Florence history guide: from Roman colony to Renaissance capital
Florence: main sights guided walking tour
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How old is Florence and what is its history?
Florence was founded as a Roman colony called Florentia around 59 BC. It grew into a prosperous medieval commune, became Europe's leading banking centre in the 13th–14th centuries, was effectively ruled by the Medici family from 1434, and was the epicentre of the Italian Renaissance. It served briefly as the capital of unified Italy (1865–1871) before Rome took that role. Today it is a Tuscan regional capital of about 370,000 people.
Florence has been continuously inhabited for more than 2,000 years, and on most days in the city centre you are walking on Roman paving stones or medieval foundations, past Renaissance facades, toward a baroque church. The layers are visible everywhere if you know what to look for.
This guide traces the key periods of Florentine history, explains the recurring conflicts and characters, and tells you where to see the physical evidence today.
Roman Florentia (59 BC–c. 400 AD)
The Roman colony of Florentia was established around 59 BC on the north bank of the Arno at a point where the river could be forded — the same geographic advantage that has made the site strategically significant ever since. The colony followed standard Roman grid planning: two main arteries (the cardo and the decumanus) crossing at right angles, with a forum at the intersection.
The forum of Roman Florentia is now Piazza della Repubblica, redesigned in the 19th century but preserving the location and roughly the dimensions of the original public space. The column in the centre of the piazza (the Column of Abundance) is a 15th-century replacement of a Roman marker. If you walk the streets immediately around the piazza — Via Roma, Via dei Calzaiuoli, Via del Corso — you are following the Roman grid.
The Roman city had an amphitheatre (its oval shape is preserved in the curved streets around Via Torta, south of Piazza Santa Croce), baths, and temples. The Baptistery of San Giovanni may incorporate Roman foundation walls; excavations beneath it have revealed Roman mosaic floors.
Florentia was a provincial town throughout the Roman period — important as a crossing point and garrison, but not a major city. It did not become significant until the early medieval period, when the collapse of Roman infrastructure made its ford over the Arno more rather than less valuable.
The medieval commune (c. 1000–1300)
Florence’s emergence as a major Italian city dates to the 11th century. The city’s location on the Via Francigena — the pilgrimage route from northern Europe to Rome — made it an important stop for travellers and, more importantly, a natural site for banking and money-changing operations to serve those travellers.
The distinctive monuments of medieval Florence were mostly built in the 11th and 12th centuries: the Baptistery of San Giovanni (11th century), the Church of San Miniato al Monte (11th century), the Church of Santi Apostoli (11th century). These Romanesque buildings are characterized by their geometric marble inlay — green and white marble in patterns borrowed from late antique models — which would later directly influence the design of the Duomo.
The commune emerged in the late 11th and 12th centuries: an association of citizens, organized through guilds (the Arte) and governing councils, that effectively took over administration of the city from the bishop. This communal government was the foundation of Florentine civic life for three centuries — turbulent, frequently violent, perpetually renegotiated.
The great medieval towers that dotted Florence — there were reportedly more than 150 at the city’s peak — were statements of family power and mutual intimidation. Rival families literally tried to overshadow each other. A series of ordinances in the early 13th century mandated that towers be cut down to no more than 50 metres. The few that survive (the Torre della Pagliazza near Piazza Brunelleschi, several around Piazza Santa Trinita) give a sense of the original medieval skyline.
Banking and the Black Death (1300–1400)
By 1300, Florence was one of the largest cities in Europe, with a population of roughly 100,000. Its banking families — the Bardi, Peruzzi, and later Acciaiuoli — had become the bankers of European kings and popes, extending enormous loans to monarchs who sometimes defaulted disastrously (Edward III of England’s default in 1345 bankrupted both the Bardi and Peruzzi banks simultaneously).
The florin, minted from 1252, was Florence’s contribution to European monetary stability. A gold coin of consistent weight and purity, it became the dominant trade currency across the continent — the dollar of medieval Europe.
Then came the plague.
In the spring and summer of 1348, the Black Death arrived in Florence from Genoa. Giovanni Boccaccio, who survived it, describes its progress in the introduction to the Decameron: “In the year of the Lord 1348, there came to the great city of Florence… the mortal pestilence… whether through the operation of the heavenly bodies or because of our own iniquities it had been sent down upon mankind for our correction by the just wrath of God.” Within a few months, somewhere between 45,000 and 65,000 Florentines were dead — perhaps half the city’s population.
The long-term consequences were complicated. In the short term, labour became scarcer and more valuable; wages rose; the social hierarchy was disrupted. In the long term, the demographic collapse and the subsequent decades of political instability contributed to the conditions that produced the Renaissance — as the surviving wealthy competed more intensely for prestige, commissioned more art, and employed more artists.
