Florence Day Tour from Tuscany

Florence: The city has Roman origins (Lat. Florentia), but it is after the year one thousand that an incredible and economic rise starts. In fact, in the Middle Ages it became a free municipality, and despite strong political divisions and the internal fighting between the Ghibellines (supporters of the Empire) and the Guelfs (supporters of the papacy), ending with the victory of the latter, the city developed enormously, thanks also to the decline of their rival, Pisa, and to the very strong currency, the Florin (considered the dollar of that time). But in the XIVth, XVth and XVIth Centuries, when Florence saw its golden age and the advent of this unique movement in history: the Renaissance. In fact, with the rise to power of the Medici family, thanks to an industrial economy (above all with the working of wool), to a rich and industrious merchant class, but above all to an extremely strong financial and banking cloth, the city became very rich (the Florentines banks had branches in many European cities; they were so rich that they financed France in the hundred years war, and it was calculated that in the XVth Century only the city of Florence had an income superior to that of the whole of England). In this extremely favourable climate, the Medici family helped with their patronage in a determined manner, and as a consequence, the cultural development brought together to his court the major artists, poets and scientists of that time. From Michelangelo to Raffaello, from Leonardo to Galileo, from Brunelleschi to Niccolò Machiavelli, from Sandro Botticelli to Amerigo Vespucci, to mention a few. This was the age of the Renaissance where artists, thinkers and scientists, thanks also to the rediscovery and study of the classics, came out of the dark ages of medieval times, giving man freedom, individuality and self determination applied to all areas of life. It was a revolution and the beginning of modern thinking, and of a contemporary society. The Medici family, and thus that of Lorena, continued to administer the Grand Duchy of Tuscany until 1861, when it was annexed to the united Italy. Exactly in this period, Florence was the capital of Italy until 1870, the year in which it was transferred to Rome, as soon as it was annexed to the newborn Italian nation. It should be remembered though that one of the most famous Italian personalities in the world was born in Florence; it is the father of the Italian language, and for his greatest opera, The Divine Comedy, by many considered the greatest poet of all time: Dante Alighieri.

Do not miss! Ponte Vecchio, Piazza della Signoria, Piazza Santa Croce, Palazzo Pitti, Cathedral, Piazza Santa Maria Novella, Piazza della Repubblica, Via De’ Tornabuoni, market of San Lorenzo.