Florence

/flawr"euhns, flor"-/, n.

1. Italian, Firenze. a city in central Italy, on the Arno River: capital of the former grand duchy of Tuscany. 464,425.

2. a city in NW Alabama, on the Tennessee River. 37,029.

3. a city in E South Carolina. 30,062.

4. a town in N Kentucky. 15,586.

5. a female given name: from a Latin word meaning "flowery."

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I

Italian Firenze

City (pop., 2001 prelim.: 352,227), capital of Tuscany, central Italy.

Built on both sides of the Arno River, the city has been during its long history a republic, a seat of the duchy of Tuscany, and a capital (1865–71) of Italy. Founded as a Roman military colony in the 1st century BC, it was controlled in turn by the Goths, Byzantines, and Lombards. A leading city of Tuscany by the late 12th century, it was ruled after 1434 by the powerful Medici family. It became a republic under religious reformer Girolamo Savonarola, after whose downfall the Medici were restored as dukes of Florence (1531). Florence's vernacular became the Italian language, and from the 14th to the 16th century Florence was among the greatest cities of Europe, preeminent in commerce, finance, learning, and the arts. Many notables flourished there, including Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Filippo Brunelleschi, Dante, Niccolò Machiavelli, and Galileo. The buildings, including the Baptistery of St. John, the Gothic Duomo, and the Uffizi Gallery, are works of art themselves abounding in yet more works of art. Among the palaces and parks are the Pitti Palace and its Boboli Gardens. The university was founded in 1321. The economy is based primarily on tourism, though it also has developed newer sectors such as information technology and high-fashion clothing. The region around the city has a modern and dynamic economy based on small industrial production and quality exports.

II

(as used in expressions)

Florence Nightingale Graham

Ferrara Florence Council of

Griffith Joyner Delorez Florence

Delorez Florence Griffith

Hellman Lillian Florence

Nightingale Florence

Ethel Florence Lindesay Richardson

Florence Margaret Smith

Edith Anna Oenone Somerville and Violet Florence Martin

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▪ Alabama, United States

      city, seat of Lauderdale county, northwestern Alabama, U.S. It lies on the Tennessee River about 65 miles (105 km) west of Huntsville, forming with Sheffield, Tuscumbia, and Muscle Shoals a four-city metropolitan area in the Muscle Shoals region. Settlers first arrived and established a trading post there about 1779. The area was later purchased by a land company whose stockholders included James Madison (Madison, James) and Andrew Jackson (Jackson, Andrew). Founded in 1818, the city was named for Florence, Italy, by its Italian surveyor, Ferdinand Sannoner. Construction of Wilson Dam (1925) across the river and the subsequent creation of the Tennessee Valley Authority (1933) stimulated industrial development.

      Agriculture (especially cotton), timber, and mineral resources are important to the economy; manufacturing (including textiles, furniture, and flooring) and food processing are also major factors. The University of North Alabama (1830) is in Florence. Indian Mound and Museum, within the city, has the largest mound in the Tennessee valley, with a height of 42 feet (13 metres) and a base diameter of 310 feet (94 metres); artifacts dating to 10,000 years ago are in the museum. Joe Wheeler State Park is about 20 miles (32 km) to the east, and Natchez Trace Parkway passes about 10 miles (16 km) to the northwest; Wilson and Pickwick Lakes provide additional recreational opportunities. W.C. Handy (Handy, W.C.) was a native of Florence; his birthplace is preserved along with a museum and library, and the W.C. Handy Music Festival is held annually in August. Inc. 1826. Pop. (1990) city, 36,426; Florence MSA, 131,327; (2000) city, 36,264; Florence MSA, 142,950.

▪ Arizona, United States

      town, seat (1875) of Pinal county, central Arizona, U.S., 50 miles (80 km) southeast of Phoenix. It lies on the Gila River in a farming area (mainly cotton) that is irrigated by means of the Ashurst-Hayden Diversion Dam. One of the oldest white settlements in the state, Florence was founded in 1866 and named for the sister of Governor Richard McCormick. The community developed as a copper-mining trade centre and stage stop. Many early adobe buildings still stand, including the home (1866) of Levi Ruggles, an Indian agent and the town's first settler. Ruggles's home also housed the first land office (1873) in the Gadsden Purchase territory. Nearby are Indian ruins and natural desert gardens. Arizona's largest penitentiary sits on the eastern outskirts of the town. Inc. 1908. Pop. (1990) 7,510; (2000) 17,054.

▪ Italy

Introduction

Italian  Firenze , Latin  Florentia 

 city, capital of Firenze provincia (province) and Toscana ( Tuscany) regione (region), central Italy. The city, located about 145 miles (230 km) northwest of Rome, is surrounded by gently rolling hills that are covered with villas and farms, vineyards, and orchards. It has, during its long history, been a republic, a seat of the duchy of Tuscany, and a capital (1865–70) of Italy. Florence was founded as a Roman military colony about the 1st century BC and during the 14th to 16th centuries achieved preeminence in commerce and finance, learning, and especially the arts.

 The present glory of Florence is mainly its past. Its buildings are works of art abounding in yet more works of art. The splendours of the city are stamped with the personalities of the men who made them. The geniuses of Florence were backed by men of towering wealth, and the city to this day gives testimony to their passions for religion, for art, for power, or for money. Among the most famous of the city's giants are Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Dante, Machiavelli (Machiavelli, Niccolò), Galileo, and its most renowned rulers, the generations of the Medici Family.