The Medici era (1400–1737)
The full story of the Medici dynasty is told in the Medici family history guide. In the context of Florentine history, the key points are:
The Medici rose to dominance through banking wealth and political manipulation, beginning with Cosimo de’ Medici’s return from exile in 1434. They ruled Florence for most of the next three centuries — sometimes as official dukes and grand dukes, sometimes as “first citizens” who controlled the republican institutions without formally abolishing them.
The Pazzi Conspiracy of 1478 — when rival bankers tried to assassinate Lorenzo and Giuliano de’ Medici during High Mass in the Duomo — was the most dramatic moment of the Medici era and demonstrates the violence that lay beneath the Renaissance cultural surface.
The Medici were expelled twice: in 1494 (when the French invaded Italy) and again in 1527 (when the Sack of Rome temporarily destroyed Papal power). Both times they returned. After their permanent restoration in 1531, the republican institutions that had been the basis of Florentine self-governance were effectively abolished; Florence became a hereditary duchy and then grand duchy under Medici control.
The Medici male line ended with Gian Gastone in 1737. His sister Anna Maria Luisa negotiated the Family Pact that kept the Medici art collections in Florence forever. The grand duchy passed to the Austrian House of Lorraine.
Savonarola and the Bonfire of the Vanities
Between 1494 and 1498, Florence was dominated by the Dominican friar Girolamo Savonarola — one of history’s more dramatic cautionary tales about the relationship between religious enthusiasm and political power.
Savonarola had been preaching in Florence for years, attracting large crowds with vivid apocalyptic sermons. When the Medici were expelled in 1494, he moved into a political vacuum and became effectively the moral authority of the reconstituted republic. He organized the Bonfires of the Vanities — public bonfires of mirrors, cosmetics, wigs, fine clothing, books, and artwork (including, reportedly, some Botticelli paintings) in Piazza della Signoria.
His influence lasted less than four years. The Pope eventually excommunicated him; his political coalition collapsed; his own followers turned against him. He was arrested, tortured, hanged, and burned in Piazza della Signoria in 1498 — on approximately the same spot where his bonfires had burned. A small marble plaque in the piazza marks the location of his execution.
The Wars of Italy and the siege (1494–1531)
The Italian Wars — a series of conflicts in which France, Spain, and the Holy Roman Empire fought over the Italian peninsula — ended the Italian Renaissance as a political project. Florence was caught repeatedly between competing great powers, and the city’s independence was progressively eroded.
The most dramatic episode was the siege of Florence (1529–1530). After the Sack of Rome in 1527, the Medici had again been expelled and a republic briefly restored. The Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and Pope Clement VII (a Medici) sent imperial troops to restore Medici rule. Florence resisted for eleven months under a siege that cost enormous suffering; Michelangelo helped design the city’s fortifications.
The republic fell in August 1530. Alessandro de’ Medici became hereditary duke; the republican experiment was over.
Florentine capital of Italy (1865–1871)
After the unification of Italy in 1861 under the Kingdom of Piedmont, Rome remained under Papal control and unavailable as a capital. Florence served as the provisional capital from 1865 to 1871. The period brought significant modernization: new government ministries, widened streets, and the controversial demolition of the medieval ghetto and the old marketplace in the city centre, replaced by the current Piazza della Repubblica.
The column in the piazza carries the inscription “L’antico centro della città da secolare squallore a nuova vita restituito” — “the ancient city centre restored from centuries of squalor to new life.” The demolition was contentious at the time and remains controversial among historians who consider that the medieval quarter was valuable and the “squalor” was an ideological projection.
The capital moved to Rome in 1871, and Florence settled into its current role: a regional capital of modest political significance but enormous cultural weight.
The 1966 flood
On 4 November 1966, the Arno flooded Florence to a depth of up to 6 metres in some areas. The flood was catastrophic: at least 35 people died, hundreds of thousands of artworks were damaged or destroyed, and the damage to churches, libraries, and private homes was incalculable.
The response was equally dramatic. Thousands of young people — known as the “Mud Angels” (gli angeli del fango) — arrived from across Italy and from abroad to help with the recovery. Artworks were extracted from the flood water and meticulously restored over the following decades; some restoration projects continue today.
The flood accelerated the development of art conservation as a professional discipline. The Opificio delle Pietre Dure, Florence’s restoration institute, became one of the world’s leading art conservation centres as a result of the post-flood effort.
