than great Florentines. You will find many interesting personalities you cannot find anywhere else. My main impression that Florentines are people who enjoy life and know the taste of it.

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Finds There are so many details you can find in Florence but information about them is difficult to find. Here is my collection of randomly found details. If you know some history behind any detail below, please write it here and perhaps it will inspire you to continue the collection.

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Index A Academy of Fine Arts 76 Accademia del Cimento 33 Accademia della Crusca 33 Adolphe Thiers 73 Aldo Palazzeschi 35 Alexander deâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Medici 32 Alfonso Parigi 53, 71, 73 Anatole Demidov 73 Ancona 60 Andrea della Robbia 77 Andrea del Sarto 47 Andrea Pisano 47, 56, 57 Antonello da Messina 41 Aragon 32 Archbishop 17 Arch of Triumph 79 Arno river 9, 12, 13, 14, 15, 22, 23, 35, 36, 53, 70 Arnolfo di Cambio 25, 44, 60, 64 Arte 22 Augustinian 23

B Baptistery 15, 16, 20, 44, 46, 47, 57, 76 Barbarian invasion 13 Bargello 38, 41, 54 Barriera delle Cure 35 Basilica of Santa Maria Novella 61 Basilica of Santo Spirito 92 Baths of Capaccio 12 Battle of Montaperti 24 Beato Angelico 31, 41, 55 Beccafumi 47 Belvedere Fort 72 Benedetto da Maiano 31, 67 Benedictine 63 Benozzo Gozzoli 47, 56 Bernardo Buontalenti 53, 72 Bernini 41, 47 Bertoldo di Giovanni 89

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Bishop Alibrando 63 Bishop Gerard 16 Boboli Gardens 43, 71 Boccaccio 86 Botticelli 31, 41, 86 Brunelleschi 31, 47, 57, 60, 78, 86, 92 Brunetto Latini 91 Buontalenti 71

C Cafaggio 78 Campidoglio 13 Canaletto 41 Canova 47 Capitano del Popolo 54 Capitoline Baths 12 Capitoline Triad 12 Cappella dei Pazzi 60 Caprese 89 Cardinal 17 Carlo Davanzati, 65 Carmelite 23 Carolingian Period 15 Carreggi 73 Carriages Museum 43 Cascine park 36 Casino del Cavaliere 43 Certaldo 93 Chardin 41 Charles of Valois 28 Charle Steinhauslin 36 Church of San Lorenzo 92 Cimabue 20, 38, 41 Colosseum 50 Commune 18, 22, 24, 28 Coppo di Marcovaldo 20 Correggio 41, 42 Corridoio Vasariano 36 Cosimo il Giovane 32 Cosimo the Elder 32, 55

Costa di San Giorgio 70 Costume Gallery 43 Countess Beatrice 16 Countess Willa 15 Cupola del Brunelleschi 76

D Dante 16, 28, 57, 86, 91, 93 David 32, 41, 89 Deacon 17 Decamerone 72 Delacroix 47 De Re Aedificatoria 61, 69 Domenico Ghirlandaio 31, 89 Dominican 23, 55, 61, 76 Donatello 31, 41, 44, 86 Duomo 56, 57, 92 Dürer 41

E Eleonora of Toledo 43 El Greco 41 Elia Volpi 65 Emilio De Fabris 57 Emperor Henry II 63 Emperor Henry III 16 Emperor Henry IV 16 Ensor 47 Etruria 12

f Farinata degli Uberti 25 Ferdinando I 32, 72, 73, 78 Ferdinando II 33 Fiesole 18, 72, 76 Filippo Lippi 31 Filippo Strozzi the Elder 67 Forte di Belvedere 73 Fra Angelico 38, 55 Francesco de’ Medici 44

Franciscan 23 Francisco Goya 41 Fra Ristoro da Campi 61 Fra Sisto Fiorentino 61 Frederick Barbarossa 19 Friar Iacopo Talenti 61

G Galileo Galilei 44, 86 Galleria dell’ Accademia 41 Garzia 43 Gate of “Paradise” 47 Gemma di Manetto Donati 91 Geoffrey the Bearded 16 Ghibellines 24 Giambologna 77 Gian Gastone 33 Giardino Bardini 70 Giardino dei Semplici 71 Giardino Delle Rose 70 Giorgio Lederle 64 Giorgio Vasari 41, 53, 60, 69 Giotto 14, 20, 29, 38, 41, 60, 76, 86 Giovanni Boccaccio 72, 93 Giovanni delle Bande Nere 32 Giovanni de’ Medici 31, 32 Giovanni di Paolo Rucellai 61 Giovanni Villani 14, 64 Girolamo Savonarola 32, 55, 64 Giuliano da Sangallo 31 Giuliano de’ Medici 88 Giulio 32, 71 Giuseppe Poggi 35, 70 Giusto Sustermans 42 Gotho- Byzantine War 13 Gran Consiglio 32 Grand Ducal 42, 43, 44 Grand Duke Ferdinand 43 Guelphs 24 Guild 22, 28