 Scholars still marvel that this small city of moneylenders and cloth makers without much political or military power rose to a position of enormous influence in Italy, Europe, and beyond. The Florentine vernacular became the Italian language; and the local coin, the florin, became a world monetary standard. Florentine artists formulated the laws of perspective; Florentine men of letters, painters, architects, and craftsmen began the period known as the Renaissance; and a Florentine navigator, Amerigo Vespucci (Vespucci, Amerigo), gave his name to two continents.

      The city has remained an important cultural, economic, political, and artistic force into the modern era, setting trends in political administration (especially under Mayor Giorgio La Pira in the 1950s and early '60s) and even cultural innovation (as in its influential Modernist train station designed under Giovanni Michelucci, its football [soccer] stadium by Pier Luigi Nervi (Nervi, Pier Luigi), and the Archizoom radical design movement active during the 1960s and '70s). The region around the city has a modern and dynamic economy based on small industrial production; the city itself is far more dependent on tourism, though it also has developed newer sectors such as information technology. Florence's key role as a market centre is reinforced by its location at the nexus of transport lines connecting northern and southern Italy. Area 40 square miles (104 square km). Pop. (2006 est.) 366,901.

Physical and human geography

The landscape

The city site

      Florence was founded to control the only practicable north-south crossing of the Arno River to and from the three passes through the Apennines (Apennine Range): one to Faenza and two to Bologna. Two thin streams, the Mugnone and the Affrico, come down through town to meet the Arno. The Affrico, not far away from its source in the Apennines, is usually a grudging gurgle amid wide gravel beds far below the quays, but sometimes it rises and swells into a powerful stream, ravaging the city with floods. The city's water supply has also served as an asset, however, making possible the washing, fulling, and dyeing of cloth, resulting in the development of a major industry.

      Florence's position as a major crossroads between Bologna and Rome made the city vulnerable to attack. Its hills offered some protection, but the citizens nonetheless felt compelled to erect imposing walls during the period 1285–1340; although the walls were largely torn down during urban expansion in the 1860s, their former presence remains clearly visible in a girdle of roads around the original city. Moreover, because the hillier south bank of the Arno has prevented urban growth, segments of the walls are preserved.

      Beyond the historic centre of Florence, the city has expanded over the past century to accommodate waves of migration. Vast housing projects have been constructed, such as those at Isolotto (1954–55). These peripheral zones have actually grown to dominate the city centre, creating a kind of “open urban system”—and a vast and successful industrial district—that stretches northwest to Prato and southeast as far as Arezzo. Huge satellite towns such as Scandicci have grown to rival the centre of Florence itself.

The climate

      Florence's location in a small basin encircled by hills is a determining factor for its changeable climate. Summers tend to be extremely hot and humid, and winters are cool and wet. The average monthly temperature for July and August is about 73 to 75 °F (23 to 24 °C), with an average daytime high of about 95 °F (35 °C); the average monthly temperature for January is 41 °F (5 °C). Winters tend to be short-lived, ending generally in mid-March, and bring rain rather than snow. Unpleasantly cold showers can persist into April, however, much to the discomfort of the throng of Easter tourists. The most delightful seasons in which to visit Florence are late spring and fall, when the sky becomes an azure vault and the sun warms but does not scorch.

The city layout

      Although most of the city of Florence was a creation of the nascent Renaissance era, the city's Roman beginnings as a typical castrum, or garrison town, can still be perceived. They are visible in the rectilinear grid whose axis is the Via Calimala, with a forum in today's Piazza della Repubblica (used as a market during most of its history). The skyline, however, is dominated by two imposing structures of later centuries. One of them is the austere tower of the Palazzo Vecchio (Vecchio, Palazzo) (Old Palace), begun in 1299, in the Piazza della Signoria. It housed the legislative and executive branches of the local civic government (the priors) and even today functions as the town hall of Florence. Always a kind of nerve centre of local pride and power, the building was ornamented with major works of Florentine sculpture; foremost among these was Michelangelo's towering statue of David (today replaced by a copy). Also framing the Piazza della Signoria is the elegant Loggia dei Lanzi, built in the late 14th century; today it serves as an open-air museum for masterworks of sculpture, including Benvenuto Cellini's Perseus.

 From behind the loggia and from the flank of the palazzo, the tall, colonnaded twin wings of a later building, the Uffizi (Uffizi Gallery), stretch down to the Arno. An elegant edifice designed by Giorgio Vasari, it was begun in 1560 to house the grand ducal offices. In 1574 Grand Duke Francesco I ordered the top story converted to display the Medici art treasures. The Uffizi's collection, one of the most precious in the world, offers examples of painting from the 13th century through the 18th and includes most of the significant names in Florentine art.

 The second distinctive feature of Florence's skyline is the dome of the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore (the Duomo). The building itself, located due north of the Piazza della Signoria, was begun by the sculptor Arnolfo Di Cambio in 1296. Numerous local artists continued to work on it during the following century and a half. The painter Giotto (Giotto di Bondone) designed its sturdy bell tower (campanile) in 1334. Yet the massive octagonal cupola (1420–36) that truly dominates both the church and the city was the proud achievement of Filippo Brunelleschi (Brunelleschi, Filippo), master architect and sculptor. Opposite the cathedral stands the Baptistery; the building dates from the 11th century but was believed by Florentines to be a surviving Roman monument when they commissioned for it a series of bronze doors with relief sculptures (1330; 1401–52). The third pair of these doors, by Lorenzo Ghiberti (Ghiberti, Lorenzo), were of such rare beauty that Michelangelo christened them the Gates of Paradise.

