page_title: Florence
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Florence / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Colored woodcut town view of Florence by Hartmann Schedel. From the Nuremberg Chronicle in Latin edition published in 1493. Leaf number LXXXVII. Printed in Nuremberg by Anton Koberger in 1493. Lyric explanation from FOLIO LXXXVI verso and LXXXVII recto "This special woodcut covers fully two-thirds of these two folios, and appears to have been based on other panoramic views of Florence of about the time of the Chronicle. Let us enter the city by way of the Arno in the flat bottom boat that is being piloted without passengers or cargo at the river mouth. The Arno flows off to the right and is spanned by a number of bridges. The city lies on either side of the river and is fortified with walls and turrets. In the center of the town is the great cathedral church and before it the famous Campanile of Giotto. The church, called Santa Maria del Fiore (but more popularly known as the Duomo), is the largest and most important of the numerous Florentine churches. It was founded in 1298, but the façade was not finished until the nineteenth century. In actuality, the famous Campanile of Giotto is close by; and the woodcutter has given us some suggestion at least of the Baptistery which was built in the thirteenth century, and adorned with the beautiful bronze doors of Ghiberti in the fifteenth century. The city is pictured as nestling at the foot of the Apennines, and in the distance, to the left, there is a suggestion of another city, probably Fiesole. Source: From the first English translation (in 2010) of Schedel's "Chronicles of Nurenberg" where he speaks of the history of Florence and where that magnificent illustration is found.
context_page_description: Florence is a city in central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,084 inhabitants in 2013, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.
  Florence was a centre of medieval European trade and finance and one of the wealthiest cities of that era. It is considered by many academics to have been the birthplace of the Renaissance, and has been called "the Athens of the Middle Ages". Its turbulent political history includes periods of rule by the powerful Medici family and numerous religious and republican revolutions. From 1865 to 1871 the city served as the capital of the Kingdom of Italy. The Florentine dialect forms the base of Standard Italian and it became the language of culture throughout Italy due to the prestige of the masterpieces by Dante Alighieri, Petrarch, Giovanni Boccaccio, Niccolò Machiavelli and Francesco Guicciardini.
  The city attracts millions of tourists each year, and UNESCO declared the Historic Centre of Florence a World Heritage Site in 1982. The city is noted for its culture, Renaissance art and architecture and monuments.
context_section_description: Florence originated as a Roman city, and later, after a long period as a flourishing trading and banking medieval commune, it was the birthplace of the Italian Renaissance. It was politically, economically, and culturally one of the most important cities in Europe and the world from the 14th to 16th centuries.
  The language spoken in the city during the 14th century came to be accepted as the model for what would become the Italian language. Thanks especially to the works of the Tuscans Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio, Florentine dialect, above all the local dialects, was adopted as the basis for a national literary language.
  Starting from the late Middle Ages, Florentine money—in the form of the gold florin—financed the development of industry all over Europe, from Britain to Bruges, to Lyon and Hungary. Florentine bankers financed the English kings during the Hundred Years War. They similarly financed the papacy, including the construction of their provisional capital of Avignon and, after their return to Rome, the reconstruction and Renaissance embellishment of Rome.
  Florence was home to the Medici, one of European history's most important noble families. Lorenzo de' Medici was considered a political and cultural mastermind of Italy in the late 15th century. Two members of the family were popes in the early 16th century: Leo X and Clement VII. Catherine de Medici married King Henry II of France and, after his death in 1559, reigned as regent in France. Marie de' Medici married Henry IV of France and gave birth to the future King Louis XIII. The Medici reigned as Grand Dukes of Tuscany, starting with Cosimo I de' Medici in 1569 and ending with the death of Gian Gastone de' Medici in 1737.
caption: View of Florence by Hartmann Schedel, published in 1493
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