FLORENCE Escorted Tours   Independent Hotel Stay  The North  Mini Northern Tour   Hotel Villas and Relais  Florence & Venice The Art Capitals   Sightseeing Transfers Mini Art Tour Grand Tour of Northern Italy       Art and history a jump in the Renaissance Florence, in the region of Tuscany, rises on the banks of the Arno in a vast plain surrounded by the Careggi, Fiesole, Settignano, Arcetri and Bellosguardo hills. It is the most beautiful city in the most beautiful region in Italy -- one of the most beautiful countries in the world. That makes of Florence (probably) the most beautiful city on earth. The climate is temperate but rather variable, with breezy winters and hot summers. The Chianti area, between Florence and Siena, is one of the most beautiful countrysides in Italy and a famous wine production area. Florence contains an exceptional artistic patrimony, glorious testimony to its secular civilization. Cimabue and Giotto, the fathers of Italian painting, lived here, along with Arnolfo and Andrea Pisano, reformists of architecture and sculpture; Brunelleschi, Donatello and Masaccio, founders of the Renaissance; Ghiberti and the Della Robbia; Filippo Lippi and l'Angelico; Botticelli and Paolo Uccello; the universal geniuses Leonardo and Michelangelo. Their works, along with those of many generations of artists up to the masters of the present century, are gathered in the city's many museums. In Florence, thanks to Dante, the Italian language was born; with Petrarch and Boccaccio literary studies were affirmed; with Humanism the philosophy and values of classical civilization were revived; with Machiavelli modern political science was born; with Guicciardini, historical prose; and with Galileo, modern experimental science. Up to the time of Charlemagne, Florence was a university town. Today it includes many specialized institutes and is an international cultural center. Academies, art schools, scientific institutes and cultural centers all contribute to the city's intense activity. Founded by the Romans in the first century B.C., "Florentia" began its rebirth after the decadence of the barbaric ages, in the Carolingian period, and reached its highest point of civility between the eleventh and fifteenth centuries, as a free State, balancing the authority of the Emperors with that of the Popes, overcoming the problems of internal fighting between Guelphs and Ghibellines. In the fifteenth century Florence was ruled by the Signoria of the Medici, who later became the Grand Dukes of Tuscany. This in fact was the period when the city was at the height of its glory in art and culture, in politics and economic power. The Grand Duckes of the Medicis was succeeded, in the 18th century, by that of the House of Lorraine, when in 1860 Tuscany became part of the Kingdom of Italy of which Florence was the capital from 1865 to 1871. In this century, the city has once more taken up its role as an important centre for culture and the arts. Escorted Tours   Independent Hotel Stay  The North  Mini Northern Tour   Hotel Villas and Relais  Florence & Venice The Art Capitals   Sightseeing Transfers Mini Art Tour Grand Tour of Northern Italy       © 2008 by Appianline << Back