About
Florence (Firenze, Italy) was the cultural center of the Italian Renaissance — the city that produced Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Botticelli, Dante, Machiavelli, Galileo, and the Medici banking family that patronized them all. With 300,000 inhabitants in the 14th century, Florence was one of Europe's largest cities; its banking system (double-entry bookkeeping, letters of credit, the florin gold coin as a stable currency) funded European commerce.
The Medici family — specifically Cosimo de' Medici (1389-1464) and Lorenzo de' Medici ('the Magnificent,' 1449-1492) — were the greatest art patrons in history. Lorenzo sponsored Botticelli (Birth of Venus, Primavera), Michelangelo (who lived in the Medici palace as a teenager), and hundreds of other artists, architects, scholars, and poets. The Uffizi Gallery (founded 1591) houses the greatest collection of Renaissance art in the world. The Duomo (Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore) has the world's largest brick dome — Brunelleschi's engineering masterwork (1436) that was considered impossible before he built it.
# Top 10 Florence facts
- 1Medici patronage
- 2Uffizi Gallery
- 3Brunelleschi's dome
- 4Dante's birthplace
- 5Machiavelli
- 6Galileo
- 7Botticelli
- 8David (Michelangelo's original in Accademia)
- 9Ponte Vecchio
- 1040% of world's art heritage in Italy (much in Florence)
Fascinating Facts
- ◆Florence's Brunelleschi dome (1436) was built without external scaffolding — Brunelleschi invented a new herringbone brick pattern and a special hoisting machine because the technology to dome an opening that large didn't exist until he created it
- ◆Italy contains approximately 40% of the world's art heritage — and Florence, a city of 380,000 people, holds a disproportionate share of that heritage within walking distance of its city center
- ◆The Medici family bankrolled the Renaissance for 100 years — and then produced 4 popes, 2 queens of France (Catherine de' Medici and Marie de' Medici), and dozens of other heads of state, becoming the most influential family in European history
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