Florentia, Firenze, Florence

Ciao tutti!
Well I hope you are all ready for a history lesson, because that's what you will be getting today, and most likely every Thursday. (I have my Renaissance Art History class on Thursday mornings.)

So, with that being said, andiamo! (Let's go!)
So over the last week I've told you guys about quite a few different places in the city, but I'm not sure if any of you have looked up a map of Florence. So, I am providing two here for you. I hope that they will help give you a picture of where I am and what it's like trying to find my way around. (Please note: that the maps are not complete and are missing MANY smaller streets. It would be so much easier if there were only as many streets as the maps show.)

 

The area that you can see in that first map is pretty much the area that we walk around all day on foot. If you can find the Ponte Vecchio (In the middle of the river) and go down to the southwest a little bit you will see Santo Spirito. (That is where my school is.) The first bridge to the right of the Ponte Vecchio is Ponte alle Grazie. This is where I get on the bus to go home. Where I live is WAY of the maps that I've shown you. I live 50 minutes away walking, (which I would never do!) or 30 minutes away taking the bus into the city center and then walking the rest of the way.

 

So for today's history lesson. (I don't think I'll actually be giving you guys art history stuff every week. But today's stuff is specific to the history of Florence, which I found really interesting, so I hope you will too.)

Florence was originally founded by the Romans in 59 BCE (Rome was a republic at this time) and was given the name Florentia (where the t was pronounced as a z- Florenzia). When the Romans would set up a new city they would first send in their surveyors to choose the best area. As you will see on your map, the area that Rome originally founded was right by where the Ponte Vecchio is now, because this is the narrowest part of the Arno River. After the surveyors did their job, the Romans would start to set up camp. Literally. They organized the new cities as a military camp (castrum). Their military camps would be built as a rectangle and their rows of their tents would make a grid (thus becoming the streets).

In a city the two most important streets where the streets that formed the N-S road through the middle and the E-W road through the middle. Where these two roads met was the exact center of the city, known as the forum (i.e. Roman Forum). Here they would put the most important political, economic, religious and social buildings. The forum in Florence is the Piazza della Repubblica. Today, there is a single column that marks where these two roads meet. (The column giving reference to the Romans that founded the city.)

The N-S road was called the 'cardo' meaning heart. This was because in each city that the Romans founded the cardo road would lead to Rome (if you followed it that far) and Rome was heart of the Republic. Today you can still follow this road south to Rome. (It'll take about 3 days walking.) The same is true that you can follow the road from Siena north to Rome.

The E-W road was called the 'decumanus' which meant 10 (because they did 10 blocks of tents) and hand (referring to the tent).

 

So this map makes it really easy to see what I'm talking about. If you look to the center of the map you can see the square shaped grid area. You can clearly see where the city walls were when the Romans built Florence, and just how small it was, compared to today. Piazza della Repubblica is there in the center!

A little more info on Rome/Florence. I'm not sure how many of you know this, but Florence was actually the capital of Italy for five years. (1865-1870) This was because after Italy was unified in 1861, the Pope did not want to be a part of the new country (he would have to give up all of his property) and thus declared himself a political hostage. So, they decided to have the capital in Florence for a while to give the Pope some time to cool off and change his mind. When Florence was made the capital, the city center (Piazza della Repubblica) was in bad shape. The city's market had been there for many years, making the area very dirty and smelly. In order to make the city worthy of being the country's capital a lot of money was poured into Florence. The market and Piazza was completely wiped clean and was rebuilt. Many people that pass through the Piazza note the good condition of the buildings being that they are so old. However the buildings aren't old in that sense. They were finished in 1895. (Clearly marked on the main arch of the Piazza.)

Our professor also pointed out that tourists come, take a few pictures, without really knowing the history of the Piazza. The entire history is compressed into those 3 lines.

The ancient center of the city,

from centuries of squalor

to new life restored.

 

 

I hope that I didn't bore you too much. The lecture that we got was fascinating to me. Especially seeing I'd been walking through the Piazza for a week and didn't know much about it or about Florence's founding. 

 

On to what you might think is the fun stuff. (It's all fun to me!)

Obviously I went to class today and we went walking around. (I left out the other half of the lecture about the city hall, which is also pretty fascinating. I'll sum it up in two lines for you. The city hall (now called a palace) literally looks like a fortress, even though it was designed to be the city hall. This was because A) they had never had city halls before this, and thus had now models for how it should be, and B) there was much political unrest at the time, so they design was directly related to the political stability of the time.

 

After class we headed out for lunch. PIZZA! Yes, again, but come on, you can never have too much pizza! This time I had the margherita pizza. It was delicious!!! I also decided to splurge on a coke. I hadn't had one since I'd gotten here. (They're 2 euro!!! But it was SO worth it!)

 My pizza.

The can was in German. So there was a sticker

on it that had the ingredients in Italian.

 It was actually really nice out today, and I got a good picture this morning!

 After lunch I decided to check out the merchants that are in the Piazza that my school is in. One stand had a bunch of kid books. I saw there were Disney books so I took a closer look and then noticed a couple Winnie the Pooh books! I bought this one for 3 euro. The original price on the back was for 6. It's 96 pages, so it was good price! When I was paying the merchant asked me (in Italian) if I was using it to learn Italian. I said yes, because I am, but I didn't tell him that I'm also in love with Winnie the Pooh. :)

 

Well I think that is all for today. I am about to eat dinner soon, but I think I've filled you all with enough info for one day!

 

My sincerest apologies for the long post today but, I feel your pain! I wrote the entire thing with my cat sitting on my arm. (I've become her new place to take naps.)