Florence
,
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. Florence was founded as a Roman military colony about the 1st century
bce
, and during its long history it has been a republic, a seat of the duchy of Tuscany, and a capital (1865?70) of Italy. During the 14th?16th century Florence achieved preeminence in
commerce
and finance, learning, and especially the arts.
The present glory of Florence is mainly its past. Indeed, its historic centre was inscribed on
UNESCO
’s
World Heritage List
in 1982. The buildings there, such as the famed
Duomo
, are works of art abounding in yet more works of art, and the splendours of the city are stamped with the personalities of the individuals who made them. The geniuses of Florence were backed by persons 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 cultural giants are
Leonardo da Vinci
,
Michelangelo
,
Dante
,
Machiavelli
,
Galileo
, and its most-renowned rulers, 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 people of letters, painters, architects, and craftspeople began the period known as the
Renaissance
; and a Florentine navigator,
Amerigo Vespucci
, 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
, 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. (2022 est.) 367,150.
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