Flourishing Florence – A Visit in the Heart of Tuscany

Last week our small household backed its back bags again and head for Italy for family reasons. As I lost last spring and summer to health problems and this spring was globally lost to Covid, we decided to pack our bags with some face masks and, issuing a rigid hand-washing policy, treat ourselves a little time around Italy. One of the high points of this trip was going to be a visit in the flourishing city of Florence in Tuscany.

We started in Bologna (where we had quite an interesting situation in the local post office to be covered in another post), and continued to Florence. Next stop was Pisa and then Lucca, before sweeping in a car around Tuscany hills and the seaside and returning on an early morning flight from Pisa to Eindhoven. The rest of the trip will be covered on other posts to appear here in the coming weeks.

I had never been to Florence before, as during my first trips to Italy (since 2009), I was single and had decided to keep this beautiful and romantic city to a time when I could visit it together with a special someone. As this was now possible, I was beyond happy. The train trip from Bologna lasted an hour, and then we emerged out into the sun-bathing city of well over 30 Celsius degrees. The Mediterranean climate of Florence, surrounded by mountains from three sides, makes the month of July HOT – 35 degrees on average during the day. Common sense takes you long though: Cover your head, wear sunscream, and carry a large refillable water bottle with you.

A Quick Look into the History of Florence

The flourishing Florence is the capital of Tuscany region with 380 000 people living in the city and 708 000 people inhabiting the metropolitan area. A quick stroll around the city, best explored by foot, shows how strikingly stony the city is -at least for someone like me who is used to the greenery of Finland and the Netherlands. The few green areas of the city, apart from a couple of public parks, are hidden in the inner courts of palazzos and city blocks.

The most commonly accepted story tells us that Florence was founded by Emperor Julius Caesar around 59 BC as a garrison town for Roman soldiers. Whether there was a pre-existing village on the birth spot of Florence is a matter of dispute, but some archaeological evidence points to an earlier Etruscan village being there around 200 BC.

By the 3rd century AD, Florence had become the provincial capital of the Roman empire and a wealthy commercial hub. After the decline of the Roman Empire, during the early medieval centuries, Florence was taken over first by Ostrogoths, then by Byzantines, and eventually by Langobards (Lombards). From the late 10th century onward, Florence has prospered and developed into the leading city of the Tuscany region. In the 12th and 13th centuries, the political and economic power grew fast as the city saw the rise of the woolen cloth industry and banking. The path to prosperity has not been smooth, though. In 1348, the Black Death killed half of the population, and famine and renewed bouts of plague put a toll on the city for decades.

From Medicis to Mussolini and Beyond

The city was at the peak of its majesty in the end of Medieval times, from 13th to 15th centuries. By 1430, Florence was controlling vast parts of Tuscany. Successful bankers and merchants shaped the politics and culture in a system of oligarchy and patronage. Generations of the Medici family belong to the city’s most renowned rulers and art patrons. Giovanni di Bicci de’ Medici lead his bank into becoming one of the most successful investment houses in Europe. His eldest son, Cosimo I de’Medici, steered Florence for 30 years towards increasing wealth, commissioning artists on a plethora of projects. A core expression of the Medici family’s aristocracy was always investment in culture: patronage of artists and architects and purchasing of books.

Perhaps the most glorious period of Florentine civilization and the Renaissance has been attributed to the rule of Lorenzo il Magnifico in 1469-92, the grandson of Cosiomo de’Medici. In the 14th and 16th centuries the city achieved supremacy in finance, commerce, study, and arts, being home to geniuses such as Leonardo da Vinci, Dante, and Galileo Galilei. The Florentian dialect became the standard written Italian language, and the Italian spoken in the Tuscany region still continues to be closest to the literary Italian taught in textbooks.

During the prolonged rule of the Medicis, Florence slowly declined. The end of the family was the death of Gian Gastone in 1737. The Medici heritage is still visible everywhere in the city and it is safe to say that without the money of these mighty rulers, Florence would not be Florence.

Florence was the capital of the new Kingdom of Italy in 1865-1870. During the decades after the unification of Italy, much of the face of Florence was imperiled, as many of its structures were altered or marred. In 1940, Mussolini jumped into Hitler’s bandwagon. The Florentian antifascist resistance in the II World War was strong, but the city suffered massive losses. In September 1943, Italy surrender to the Allies, and a period of reconstruction began.

Today, Florence is still an important cultural, economical, political, and artistic force. Beyond the historic center, the city has expanded to accommodate waves of immigrants. Central Florence is quite dependent on tourism, but thousands of locals work in industrial suburbs in the production of furniture, rubber goods, food, and chemicals. In the city, traditional handicrafts such as glassware, leatherwork, art reproductions, high fashion, and shoes continue to flourish.

The Endlessly Artsy Florence

60% of the art treasures of the world are in Italy, and half of them in Florence. This should give you some idea of how filled the city is with art -there is plenty to see for dozens of visits and nobody can ever exhaust fully the reservoir of Florentian art. Florence is the city of Renaissance, and it was the Florentine writers, painters, craftsmen and architects that began and still embody it. The whole historical center of Florence is a UNESCO’s World Heritage site.

The standard first stop of every tourist is Piazza della Signoria, the center of the city’s political life, embraced by many of its most famous buildings.

After the bank of the wealthy Medici family failed and they were driven into exile in 1494, it was here that the preacher-monk Girolamo Savonarola set light onto books, fine cloths, mirrors, musical instruments, and the like in his famous bonfire of vanities in 1497. A year later, he was burnt as a heretic on the same spot. The place is marked with a bronze plaque, which you can find in front of Ammannati’s massive Fontana di Nettuno.