      Around the perimeters of historical Florence lie the vast “newcomer” churches of the mendicant orders: to the west, Santa Maria Novella (begun 1279) of the Dominicans; to the east, Santa Croce (begun 1294) of the Franciscans. Each of these churches is a monument of Renaissance art in its decoration. The interior of Santa Maria Novella contains the Spanish Chapel, with frescoes by Andrea da Firenze; the Green Cloister, with frescoes by Paolo Uccello (Uccello, Paolo); the Strozzi Chapel, with frescoes by Filippino Lippi (Lippi, Filippino); and the Cappella Maggiore, with frescoes by Domenico Ghirlandaio (Ghirlandaio, Domenico), in addition to Masaccio's awe-inspiring fresco The Trinity, with its fully realized use of perspective. The facade of Santa Maria Novella was completed (1456–70) by the design of Leon Battista Alberti (Alberti, Leon Battista). Alongside Santa Croce, Brunelleschi appended the Pazzi Chapel, designed geometrically around the motif of a circle within a square. Inside Santa Croce one finds major fresco cycles by the most famous early Florentine painter, Giotto. Paradoxically, the patrons of this church were among the richest families of Florence, despite (or perhaps because of) the vows of poverty sworn by the Franciscan order. Santa Croce has historical significance as well, because it became a kind of pantheon containing the tombs of famous Florentine scholars, writers, artists, and patriots. Across the Arno lies the modest Carmelite church of Santa Maria del Carmine, whose Brancacci Chapel displays some of the most powerful early 15th-century frescoes by Masaccio and Masolino (c. 1425–27). The frescoes have been restored to their former glory, bringing out colours and details that had long been obscured.

      Between the Piazza della Signoria and the cathedral lies a remarkable building, the Orsanmichele (oratory of St. Michael). In 1290 Arnolfo built a loggia here for the wheat market, which, however, was destroyed by fire; a larger loggia was erected in 1377 and then enclosed to form a church in 1380. Its chief fame comes from its early 15th-century decoration donated by the major guilds of Florence. Each guild was assigned one of the tabernacles on the exterior of the Orsanmichele and expected to commission a sculpture for it. The best works produced include bronzes of St. John the Baptist (patron saint of the city and of the powerful Calimala guild [bankers and international traders in cloth]) and St. Matthew (for the Cambio, or bankers) by Ghiberti (Ghiberti, Lorenzo) and marbles of St. Mark (linen drapers) and St. George (armourers) by Donatello.

 North of the cathedral lay the province of the eventual rulers of Florence, the Medici (Medici Family), a family of bankers. On the square behind the house of the Medici stands the Augustinian church of San Lorenzo, for which Brunelleschi made an austerely simple geometric Renaissance design based on his study of early Christian basilicas in Rome (1421). Medici patronage led to decisive artistic decorative additions. Donatello provided a bronze pulpit, and Brunelleschi added a sacristy (the Old Sacristy); about one century later Michelangelo balanced it with the New Sacristy, which contains his famous Medici Tombs. Michelangelo also designed the Laurentian Library, next to San Lorenzo, to house the great library assembled by the Medici family. Near the church sits the Medici Palace (Palazzo Medici-Riccardi), built by the architect Michelozzo beginning in 1444. Inside, a chapel contains a fresco by Benozzo Gozzoli (Gozzoli, Benozzo), the Procession of the Magi (1459), in which the followers of the Magi are given features of the Medici.

 The grandest palace in Florence is the Strozzi Palace, begun in 1489 for one of the city's largest and wealthiest families (which, however, had been eclipsed politically by the Medici). Its enormous scale deliberately surpassed that of the Medici Palace. Noteworthy within the Strozzi Palace is a spacious courtyard, which by its use of arches and a loggia achieves a feeling of openness and simplicity.

      South of the Arno lies the Pitti Palace; this grandiose structure was created for the grand duke Cosimo I by the sculptor Bartolommeo Ammannati (Ammannati, Bartolommeo), who extended (1558–70) a palace belonging to the Pitti family of a century earlier. The hills behind this massive palace were transformed into magnificent gardens, the Boboli Gardens, filled with fountains, statues, and an amphitheatre; there operas and concerts for the Medici rulers betokened their courtly existence as the absolute rulers of the city. Ammannati also designed a bridge to the palace, the Santa Trinità Bridge (1567–69; restored).

The people

      Florence's greatest poet, Dante, harshly characterized his city's people as tightfisted, envious, and haughty. A touch of this severe judgment still clings to the Florentines, in whose makeup one tends to miss the exuberance and warmth associated with Italians in other towns and regions. Perhaps the Florentines, many of whom are descendants of long lines of Florentines, are reserved in self-defense against the massive stream of tourists, several million of whom crowd the historic sections of Florence.

      The city's population increased significantly during the 20th century. Immigrants before the 1970s were mainly from the Tuscan region but also from the south of Italy. Many Chinese actually had arrived earlier, and since the mid-1970s the city and its region have attracted other people from outside Italy who found work in the area's tourist-linked service economy. These immigrants have begun to change the cultural composition of the city. Indeed, some of the first explosions of racial animosity in Italy took place in Florence in the early 1990s, when Italian locals organized raids on immigrant street vendors, leading to a national debate over immigration.

The economy

Industry, commerce, and services

      Thousands of Florentines work in industrial suburbs, where they are engaged in the production of furniture, rubber goods, chemicals, and food. Yet the city lives primarily from tourism and the money brought in by foreign (mainly American) students. Traditional handicrafts—glassware and ceramics, wrought iron, leatherwork, wares of precious metals, art reproductions, and the like—are still of some importance, along with some high-fashion clothing and shoe production. Key fashion companies operating in the city include Gucci and Ferragamo. Florence hosts numerous fairs throughout the year, including an international antiques fair, international fashion shows, and countless artisans' exhibits. For a long period after World War II, Florence was Italy's fashion capital, holding an annual show at the Pitti Palace. In the 1970s, however, Milan began to dominate the fashion sector.

