Culture of Florence Tuscany Italy - Travel guide & Information

This description page of Florence, in the Italian region of Tuscany, will guide you in planning your trip to Italy and help you find useful travel information about the culture of this Italian city.

At the height of the Renaissance, the city of Florence (Firenze) housed 70,000 to 100,000 people and was divided into four quarters: San Spirito, San Croce, San Maria Novella, and San Giovanni.  Each quarter was further divided into four gonfalons, each gonfalons serving as the administrative units of the city, and each citizen belonging to one.  The Medicis, who commanded the ci's fortunes for centuries, were its strongest supporters and patrons of the arts.  It was this family that encouraged the Renaissance influence on the city and to whom the city still pays allegiance.

During the Middle Ages, the city outgrew two sets of walls—the third wall was built in 1284. Throughout the Renaissance, the towers were broken down, and the stones used for housing.  Six fortified gates marked the entrances to the city and four bridges crossed the Arno -- the last, crowded with spectators, collapsing in 1304.  Most of the streets were paved with flagstone and gutters throughout the city to carried water to the Arno as a way of keeping mud away from the city streets.

Florence (Firenze) grew as a result of its business, trade and concern for its residents. The main business center of the city, Mercato Vecchio (now called Piazza della Repubblica), was where the daily menial trading and bartering happened. The more dignified business of the cloth merchants and moneychangers happened in the Mercato Nuovo.  There was a social order to life with religion playing a key role, public health and with healthcare an ongoing concern.  Hospitals supported by wealthy families and the guilds were free to city dwellers and public baths available.

The people of Florence (Firenze) relished the outdoors. Wealthy families had garden frescos painted in their homes and would often own a garden inside the city, called a loggia.  It was fashionable to have a deer living in these gardens and courtyards. Fifty outdoor squares and 138 gardens dotted the landscape of the city, encouraging its residents to gather for friendship, special events or just to be among the people of the community.  One might listen to a fable singer playing his lute or violin while reciting a story and then take up a collection as payment for the “free” entertainment.

Festivals were an important part of life – whether celebrating the feast of a favorite saint or honoring the harvest of the vineyard.  Young girls welcomed Spring on May Day with dancing in the Piazza Santa Trinita, for the Feast of Saint John the guilds would decorate their shops with silk and gold cloth and clergy would form a procession through the city carrying the holy relics. Citizens would march under the banners of their quarters and offer candles, while this was also the feast that prisoners from the Stinche, the state prison would be released.

Horse racing was another big event with the prize was a palio -- a role of cloth trimmed with fur, gold and silk fringes and given by the other cities of the Tuscan region. The Lion, the symbol of Florentine independence, was visible in a lion den in the city where bulls, boars, bears, leopards and stags were also on display for public festivals.

For the wealthy, there was an alternative to life in the city.  Their villas outside of  Florence (Firenze) served as places of escape away from the city -- a place to relax, have parties amongst their own set, to get away from debts and tax collection, or from the plague.

Florence (Firenze) today is an extension of the order, business, family and cultural values set in place centuries ago….it isn’t too very different.

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