A stunning copy of Michelangelo’s David (the original will be covered in a separate post) guards one of the entrances to the Palazzo Vecchio. The impressive Duomo, Santa Maria della Fiore, is one of the largest churches in the world, located north of the Piazza. Its construction began in 1296, and the Renaissance is said to have begun when Filippo Brunelleschi finished its famous cupola in 1436.

I have seen many a massive church in my life, but there is nothing comparable to the Duomo of Florence. If you want to take a look inside, be wiser than us though, and book your tickets well ahead.

Bed & Breakfast + Some Observations

The city is dependent on tourism, but also boasts with high fashion and shoe production. Indeed, one of the first impressions I had in the center of Florence, now occupied more by locals than by tourists, was that an astonishing percentage of the people were wearing branded clothing: All possible logos from Gucci to Nike and from Moschino to Tommy Hilfiger.

Our basecamp during this visit was a Bed and Breakfast at the heart of the city at Via dei Martelli. Le Stanze del Duomo has its rooms named after various cities around the globe, and we were appointed to Amsterdam: A strikingly beautiful but simple room bathing in hues of violet and decorated with romantically old-fashioned furniture. The air conditioning worked (not a guarantee anywhere in Italy), and the noises from the street never reached our purple haven.

For breakfast, we were directed to Konnubio. The malfunctioning website prevented us from learning ahead of what to expect, but on the spot, we were welcomed by the most professional Covid-time restaurant experience so far. The staff, all wearing masks, work behind plastic shelters and pick for you from the buffet what you want. Hungry tourists are thus not allowed to mess around with the foods by themselves, a big relief after a less than hygienic experience earlier in Bologna. The atmosphere is lovely with sea and seafaring themed decorations and carefully chosen background music. The guest can have both a usual, generic continental breakfast and some local flavor with delicious pastries. The only downside is that you are likely to overeat and then regret, when you are lolling in your food coma in the striking sun of Tuscany, trying to figure out how to transport yourself to see some art.

Usually, the flourishing Florence is flooded with tourists, but the Covid pandemic has introduced a new situation. There are tourists on the streets, especially occupying the central piazza, but much less than normally. This young man was fulfilling his Florence experience by sketching discreetly under the table in a café. I felt bad that his girlfriend seemed completely fed up with the situation -perhaps she thought she should have gotten more attention than the artist’s pad.

Ponte Vecchio

As we had not pre-booked the tickets to see the famous Duomo, visiting the church was left for a later time. We walked on, as Florence is easy and nice to see by foot. One of the first stops for any tourists is naturally Ponte Vecchio, the Old Bridge.

Ponte Vecchio has developed as a bridge, market place, and piazza over the course of centuries. The first bridge in this narrowest point of the river Arno was probably created in 966. The current bridge dates back to 1345, when it was reconstructed after one of Arno’s notorious floods flushed away its predecessor in 1333. This reconstruction has been attributed to both Taddeo Caddi and Neri di Fioravante, but its harmonious construction and application of Platonic numeric theory in its proportions point towards Dominican friars’ Medieval sense of beauty. The Divine order of the Universe was seen reflected in the sacredness of mathematics and geometry. The Dominicans of Santa Maria Novella were specialized in building large arches, and indeed, a Dominican called Fra Giovanni da Campi might have been strongly involved in the reconstruction of the bridge.

The bridge was partly meant as a defensive structure, but there have been shops on Ponte Vecchio since 13th century. In the 1442, the city’s authorities had butchers, grocers, and fishmongers move their shops away from the city center to the bridge, where they could conveniently toss their waste directly into the river. These folks added the first extra rooms onto the outsides of the bridge, extending their working spaces above Arno. The odor of their businesses, however, was a little too much for the nose of Grand Duke Ferdinand I. In 1593, he sent the smelly merchants away and substituted their businesses with gold- and silversmiths and jewelers, more in tune with the spirit and look of the city as the heart of Renaissance. The 40+ shops were sold to private owners of fancier businesses towards the end of the 15th century. For centuries, the bridge has grown over the river Arno with elevations, terraces, and “backshops”, giving a charmingly chaotic look to it. To this day, Ponte Vecchio remains the home of luxury shops selling watches and jewelry.

The Vasari Corridor is a covered passageway running above the jewelers’ shops and dating back to 1565. This invention by Giorgio Vasari was commissioned by Cosimo I de’Medici to protect the Medici family when crossing the river from the government offices in Uffizi on the right riverbank to their new private home, Palazzo Pitti, on the left bank. The raised corridor is a kilometre long, beginning at Palazzo Vecchio and passing through Uffizi until reaching the shops of the Eastern side of the bridge.

Ponte Vecchio is the first bridge in the Western world that was not built in the Roman manner with many arches that tend to clog in floods. Its sturdy arch structure has truly stood the test of time and water. Mussolini, who had by 1920 made Florence into one of his strongholds, invited his friend Hitler to admire the bridge in 1938. Despite a legend, apparently Hitler’s fondness of the bridge was not the reason that Ponte Vecchio survived the retrieving German troupes in 1944. In any case, the soldiers did not blow up the bridge, only blocked it from both ends.

In December 1966, the bridge withstood the tremendous pressure of water, when Arno burst its banks and left the city covered in oil, mud and slime. The treasures of the art gallery in the Vasari Corridor were saved in a human chain formed by its courageous staff, who later told they could hear the bridge break into a tone caused by its vibrating structures.

The flourishing Florence became in a heartbeat my favourite city in Italy. A few more posts about this flourishing city are on their way, taking a deeper look at e.g. Michelangelo’s famous David and a funny tradition taking place at the Piazza della Signoria.