      Commercial and cultural interests blend in the city's offerings of festivals of music, opera, and the visual arts. In particular, the annual Maggio Musicale (“Musical May”) festival attracts visitors from far beyond the city. Of special appeal are the traditional festivals, many of them resplendent with the trappings of medieval pageantry and procession. Among the more famous ones are the celebrations in honour of the city's patron saint, St. John the Baptist. Visitors can watch the fireworks on June 24 (St. John's Day) or attend the “football game” staged in 16th-century costumes in the Boboli Gardens during St. John's Week.

  FlorenceCraftwork is sold throughout the city, but several traditional marketplaces still exist. The vendors of straw objects—from tiny figurines to full-sized dresses—have their stalls in the Loggia of the Mercato Nuovo (New Market; built 1547–51). Goldsmiths, silversmiths, and jewelers are concentrated on the Ponte Vecchio, one of the world's most famous bridges and the symbol of Florence. They opened for business there in the 16th century, when Grand Duke Ferdinand I deemed it inelegant for butcher shops to line the bridge as they had for the previous 200 years. He ordered practitioners of the “vile arts” to give way to workers in precious metals. The new occupants eventually enlarged their shops by building outward over the water, propping their three-story additions on brackets from the bridge. The back elevations of these extensions give the bridge its picturesque air. Above the shops a covered passage was constructed in 1564–65 to connect Cosimo I's palace (the Pitti Palace) on the left bank with the newly erected government offices (the Uffizi) on the right bank.

      Artisans who fashion the gold, silver, jewelry, straw, intarsia (inlaid woodwork designs), leather goods, glass, pottery, and embroidery complain of being squeezed out of existence by the pressures of modern economic life. These artisans, however, can still be seen through the open doors of their workrooms, engaged in the tasks and poised in the attitudes shown in the carvings on the 15th-century facade of the guildsmen's church, Orsanmichele.

      Traditional heavy industry is still important in the area. Major employers include Nuovo Pignone (now part of the U.S.-based General Electric Company), maker of steam turbines and compressors, and Piaggio & C.s.p.a. (located in and around Pisa, 50 miles [80 km] to the west), maker of the famous Vespa scooter. The city is now part of a huge industrial district running northwest to Prato and Pistoia. This zone, with its small businesses and quality export production, was one of the centres of the prosperous “third Italy” of the 1990s, rivaling similar zones in Emilia-Romagna and Veneto in employment and profits. Hundreds of thousands of former sharecroppers from rural areas of Tuscany became small businessmen in a single generation, avoiding the trauma of “normal” rapid industrialization. However, the environment suffered, as the beautiful Tuscan countryside was slowly urbanized and motor vehicle traffic threatened to suffocate not just the city but the entire region.

Transportation

      In the central area of Florence a solid pair of walking shoes is the best mode of transportation, especially since the historic section has been closed to motor vehicles. Buses and taxis are also available, as are bicycles for hire. The main highway, the Autostrada del Sole, passes west and south of the city. Because Florence lies on the country's main north-south train line, rail connections are highly dependable and efficient. The Eurostar connects Florence with Milan in less than three hours and with Rome in less than two. In addition, Florence has its own airport, Amerigo Vespucci (formerly Peretola), only 3 miles (5 km) from the city centre. It is too small for intercontinental traffic, but Pisa's Galileo Galilei International Airport is an hour's train journey away.

Cultural life

      Florence has numerous museums, mostly devoted to painting and sculpture. The National Central Library (Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale) has been the Italian library of deposit since 1870, receiving a copy of every book published in the country. It houses millions of autographs, manuscripts, letters, incunabula, and books, including many rare editions. The Riccardiana and Moreniana libraries adjoining the Medici Palace have the most complete collection, including valuable manuscripts, of works on Tuscan history. The Gabinetto Scientifico e Letterario G.B. Vieusseux is a scientific and literary library founded in 1819 by Jean-Baptiste Vieusseux, who was the central figure of a group that included the leading literary figures of Italy at that time.

      After Lorenzo de' Medici transferred the University of Florence (Florence, University of) (established 1321) to Pisa in 1473, the medical school remained behind, leading the scientific movement in Italy and forming the nucleus for the university that was legally constituted only in 1923. The Academy of the Crusca (Crusca Academy) was established in 1582 to prepare an Italian dictionary; crusca means “bran,” the academy's symbol is a sieve, and its object remains to winnow impurities from the language. Other specialized learned institutions include an observatory; academies of fine arts, science, letters, and agrarian economics; and institutes of Etruscan and Italian studies, of the history of art, and of the history of optics. The Italian Dante Society, the Italian Botanical Society, and the Society for Geographical Studies are in Florence.

      An increasing number of foreign countries and universities maintain institutes of study in Florence and its environs, attracting many historians and writers. The member states of the European Community (now embedded in the European Union) founded the European University Institute in 1972. The institute is located just northeast of Florence, in the hillside towns of San Domenico and Fiesole. It is housed in historic buildings made available by the Italian government, including the Villa Schifanoia, the Convento di San Domenico, and the Badia Fiesolana. The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies is located at the exquisite Villa i Tatti, bequeathed by the art historian Bernard Berenson, in the hills at Settignano. Also represented are the Universities of Grenoble and Paris (France); Syracuse University (N.Y.), Stanford University (Palo Alto, Calif.), Smith College (Northampton, Mass.), and the state universities of California (U.S.); and the universities of The Netherlands.