Walking Florentine history: key sites
| Site | Period | What you see |
|---|---|---|
| Baptistery of San Giovanni | 4th–12th c. | Possible Roman foundations; medieval geometry; Ghiberti’s bronze doors |
| Santa Maria Novella | 13th–15th c. | Dominican Gothic architecture; Masaccio’s Trinity (1427) |
| Bargello | 1255 | Original fortress-prison; now sculpture museum |
| Piazza della Signoria | 14th c.– | Palazzo Vecchio; site of Savonarola’s bonfire and execution |
| Santa Croce | 13th–14th c. | Franciscan basilica; tombs of Michelangelo, Galileo, Machiavelli |
| Palazzo Medici Riccardi | 1444–1484 | First great Renaissance palazzo; Gozzoli frescoes |
| Duomo complex | 13th–15th c. | Brunelleschi’s dome; Baptistery doors; Giotto’s bell tower |
| Ponte Vecchio | 1345 | Medieval bridge with goldsmiths’ shops |
| San Lorenzo | 15th c. | Brunelleschi’s church; Medici Chapels |
| Piazza della Repubblica | 19th c. | Roman forum site; 1865–1871 urban renewal |
Frequently asked questions about Florence history
What was Florence before the Romans?
There were Etruscan settlements in the Arno valley before the Roman colony, though Florentia itself was a Roman foundation. The Etruscans had their major centres further south and east — Fiesole, the hilltop town visible from Florence, was a significant Etruscan and later Roman city. You can walk to Fiesole in a day from central Florence and visit its Roman theatre and Etruscan museum.
What is the Orsanmichele?
An unusual building on Via dei Calzaiuoli that is simultaneously a church and a market hall. Built in the 14th century as a grain market with an oratory above, it was later converted entirely to religious use. The exterior niches were allocated to the major guilds, who commissioned statues of their patron saints — resulting in what is effectively an outdoor sculpture museum including works by Donatello, Ghiberti, and Verrocchio. Entry is free; it is consistently undervisited.
When was Ponte Vecchio built?
The current Ponte Vecchio dates to 1345, when the earlier bridge was destroyed by flooding. It has been destroyed and rebuilt multiple times throughout history. The shops on the bridge, originally occupied by butchers and tanners, were converted to goldsmiths and jewellers by order of Cosimo I in 1565 — he found the smell of the butchers offensive as he used the Vasari Corridor above the bridge. The bridge survived the Second World War bombardments because Hitler reportedly ordered it not to be destroyed; all other Arno bridges in Florence were blown up by retreating German forces in August 1944.
Is Machiavelli buried in Florence?
Yes. Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527), the political theorist and author of The Prince, was born and lived in Florence and is buried in Santa Croce. His monument is near the entrance of the church, on the right aisle opposite Galileo. The Prince was written during his exile from Florentine politics after the Medici returned in 1512; it remains one of the foundational texts of political science.
Frequently asked questions about Florence history guide
When was Florence founded?
The city of Florentia was founded as a Roman colony around 59 BC, though there was an Etruscan settlement in the area earlier. Julius Caesar is sometimes cited as the founder, though the colonization happened more systematically under Augustus. The Roman city followed standard colonial grid planning; parts of the street grid are still visible in the medieval centre, particularly in the area around the Piazza della Repubblica.Who were the Guelphs and Ghibellines?
The two factions that dominated Italian politics from roughly 1215 to 1350. The Ghibellines supported the Holy Roman Emperor; the Guelfs supported the Pope. Florence was predominantly Guelf, though the balance shifted repeatedly. After the Guelf victory, the Guelfs themselves split into White Guelfs (for Florentine autonomy) and Black Guelfs (for Papal intervention). Dante was a White Guelf and was exiled by the Black Guelfs.What was the Black Death's impact on Florence?
The plague of 1348 killed approximately 45,000–65,000 people in Florence — roughly half the city's population in just a few months. It fundamentally disrupted the city's social and economic order. Giovanni Boccaccio, who lived through it in Florence, used the plague as the frame narrative for the Decameron: ten young people flee to a country villa to escape the epidemic and tell each other stories. The demographic shock arguably contributed to the later Renaissance by disrupting established hierarchies and creating new social mobility.When was Florence the capital of Italy?
Between 1865 and 1871, when it served as the provisional capital of the newly unified Kingdom of Italy while Rome (still under Papal control) was unavailable. The city underwent significant modernization during this period, including the demolition of the old ghetto and the construction of the Piazza della Repubblica on the former Roman forum site. Rome became the capital in 1871.Was Florence ever a republic?
Yes — repeatedly, though the term is complicated. Florence maintained republican institutions (elected councils, guild-based government) from the late 12th century. The Medici worked within these institutions while effectively controlling them. There were periods of more genuine republican governance: after the Medici were expelled in 1494, and again from 1527 to 1531 during the siege. After the Medici returned definitively in 1531, Florence became a hereditary duchy. The institutions survived in form but not in function.
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