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H Hayez 47 Henry the Proud 18 Hildebrand of Sovana 16 Hugo 15 Hungarian Invasion 15

j Jacopo da Torrita 46 Jewish quarter 34

k King Robert 28 Kristen Aschengreen Piacenti 43

L Leonardo d’Avanzano 56 Leonardo da Vinci 41, 88 Leone Battista Alberti 61 Leopoldo de’ Medici 33, 47 Loggia del Bigallo 76 Loggia della Signoria 79 Loggia of the San Paolo hospital 77 Lorenzo de’ Medici, 89 Lorenzo Ghiberti 47, 56 Lorenzo the Magnificent 31, 32 Lorraine 44, 71 Luca della Robbia 44 Luca Pitti 69 Lucas Cranach 41

N Neri and Bianchi 28 Neri di Fioravante 14, 63 Niccolo Matas 60 Niccolò Pericoli 71 Nicholas II 16 Nicolò Bernardo 64 Nuova Cronica 14, 64

O Old Market 34 Olivetan monastery 63 Oltrarno 19, 22, 25, 36, 70, 72 Orsanmichele 63

p

M Macchiaioli 42 Machaivelli 86 Macinante Canal 70 Maglio District 35 Magnati 25 Mannelli’s Tower 53 Mantegna 41 Marco Palmieri 72 Maria Magdalena of Austria 33 Mark Twain 73 Marquis of Tuscany 15 Martino della Scala 28

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Masaccio 31, 41, 92 Mathilde Bonaparte 73 Matilda 16, 18 Medici 31, 32, 33, 41, 42, 43, 44, 54, 64, 66, 67, 69, 71, 72, 73, 78, 92 Meliore 20 Michelangelo 32, 38, 41, 44, 57, 86, 89 Michelozzo 31, 55, 66, 73, 76 Modern Art Gallery 42 Monastery of St. Catherine 76 Monte Morello 73 Mugnone 12 Mugnone valley 35 Municipality of Florence 44 Museum of the History of the Science 44

INDEX

Palatina Gallery 38, 42 Palazzo Davanzati 65 Palazzo dei Fanti 64 Palazzo della Signoria 25, 28, 32 Palazzo dell’Esecutore di Giustizia 64 Palazzo del Podestà 54 Palazzo Medici Riccardi 47, 66 Palazzo Strozzi 67 Palazzo Vecchio 19, 44, 54, 64, 79 Paolo Uccello 41 Parco delle Cascine 70 Pazzi Chapel 92

Peter Leopold 54 Philip Le Belle 28 Piazza d’Azeglio 35 Piazza del Duomo 29, 76 Piazza della Repubblica 12, 34, 35, 79 Piazza della Santissima Annunziata 78 Piazza della Signoria 29, 32, 79 Piazza dell’Indipendenza 35 Piazzale Michelangelo 35 Piazza of Santa Maria Novella 77 Piazza San Firenze 12 Piazza San Marco 76 Piero della Francesca 41 Piero the Gouty 31 Pietro da Cortona 42 Pietro Leopoldo 71 Pietro Tacca 78 Pietro the Unlucky 32 Pitti Palace 42, 47, 69, 72 Pius V 32 Ponte alla Carraia 29 Ponte alle Grazie 22 Ponte a Santa Trinita 23 Ponte Vecchio 12, 14, 29, 36, 47, 53 Pope Alexander VI 32 Pope Eugene IV 60 Pope Gregory VII 16 Pope Julius II 89 Pope Victor II 16 Porcelain Museum 43 Porta del Vescovo 16 Porta San Pancrazio 16 Porta San Piero 16 Porta Santa Maria 16

r Radagaisus 13 Raffaello 41 Raphael 42 Rembrandt 41 Renaissance 9, 10, 31, 38, 42, 50, 66, 70, 78, 86, 92 Royal Apartments 42 Rubens 41, 42, 47

s Saint Ambrose 56 Saint Augustine 56 Saint Gregory 56 Saint Jerome 56 Salvator Rosa 47 San Felice 12 San Gervasio 35 San Giovanni Gualberto 16 San Giovanni Square 76 San Jacopino 35 San Lorenzo 12, 16 San Marco 38, 41, 55 San Miniato al Monte 62, 63 Santa Croce 23, 25, 60 Santa Felicita 47 Santa Maria del Fiore 23 Santa Maria delle Vigne 23 Santa Reparata 15, 16, 25 Santo Spirito 23 Savonarola 32, 35 Serravezza 77 Silver Museum 43 Simone Martini 41

t Taddeo Gaddi 14, 29 Tempio Malatestiano 61 Tintoretto 41 Titian 42 Torre d’Arnolfo 64 Tribolo 71 Tuscany 16, 19, 22, 33, 34, 57, 63U Uberti 64 Uffizi Gallery 38, 41, 52, 79 Uguccioni Palace 79 UNESCO 9, 57

v Vallombrosa 16 Vasari Corridor 47, 53 Via Calzaiuoli 63 Villa Medici 73 Viottolone 71

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THE CITY IN DETAILS. Personal G uide To Florence Usually when visiting a city we make a lot of overview pictures and I have had a thought: what if I would make pictures only of details, like fences, door hands, street lamps, benches, people faces, accessories, and so on.

Would it be possible to recognize a city or get the feeling of a city only by details? This book tries to answer this question and inspire you to see any city in details and make your own exploration.