      Florence has always boasted an intellectual elite rivaling that of any city in Italy. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, historians Pasquale Villari and Gaetano Salvemini taught at the University of Florence. Salvemini was later forced out of Italy altogether by fascist violence. fascism's most important intellectual and theorist, Giovanni Gentile (Gentile, Giovanni), was based in Florence and was killed there by communist partisans during World War II. After the war, intellectuals of the calibre of legal scholar Piero Calamandrei, literary historian Gianfranco Contini, and communist social historian Ernesto Ragionieri all worked in the city, as did novelists such as Vasco Pratolini (Pratolini, Vasco). The cosmopolitan nature of the city has always produced a cultural milieu different from those of other, more closed Italian cities. The various research institutes and faculties attached to the University of Florence are among the most important in Italy.

      The glory of many Florentines is the city's football team, Fiorentina—or “la Viola,” as the team is affectionately called, alluding to the players' purple shirts. The club has won the Italian championship on only two occasions (in 1956 and 1969), but it continues to inspire fanatical support from its followers. When star Roberto Baggio was sold to archrival Juventus of Turin in 1990, Fiorentina supporters caused riots that paralyzed the city. The stadium, originally designed in the 1930s by Modernist architect Pier Luigi Nervi (Nervi, Pier Luigi) and named Stadio Comunale, has achieved national monument status. It was refurbished for the 1990 World Cup and renamed “Artemio Franchi,” or simply Franchi Stadium.

History

The early period

      Florentia (“The Flourishing Town”) was founded in 59 BC as a colony for soldiers of the armies of Rome and was laid out as a rectangular garrison town (castrum) below the hilltop Etruscan town of Faesulae. Its streets formed a pattern of rectangular blocks, with a central forum, a temple to Mars, an amphitheatre, and public baths. By the 3rd century AD Florence was a provincial capital of the Roman Empire and a prosperous commercial centre. During the early medieval centuries, Florence was occupied chiefly by outsiders: first by Ostrogoths in the 5th century, then by Byzantines in the 6th century, and eventually by Langobards, or Lombards. From the late 10th century onward, Florence prospered, and, under the rule of Countess Matilda of Tuscany (1069–1115), it became the leading city in Tuscany.

      In 1293 Florence adopted a constitution called the Ordinances of Justice, which barred both the nobility and labourers from political power. It also provided for frequent changes of office to ensure that no group or individual could get control of the state; thus, the nine priors who constituted the Signoria (the governmental body) were each elected for a mere two months. As a result, Florentines developed a keen interest in their politics and became a community of civil servants available for public life, but the lack of continuity often provoked factional intrigues and alliances.

      During the 12th and 13th centuries the economic and political power of the city grew steadily. The rise of the Florentine woolen cloth industry and of banking provided a basis of capital. Then the resolution in 1266 of a bitter strife between two internal factions oriented respectively toward papal (Guelf (Guelf and Ghibelline)) and imperial (Ghibelline) protection resulted in victory for a group of Guelf merchant families in the city (as well as the exile in 1302 of Florence's greatest poet, Dante Alighieri). They took over papal banking monopolies from rivals in nearby Siena and became tax collectors for the pope throughout Europe. From such a foundation, Florentine families, led by the Bardi (Bardi Family) and the Peruzzi (Peruzzi Family), came to dominate both banking and international merchant business. Locally, Florence also added neighbouring cities to its sphere of influence and obliged rival powers—Pisa, Siena, Pistoia, and Arezzo—to become its allies.

      With a balance between its leading merchant families, Florence was now ruled by its guilds, divided into seven major guilds and a number of minor ones. The city's podesta, or chief magistrate and police chief, could be selected only from the major guilds. Political parties grew up along the issues of aggressive expansion and preservation of peace; the former policy was embraced by the Blacks (Neri; the rich merchants), the latter by the Whites (Bianchi; the lesser citizens).

      Just before the middle of the 14th century, Florence had become a metropolis of about 90,000 people, making it one of the great cities of Europe (alongside Paris, Venice, Milan, and Naples). However, in the summer of 1348 the Black Death struck, reducing the population by half. The city's ordeal during this period has been vividly portrayed by the chronicler Matteo Villani and by the writer Giovanni Boccaccio (Boccaccio, Giovanni) in the preface to his stories of the Decameron. The bankruptcies of the Bardi and the Peruzzi a few years before the Black Death had already shaken the city's prosperity, and it never fully recovered from these double disasters. Famine and renewed bouts of the plague continued throughout the 14th century, sparking unrest among the politically unrepresented population. In 1378 a proletarian rebellion of the cloth workers, the Revolt of the Ciompi (Ciompi, Revolt of the), was put down by an alliance of merchants, manufacturers, and artisans. The economy of the city remained depressed, and the rivalry of adjoining polities, first Milan and then Naples, only intensified the threats to Florence's prosperity in the early 15th century. One of the few successes was the conquest of Pisa in 1406, making Florence a maritime power at last. Partly in self-defense, Florence became a major territorial power alongside Venice, Milan, and Naples.

      During this period of adversity, the power of the guilds and their domination of the city were on the wane; as a result, successful merchants and bankers, chiefly Cosimo de' Medici (Medici, Cosimo de') and Giovanni Rucellai in the 15th century, were able to shape civic politics and culture through a system of oligarchy and patronage. They underwrote the accomplishments that are now singled out with the term “Renaissance,” and their palaces came to dominate the city as fully as the church buildings in which they established their family chapels.

