Florence

HISTORY
The Roman town of Florentia was founded during the Ludi floreales period in honour of the goddess Flora. It saw Greek and Syrian merchants, Barbarian peoples, Byzantines, Lombards and Carolingians come and go. The city finally attained independent status after a series of economic ups and downs, battles for church reform and struggles for freedom.

Its history from the time it became an independent city state is dominated
by the power of the merchants � who were organised into Arti or Guilds,
Guelph and Ghibbeline rivalry and struggles with other Tuscan cities for dominion of the area. This period was followed by the Signorie and the all-powerful, almost royal Medici family who brought Florence a long period of prosperity and learning and were also responsible for making the city the cradle of Humanism.

Then came the Republic, the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, the Lorraines � who opened the road to European high society � and finally Italian Unity. By then an indisputable cultural capital, Florence played a leading role in the years of anti-Fascism and post-war regeneration. Its burgeoning growth was dramatically marred by the great flood of 1966.

The words �Florence� and �art� are always uttered in the same breath. Great Italian painting was born here and here you can find the finest Renaissance achievements in the fields of civil and religious architecture, sculpture and painting. The Renaissance could never have come about, though, were it not for the earlier great artistic flowering that occurred during the Romanesque and Gothic period between the 11th and 13th centuries, a time of great economic prosperity for Florence.