

It was politically, economically, and culturally one of the most important cities in Europe and the world from the 14th to 16th centuries. View of Florence by Hartmann Schedel, published in 1493įlorence 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. 9.4 Florence public transport statistics.7.1 Monuments, museums and religious buildings.1.3.2 Savonarola, Machiavelli, and the Medici popes.įlorence plays an important role in Italian fashion, and is ranked in the top 15 fashion capitals of the world by Global Language Monitor furthermore, it is a major national economic centre, as well as a tourist and industrial hub. Due to Florence's artistic and architectural heritage, Forbes has ranked it as the most beautiful city in the world of 2010. The city also contains numerous museums and art galleries, such as the Uffizi Gallery and the Palazzo Pitti, and still exerts an influence in the fields of art, culture and politics. The city is noted for its culture, Renaissance art and architecture and monuments. The city attracts millions of tourists each year, and UNESCO declared the Historic Centre of Florence a World Heritage Site in 1982. 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. From 1865 to 1871 the city served as the capital of the Kingdom of Italy (established in 1861). Its turbulent political history includes periods of rule by the powerful Medici family and numerous religious and republican revolutions. During this time, Florence rose to a position of enormous influence in Italy, Europe, and beyond. It is considered by many academics to have been the birthplace of the Renaissance, becoming a major artistic, cultural, commercial, political, economic and financial center. įlorence was a centre of medieval European trade and finance and one of the wealthiest cities of that era. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area. Florence ( / ˈ f l ɒr ən s/ FLORR-ənss Italian: Firenze ( listen)) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region.
