FLORENCE

City on both banks of the Arno River, in Tuscany, central Italy. It was an economic and artistic center in the late Middle Ages and Renaissance, and its dialect became the standard vernacular of Italy. Since 1420 Florence has been the capital of an archdiocese.

Medieval chroniclers report that Florentia Tuscorum was founded by Caesar (59 b.c.), and recent studies indicate that it is unlikely that modern Florence was derived from an Etruscan city. The Roman city, the focus of north-south roads at the foot of the Apennines, by a.d. 200 was a commercial center, having an aqueduct, baths, a theater, and other public monuments. It was the capital of the sixth region of diocletian's Diocese of Italy (Tuscany and Umbria) and c. 300 began to suffer from the economic crisis of the roman empire. Heavy taxes, rural impoverishment, and a decline in trade caused politicoeconomic difficulties.

Early Christian History. Christianity came to Florence c. 200. In the small Christian community there were several martyrs under decius, to one of whom, St. Miniatus, a basilica was dedicated. Felix, the first known bishop, attended the Council of Rome against the Donatists (313). St. Ambrose consecrated a basilica in Florence (394), where religious life flourished under St. Zenobius (c. 412). Bishop Podius organized pastoral care and instituted many parishes.

Stilicho and the Romans thwarted the sudden attack on Florence by the Ostrogoths under Radagaiso (405), but the city did not recover. In 541 the Byzantines defended it against Totila. Under the Lombards, who replaced the Byzantines, Florence had a duke and a royal court. The Franks placed it under a count in their reorganization. Charlemagne was in Florence for Christmas (786). lothair i in the Constitutio Olonensis (825) assigned Florence one of eight schools for students for the priesthood. The Franks fostered monasteries, which later influenced both the city and the diocese. Ottonian immunity contributed to the growth of church property, which became more and more important. Margrave Hugh of Tuscany founded many monasteries, which became centers of reform. Countess Matilda of Canossa (Tuscany), under whom the commune took form, sided with the papacy against the empire in the investiture struggle.

In the 10th and 11th centuries religious life flourished. St. romuald and St. john gualbert founded the first reform cenobite monasteries, especially camaldoli and vallombrosa. The cathedral chapter, reformed under Benedict IX (1032–45), led a life in common. The German emperor attended Pope Victor II's Council of Florence (1055), which promulgated stringent rules against simony and concubinage. Nicholas II (1058–61), the former Gerhard of Burgundy, had been bishop of Florence (1046–58). During the rise of the commune, the bishops were important in political life.

Several forms of autonomy, especially economic, developed in Florence and were defended against feudal lords who controlled the land around the city. Florence reduced them to obedience one by one and had them build houses within its walls and live there part of the year. Even the imperial envoys, associated with the feudal lords, came to terms with the commune. Against imperial rights, Florence was allied with the pope, then the strongest opponent of the emperor. When common goods had to be administered and collective rights defended, powers were delegated to a limited number of citizens (boni homines ). The first consuls appeared in 1138. The first evidence of the commune in action was the war against Fiesole (1123), fought for territory, political hegemony, and diocesan boundaries. Fiesole was taken and destroyed. The commune built new walls (1172–75) and divided the city into quarters and sixths, each of which furnished representatives to the consular magistracy.

The commune developed as a federation of groups (arti ). At first, there were two associations: the Society of the Torri or nobles (optimates ), and the bourgeois Arte of Calimala, which headed the arte of the refining and dyeing of wool cloth, Florence's first and most important bourgeois industry. In time, divers industries and trades separated and formed independent arti, later to divide into major and minor arti. At its peak, the organization of arti clashed with and defeated the nobility, upsetting the consular constitution. A new supreme official, the podestà, was chosen first from the citizenry and then from foreigners.

Guelfs and Ghibellines. The internal antagonisms of the commune became a struggle between guelfs and Ghibellines. After a long conflict, the Ghibellines, aided by frederick ii, drove the Guelfs into exile. On Frederick's death (1250), the Guelfs returned and promulgated a new constitution. A new magistracy was created beside the podestà, the capitano of the people, to look out for their interests. In 1252 Florence coined the first gold florins. Ghibellines returned with Manfred when siena defeated Florence at Montaperti (1260). In 1265 dante was born, and in 1266 the battle of Benevento marked the end of the Hohenstaufen-Church conflict and the triumph of Italian Guelfs. Florence, backed by the popes and the kings of Naples (House of Anjou), became a bulwark of Guelfism.

At Colle in 1267 Florence avenged the defeat at Montaperti, and at Campaldino in 1289 it fixed its hegemony over Ghibelline Arezzo. Cardinal Latino negotiated a peace (1279) that sought to end party rivalries and smooth the way to a new form of government, the primate of the arti. The major arti first had access to government, and then the minor arti (corporative trade groups of the popolo minuto ), sanctioned by Giano della Bella's Ordinamenti di giustizia (1293). In 1300 Guelfs split into Blacks and Whites over how Guelfism should be expressed

(Blacks intransigent, Whites somewhat moderate) and over independence of the Angevins and the popes. Whites first held a series of priorships, to one of which Dante belonged; but in 1301 the Blacks seized power with the support of Boniface VIII and banished White leaders. Dante died in exile in Ravenna (1321). The hopes of the Whites for a political revolution caused by the arrival of Emperor henry vii in Italy were ended with his death in 1313. Florence had recourse to Charles of Calabria, king of Sicily, for aid against Castruccio Castracani of Lucca, who defeated Florence in 1325. The deaths of Castruccio and Charles of Valois in 1328 freed Florence from an Italian threat and a foreign enemy.

