Information Firenze
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Florence's recorded history began with the establishment in 59 BCE of a settlement for Roman former soldiers, with the name Florentia. Julius Caesar had allocated the fertile soil of the valley of the Arno to his veterans. They built a castrum in a chessboard pattern of an army camp (castrum) , with the main streets, the cardo and the decumanus, intersecting at the present Piazza della Repubblica. This pattern can still be found in the city center. Florentia was situated at the Via Cassia, the main route between Rome and the North. Through this advantageous position, the settlement could rapidly expand into an important commercial center. Emperor Diocletianus made Florentia capital of the province of Tuscia in the 3rd century CE. St Minias was Florence’s first martyr. He was beheaded at about 250 CE, during the anti-Christian persecutions of the Emperor Decius. The Basilica di San Miniato al Monte now stands near the spot. The seat of a bishopric from around the beginning of the 4th century CE, the city experienced subsequent turbulent periods of Byzantine, Ostrogothic rule, during which the city was often besieged and ravaged. The population may have fallen to as few as 1,000 persons. Peace returned under Lombard rule in the 6th century. Conquered by Charlemagne in 774, Florence became part of the duchy of Tuscany, with Lucca as capital. Population began to grow again and commerce prospered. In 854 Florence and Fiesole were united in one county. Margrave Hugo chose Florence as his residency instead of Lucca at about 1000 CE. This initiated the Golden Age of Florentine art. In 1013 the construction was begun of the Basilica di San Miniato al Monte. The exterior of the baptistry was reworked in Romanesque style between 1059 and 1128. Reviving from the 10th century and governed from 1115 by an autonomous commune, the city was plunged into internal strife by the 13th-century struggle between the Ghibellines, supporters of the German emperor, and the pro-Papal Guelphs, who after their victory split in turn into feuding "White" and "Black" factions led respectively by Vieri de Cerchi and Corso Donati. (See Guelphs and Ghibellines.) These struggles eventually led to the exile of the White Guelphs, one of whom was Dante Alighieri. This factional strife was later recorded by Dino Compagni, a White Guelph, in his Chronicles of Florence. Political conflict did not, however, prevent the city's rise to become one of the most powerful and prosperous in Europe, assisted by her own strong gold currency, the florin (introduced in 1252), the eclipse of her formerly powerful rival Pisa (defeated by Genoa in 1284 and subjugated by Florence in 1406[1]), and the exercise of power by the mercantile elite following an anti-aristocratic movement, led by Giano della Bella, that resulted in a set of laws called the Ordinances of Justice (1293). Of a population estimated at 80,000 before the Black Death of 1348, about 25,000 are said to have been supported by the city's woollen industry: in 1345 Florence was the scene of an attempted strike by wool combers (ciompi), who in 1378 rose up in a brief revolt against oligarchic rule in the Revolt of the Ciompi. After their suppression, the city came under the sway (1382-1434) of the Albizzi family, bitter rivals of the Medici. Cosimo de' Medici was the first Medici family member to essentially control the city from behind the scenes, his power coming from a vast patronage network and his alliance to the new immigrants, the gente nuova. The fact that the Medici were bankers to the pope also contributed to their rise. Cosimo was succeeded by his son Piero, who was shortly thereafter succeeded by Cosimo's grandson, Lorenzo in 1469. Lorenzo was a great patron of the arts, commissioning works by Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and Botticelli. After Lorenzo's death in 1492 and his son Piero's exile in 1494, the first period of Medici rule ended with the restoration of a republican government, influenced until his execution (1498) by the teachings of the radical Dominican prior Girolamo Savonarola, whose monomaniacal persecution of the widespread Florentine sodomy and of other worldly pleasures foreshadowed many of the wider religious controversies of the following centuries. A second individual of unusual insight was Niccolò Machiavelli, whose prescriptions for Florence's regeneration under strong leadership have often been seen as a legitimisation of political expediency and even malpractice. Commissioned by the Medici, Machiavelli also wrote the Florentine Histories, the history of the city. Florentines drove out the Medici for a second time and re-established a republic on May 16, 1527. Restored twice with the support of both Emperor and Pope, the Medici in 1537 became hereditary dukes of Florence, and in 1569 Grand Dukes of Tuscany, ruling for two centuries. Only Republic of Lucca (later a Duchy) was independent from Florence in all Tuscany. The extinction of the Medici line and the accession in 1737 of Francis Stephen, duke of Lorraine and husband of Maria Theresa of Austria, led to Tuscany's inclusion in the territories of the Austrian crown. Austrian rule was to end in defeat at the hands of France and the kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont in 1859, and Tuscany became a province of the united kingdom of Italy in 1861. Florence replaced Turin as Italy's capital in 1865, hosting the country's first parliament, but was superseded by Rome six years later following its addition to the kingdom. After doubling during the 19th century, Florence's population tripled in the 20th with the growth of tourism, trade, financial services and industry. During World War II the city experienced a year-long German occupation (1943-1944). The Allied soldiers who died driving the Germans from Tuscany are buried in cemeteries outside the city (Americans about 9 kilometers (6 miles) south of the city [2], British and Commonwealth soldiers a few kilometers east of the center on the north bank of the Arno [3]) In November 1966 the Arno flooded parts of the centre, damaging many art treasures. There was no warning from the authorities who knew the flood was coming, except a phone call to the jewellers on the Ponte Vecchio.
The municipal district of Firenze is in the region/district of Tuscany and it's in the province of Firenze. the postcode is 50100 and the code number is +39 055. Inhabitants are 352.227 and the surface is about 102 km2, with a density of population about 3.439 people for km2. Distance: from Rome 231 km, from Florence 0 km and from Venice 205 km.
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