From the Medici (Medici Family) to unification

      Cosimo de' Medici (Cosimo the Elder; died 1464) became the leading citizen in Florence after his return in 1434 from a year of exile. He achieved this position by virtue of his great wealth (the result of the largest banking network in Europe) and an extensive network of patronage obligations. While he never accepted public office, his faction dominated the city. He lived an increasingly opulent life, as is apparent in the ostentation of the Medici Palace and the patronage of churches such as San Lorenzo and the monastery of St. Mark, with its frescoes by Fra Angelico (Angelico, Fra). Investment in culture, including the patronage of artists and architects and the purchase of books and manuscripts, became a fundamental expression of the Medici's aristocratic way of life; it was continued by Cosimo's son, Piero (Medici, Piero di Cosimo de'), and his grandson, Lorenzo (Medici, Lorenzo de') (died 1492; dubbed “the Magnificent”). In all but name, Florence was now ruled by a Medici prince, whose position resembled that of the tyrants in other Italian cities such as Milan, Ferrara, Mantua, and Urbino.

      Stability was briefly threatened in 1478 by the brutal but abortive Pazzi conspiracy seeking to end the Medici rule. In 1494, shortly after the death of Lorenzo, French armies under King Charles VIII invaded Italy. They were backed against the Medici by the popular party in Florence, which (with French help) succeeded in exiling the Medici and declaring Florence a republic. The consequence, however, was the loss of political autonomy to the larger conflicts of Italian peninsular struggles. Republican Florence was led briefly by a fiery Dominican preacher, Girolamo Savonarola (Savonarola, Girolamo), who boldly condemned the luxury and urbane culture of his predecessors. His strict rule came to an end in 1498, but with it closed a phase of Florentine greatness.

      The Medici returned to Florence in triumph in 1512 behind the papal and Spanish armies, reasserting power in a clear and ruthless manner. (Such an unambiguous pursuit of power by leaders at this time was given codification in 1513 by Niccolò Machiavelli (Machiavelli, Niccolò) in his treatise The Prince.) In addition, the younger son of Lorenzo was elected Pope Leo X; his pontificate (1513–21) was noteworthy for its cultivation of the arts, especially his employment of Raphael. Leo was shortly followed by another Medici pope, Clement VII (1523–34). However, in 1527 the riotous Spanish army of Emperor Charles V overran Rome, and, during this moment of weakness, republicans again expelled the Medici from Florence, only to be punished in 1530 when pope and emperor were reconciled. Then in 1536 the statesman and historian Francesco Guicciardini (Guicciardini, Francesco) began to compose his History of Italy, with its ideal vision of the era of Lorenzo the Magnificent and its pessimism concerning more recent events. In 1537 Charles V installed Cosimo de' Medici ( Cosimo I; died 1574) as official duke of Florence (grand duke of Tuscany after 1569). Cosimo and his wife, Eleonora of Toledo, patronized the arts and undertook vast building programs, such as the construction of the Uffizi, the renovation of the Palazzo Vecchio, and the reconstruction of the Pitti Palace.

      With the rise of Cosimo I to titled nobility and to absolute rule in Florence, the political and cultural vitality of the city had all but ebbed, prompting a modern scholar to refer to the succeeding era as the “forgotten centuries.” Florence's dukes had become minor players in the broader European balance of great powers, and they linked themselves chiefly with the noble houses of France. Marital alliances of Medici family members with members of the French nobility include those of Catherine de Médicis (died 1589), queen of Henry II and later regent of France; Grand Duke Ferdinand I (died 1609), who married Christine of Lorraine; and Marie De Médicis (died 1642), who married King Henry IV of France. The city generally declined under prolonged Medici rule, a process that was marked only by the extended reign of Cosimo III (1670–1723) and the end of the family with the death of his son, Gian Gastone (died 1737).

      After the rule of the Medici, Florence was governed from outside, as Francis Stephen of Lorraine, the husband of Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, became the grand duke of Tuscany. Following a Napoleonic interlude, Leopold II of Habsburg was the last outside ruler (1824–59). He eventually abdicated in favour of the new Italian king, Victor Emmanuel (Victor Emmanuel II). Soon after, Florence annexed itself to the new Kingdom of Italy, serving as its capital during the period 1865–70.

      From the late 18th to the mid-20th century, a large Anglo-American colony was an integral part of the Florentine scene. The poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning, who is buried in Piazzale Donatello, the small English cemetery, noted that the city was “cheap, tranquil, cheerful and beautiful.” The Horne Museum, near Santa Croce, and the Stibbert Museum, in the north, are examples of houses and collections left by foreigners to their adopted city.

Evolution of the modern city

      During the decades after unification, much of Florence's past was seriously jeopardized as a huge debate surrounded the renewal of the city. Many of its finest structures were altered or defaced, its medieval walls were largely pulled down, and its ancient centre was laid waste as entire zones were cleared and replaced with squares and other public spaces. Florence's brief period as Italy's capital in 1865–70 saw a vast increase in the city's population. Growth continued chaotically into the 20th century, when order and sense were slowly restored to the renovations.

      Florence was occupied by the German army in the latter stages of World War II. Antifascist resistance was very strong in the city and in the Tuscan region, and fighting was heavy. On leaving Florence, the Germans blew up all the bridges across the Arno but spared the famous Ponte Vecchio. After the war, debates again arose regarding the reconstruction of the city. The 1950s saw Florence expand into its periphery, and in 1962 a plan was developed partly to guide expansion away from the Florence-Prato conurbation. Despite certain innovative qualities, the plan failed, and the two cities are now all but one, constituting one big urban sprawl. The population of Florence reached more than 400,000 in the 1980s but soon fell slightly below that level.