After winning territory from nearby Pistoia, Arezzo, Cortona, and Siena, Florence was defeated by Pisa in a contest over the possession of Lucca; and the great banking houses of Peruzzi and Bardi failed. Walter of Brienne, Duke of Athens, accepted rule of the city but was expelled

in 1343 after a year of misrule. The war of the "Eight Saints" (1375) was fought against the papal legate William of Noellet (d. 1394), who attempted to take Florence. Afterward party conflict raged stronger in the city. In 1378 the proletariat of workers (Ciompi), excluded from corporative rights and rule, seized power, making Michele di Lando gonfalonier. Democratic rule lasted to 1382, when the oligarchy was restored under Maso degli Albizi. Capture of Pisa (1406) and Leghorn (1421) gave Florence access to the sea.

The Medici. The rule of the Albizi lasted until Cosimo de' Medici, a shrewd politician and rich merchant, replaced it (1434), founding a dynasty that reached its peak under his grandson, Lorenzo the Magnificent (1469–92). The aspirations of the oligarchs out of power exploded in the pazzi plot, to which Lorenzo's brother Giuliano fell victim; but Lorenzo survived to consolidate his hold on the city. Not only did he rule well, assuring external peace with painstaking alliances, but he fostered internal growth; under him Florence attained its economic, artistic, and intellectual peak in the Renaissance. He was surrounded with humanist genius: Poliziano pico della mirandola, Marsilio ficino, the Camaldolese theologian and humanist Ambrogio Traversari (1386–1439), and others. In his Biblioteca Laurenziana he collected codices of Greek and Latin classics. Great artists worked for him; Michelangelo was raised in his house. At the time of his death, Girolamo savonarola was denouncing the corruption of morals in the new age. Savonarola obtained the expulsion of Piero, Lorenzo's son, who ceded Florentine land to Charles VIII of France, and he established a Christian republic that was intended to be the center of a disciplinary reform of the Church. The oligarchy reacted, however, and the friar's dream vanished with him on his pyre (1498).

After being briefly out of power, the Medici returned in 1512, protected by two Medici popes, Leo X and Clement VII. In 1530 the republic came to an end following a siege by Emperor charles v. Duke Alessandro (1510–37), who belonged to a collateral branch of the Medici, became lord of Florence. During the ensuing principate, Florence's history was regional rather than municipal. The ducal dynasty died out in 1737 and was replaced by Francis II of Lorraine. Except for the Napoleonic period (1801–14), the Lorraine dynasty ruled until 1859, when Leopold II (d. 1870) left after a plebescite voted annexation to the kingdom of Italy, of which Florence was the capital (1865–70).

Religious life flourished from the 12th century onward. The faith inspired Florence's greatest creations. They included Dante's Divine Comedy and the Cathedral of S. Maria del Fiore, consecrated by Eugene IV (1430). The convents of S. Maria Novella, S. Spirito, S. Croce, and the Charterhouse were founded. A number of medieval saints claimed Florence as their native city: the recluse St. Verdiana (1182?–1242?), St. Julia of Certaldo, Bl. Joan of Signa, Bl. Umiliana de' Cerchi, and Bl. Villana De Botti (1332–60). The Servites (Servants of Mary) were founded in Florence by the seven saints (1233–49). The 17th ecumenical council, transferred from Basel to Ferrara, met in Florence (1439–43). St. antoninus pierozzi, OP, founder of the Convent of San Marco, where Fra angelico worked, was a virtuous and strong archbishop (1446–59). The reform of morals and of the Church that emanated from San Marco had its most fervent apostle in Savonarola, leader of Florence's late fifteenth-century spiritual Republic. In the 17th century Florence produced new saints: catherine of ricci, Mary Magdalene de' pazzi, and Hippolytus Galantini (founder of a congregation of lay catechists). Archbishop della Gherardesca founded the major seminary (1712). Under Cardinal Elia Dalla Costa (1932–61), who founded the minor seminary (1937), were held the Etruscan Council (1934) and two diocesan synods. The University of Florence (1348) moved to Pisa (1472); it was reconstituted in 1923, and is one of the largest in Italy.

cathari were prevalent in the 13th century and had a bishop in Florence; patarines were condemned by a diocesan synod (1327). Protestantism had almost no influence in the diocese, though peter martyr Vermigli was born there. The Jansenist tendencies of Bp. Scipione de' Ricci of Pistoia did not affect the people of the city.

Bibliography: g. lami, S. Ecclesiae Florentinae monumenta, 4 v. (Florence 1758). r. galluzzi, Storia del Granducato di Toscana sotto il governo di casa Medici, 9 v. (Florence 1781). f. schevill, Medieval and Renaissance Florence, 2 v. (New York 1963). a. panellla, Storia di Firenze (Florence 1949). r. david-sohn, Storia di Firenze, 5 v. (Florence 1956–62), tr. of the German (Berlin 1896–1927). m. lopes pegna, Firenze dalle origini al Medioevo (Florence 1962). Annuario dell' Arcidiocesi di Firenze, 1965. Annuario Pontificio (Rome 1912–) (1964) 152. g. brucker, Renaissance Florence (New York 1969). e. cochrane, Florence in the Forgotten Centuries 1527–1800 (Chicago 1973). r. goldthwaite The Building of Renaissance Florence (Baltimore 1980). r. turner, The Renaissance in Florence (London 1997).

[e. scozzafava]