Florence History

Italy's early history was that of as a group of city-states constantly fighting each other. In the Renaissance period Florence was one of the most powerful and influential of those states. The wealthy and powerful de' Medici family ruled the city almost continuously from 1434 to 1743 and had a great influence on the architecture and arts. They built an abundance of palaces all over the city and commissioned such artists as Michelangelo to design and decorate these and other buildings.

Florence is called the capital of arts. From the 13th to the 16th century it was a seemingly endless source of creative masterpieces and Italian genius. Both Dante and Michelangelo were born there. Boccaccio wrote his 'Decameron' in Florence. The Italian Renaissance (Europe's richest cultural period ) began in Florence when the artist Brunelleschi finished the Duomo, the cathedral, with the huge dome.

Florence is also a city of incomparable indoor pleasures. Its chapels, galleries and museums are an inexhaustible treasure, capturing the complex, often elusive spirit of the Renaissance more fully than any other place in the country.

Florence became the center of artistic patronage in Italy under the Medici family, whose members made their fortunes in banking and ruled the city as an independent state for almost three centuries. Lorenzo de' Medici, known as "Il Magnifico" held fiercely onto Florentine independence in the face of papal resentment. Later, in the late eighteenth century, Florence fell under Austrian and then French rule, and in the nineteenth century was for a short time the capital of the kingdom of Italy. The story of Florence since then has been less colorful. The city survived bombing by the Nazis as they retreated during the second World War, and a major flood in 1966. Through it all, the monuments and paintings of the city's Renaissance years were preserved and are the basis of its survival.