      In addition to human despoliation, nature has been an occasional adversary of Florentine life, mainly in the form of floods of the Arno. The city's bridges were destroyed in the 12th century and again in 1333. In 1557 the Ponte Vecchio held fast, but the others were destroyed. The most devastating occurrence was the flood of November 1966. The city's cultural heritage was grievously damaged by waters coursing through the streets and swirling into buildings, depositing debris, mud, and oil. In some places the water rose as high as 20 feet, submerging sculptures, paintings, mosaics, and manuscripts in the city's libraries. An army of international experts, financed by contributions from around the world, arrived to try to save the water- and muck-damaged treasures. Major public works took place to try to ensure that there would be no repetition of this tragic event. Despite some scares, the Arno has not burst its banks since then.

      Since the mid-20th century, Florence has been governed largely by centre-left administrations that have been known for their reformist zeal, honesty, and efficiency (with some notable exceptions). The Catholic left in particular has always been able to maintain its solid roots in civil society. Through the popular mayor Giorgio La Pira, left-wing Catholics were able to run the city for a number of years in the late 1950s and early '60s. Since then the subcultures of the left have survived in Florence, despite their erosion elsewhere in Italy, and the old Italian Communist Party (now the Democrats of the Left) has managed to maintain a strong presence as well. With its large university population and radical-left traditions, Florence was one of the centres of student and worker revolts in 1968. The city even managed to produce a notable rebellion against the organized Roman Catholic Church, public masses being celebrated without official permission at suburban Isolotto.

      In the 1980s and '90s the main problems of the city were environmental. The huge influx of tourists threatened to swamp the city in every sense, and the city centre began to lose its distinctive character and its artisan workshops. Pollution reached record levels, thanks to mass ownership of motor vehicles and to the peculiar geographic position of the city. Drastic measures were finally taken in the 1980s with the closure of the city centre to private cars. This policy has gone some way toward alleviating pressure on the city, but the area is still suffocated by thousands of scooters and buses, and the city still endures a constant tourist onslaught. Florence faces the danger of becoming a commercialized provincial town, full of trinket shops, overpriced bars, and crowded museums. Like Venice, it appears to be organized mainly for tourists and students and for Florentines working in the industries directly linked to them. Certainly the dynamic economic district running across to Prato is not matched by the city itself, which continues to capitalize on the past. The label of “museum-city” is thus perhaps best applied to the Florence of today, despite the highly productive region of which it is the capital.

Blake Ehrlich Larry A. Silver John Foot

Additional Reading

General works

Numerous guides to the city are published every year, most of them repeating basic information. Useful examples are Paolo De Simonis et al., Florence: A Complete Guide to the Renaissance City, the Surrounding Countryside, and the Chianti Region, trans. from Italian by Antony Shugaar (1999), in the Heritage Guide series; and Damien Simmons, Florence, 3rd ed. (2004), a Lonely Planet guide. An excellent guide to architecture in the city can be found in Architectural Guides: Florence, 2nd ed. (1998), in the Allemandi's Architectural Guides series. A more scholarly work is Guido Zucconi, Florence: An Architectural Guide (1995). The Duomo is the subject of Ross King, Brunelleschi's Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture (2000). Alta Macadam, Florence, 8th ed. (2001), in the Blue Guide series, provides a general introduction to Florence and its history as well as maps and tours of different sections of the city. Mary McCarthy, The Stones of Florence (1959, reissued 1987), offers a more evocative and literary survey. A useful Italian guide is Adriano Agnati (ed.), Firenze: le colline, il Mugello, il Valdarno, il Chianti (1994), published by Touring Club Italiano.

History

Not surprisingly, most histories of Florence focus on the origins and developments of the Renaissance era, particularly the 14th and 15th centuries. The early era of civic greatness is explored in George Holmes, Florence, Rome, and the Origins of the Renaissance (1986). The city received its own 16th-century history at the hands of one of its greatest political thinkers, Niccolò Machiavelli, History of Florence and of the Affairs of Italy: From the Earliest Times to the Death of Lorenzo the Magnificent (1994; originally published in Italian, 1532), available in many printings. This account is complemented by the authority of Francesco Guicciardini, The History of Florence, trans. from Italian (1970; originally published in 1859). The historiography of both chroniclers is the subject of Felix Gilbert, Machiavelli and Guicciardini: Politics and History in Sixteenth-Century Florence (1965, reprinted 1984); supplementing that is Gisela Bock, Quentin Skinner, and Maurizio Viroli (eds.), Machiavelli and Republicanism (1990). An introduction to Machiavelli is available in Quentin Skinner, Machiavelli: A Very Short Introduction, rev. ed. (2000).An impressive analysis of social and economic conditions, as well as of the political situation, is presented in Gene Brucker, Florentine Politics and Society, 1343–1378 (1962), Renaissance Florence (1969, reprinted 1983), and The Civic World of Early Renaissance Florence (1977); Gene Brucker (ed.), The Society of Renaissance Florence: A Documentary Study (1971, reissued 1998); and Tim Parks, Medici Money: Banking, Metaphysics, and Art in Fifteenth-Century Florence (2005). Issues of daily life (and death) are discussed in C.C. Bayley, War and Society in Renaissance Florence: The De Militia of Leonardo Bruni (1961); Katharine Park, Doctors and Medicine in Early Renaissance Florence (1985); and Daniel R. Lesnick, Preaching in Medieval Florence: The Social World of Franciscan and Dominican Spirituality (1989). More on economic and social conditions is in Richard A. Goldthwaite, The Building of Renaissance Florence: An Economic and Social History (1980, reissued 1990); and Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, Women, Family, and Ritual in Renaissance Italy, trans. from French (1985), the latter emphasizing Florence's female population. Developments in public culture are observed in Richard C. Trexler, Public Life in Renaissance Florence (1980, reissued 1991). Neglected post-Renaissance developments are discussed in the aptly titled Eric Cochrane, Florence in the Forgotten Centuries, 1527–1800: A History of Florence and Florentines in the Age of the Grand Dukes (1973). Other aspects are explored in Jean-Claude Waquet, Corruption: Ethics and Power in Florence, 1600–1770 (1991; originally published in French, 1984).A more recent history by Sidney Tarrow, Democracy and Disorder: Protest and Politics in Italy, 1965–1975 (1989), covers events of 1968, in particular at Isolotto. Italian books on the development of Florence in the 20th century are Laura Cerasi, Gli ateniesi d'Italia: associazioni di cultura a Firenze nel primo Novecento (2000); Carlo Cresti, Firenze, capitale mancata: architettura e città dal piano Poggi a oggi (1995); Giorgio Mori (ed.), La Toscana (1986); and Giorgio Spini and Antonio Casali, Firenze (1986).

Art

Florentine artists are the chief heroes in the later 16th-century history of Italian art by Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors, & Architects, trans. by Gaston du C. De Vere, 10 vol. (1912–15, reprinted 1976; originally published in Italian, 3 vol., 1550); and much detail on the same period emerges from an artistic autobiography by Benvenuto Cellini, The Life of Benvenuto Cellini, trans. by John Addington Symonds (1995; originally published in Italian, 1728), available in many printings. Many general histories of Italian Renaissance art devote considerable space to Florentine developments, with some giving special emphasis to the city alone. Outstanding among these is Martin Wackernagel, The World of the Florentine Renaissance Artist: Projects and Patrons, Workshop and Art Market, trans. by Alison Luchs (1938, reissued 1981; originally published in German, 1938); it can be supplemented by the more argumentative Frederick Antal, Florentine Painting and Its Social Background: The Bourgeois Republic Before Cosimo de' Medici's Advent to Power, XIV and Early XV Centuries (1948, reprinted 1986); and the more general study of the arts in Peter Burke, The Italian Renaissance: Culture and Society in Italy, 2nd ed., rev. (1999). Also useful is David Franklin (ed.), Leonarda Da Vinci, Michelangelo, and the Renaissance in Florence (2005). An excellent pictorial handbook remains Bernard Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: A List of the Principal Artists and Their Works, with an Index of Places: Florentine School, 2 vol. (1963). Frescoes are the subject of Eve Borsook, The Mural Painters of Tuscany: From Cimabue to Andrea del Sarto, 2nd ed., rev. and enlarged (1980). Walter Paatz and Elisabeth Paatz, Die Kirchen von Florenz, 6 vol. (1952–55), is an informative work on churches. Sculpture is covered in John Pope-Hennessy, An Introduction to Italian Sculpture, 4th ed., 3 vol. (1996, reissued 2000); and Charles Seymour, Sculpture in Italy: 1400–1500 (1966). An appreciation of a high point of Florentine painting is offered in S.J. Freedberg, Painting of the High Renaissance in Rome and Florence, new rev. ed., 2 vol. (1985); and André Chastel, The Flowering of the Italian Renaissance, trans. from French (1965). Art in its intellectual or phenomenological context is discussed in Michael Baxandall, Giotto and the Orators: Humanist Observers of Painting in Italy and the Discovery of Pictorial Composition, 1350–1450 (1971, reprinted 1986), and Painting and Experience in Fifteenth-Century Italy: A Primer in the Social History of Pictorial Style, 2nd ed. (1988).Blake Ehrlich Larry A. Silver John Foot

▪ South Carolina, United States

      city, seat (1889) of Florence county, northeastern South Carolina, U.S. Established in the 1850s as a rail junction and transfer point for the Wilmington and Manchester, the Northwestern, and the Cheraw and Darlington railroads, it was called Wilds for a judge in the town but later renamed (c. 1859) for the daughter of William Wallace Harlee, head of the Wilmington and Manchester line.

      The city developed as a retail and wholesale distribution centre, balanced between railroads, industry, and agriculture. Manufactures include polyester film, X-ray apparatuses, fabricated steel, welding equipment, stoves, auto parts, furniture, clothing, and paper. The main crops are tobacco and cotton. Florence is the site of Florence-Darlington Technical College (1963), Francis Marion University (1970), Clemson University–Pee Dee Research and Education Center (agriculture), and a U.S. Department of Agriculture regional laboratory. Nearby is a national cemetery with the graves of Union soldiers who died while imprisoned at the Florence Stockade during the Civil War. The one-room school in which Henry Timrod (Timrod, Henry), poet laureate of the Confederacy, taught is in the city's Timrod Park. The Florence Museum exhibits Asian, primitive, and Native American art, as well as historical items. Inc. 1890. Pop. (1990) city, 29,813; Florence MSA, 114,344; (2000) city, 30,248; Florence MSA, 125,761.

▪ county, South Carolina, United States

      county, east-central South Carolina, U.S. The Great Pee Dee River (Pee Dee River) constitutes its eastern boundary, and the Lynches River part of its western. The county is situated in a low-lying, generally flat area of the Coastal Plain.

      Lynches River State Park is located in the county, as is the Florence National Cemetery, which contains the graves of Union soldiers and a small group of Confederates. During the American Civil War, Florence, the county seat, became a centre for the transport of supplies and troops. Hundreds of Union soldiers died of typhoid in an unsanitary makeshift prison compound in Florence while a stockade was being built a few miles away. The county, named for its county seat, was organized in 1888.

      Tobacco is the principal crop of this fertile agricultural area; the production of soybeans, wheat, hogs, and chickens help make it one of the state's most productive counties. Industry, including the manufacture of food, clothing and other textile products, industrial equipment, furniture, plastic products, and paperboard, is also important to the economy. Area 799 square miles (2,070 square km). Pop. (2000) 125,761; (2007 est.) 131,886.

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