Florence Introduction.

Five hundred years ago, Florence was the heart and nerve centre of European culture and life, it was from the 14^th through the 16^th centuries that many of the most important developments in art, science, literature, and architecture took place. Considered one of the richest and most beautiful cities in western civilisation, Florence remains to be seen and experienced by today’s awestruck visitors much as it was then.

Florence is no longer the axis around which the cultural world revolves, but the taste, elegance, and aesthetic sensibility that marked the renaissance are still alive and well. Today, the city boasts Europe’s richest concentration or artistic wealth, a great deal of which can be seen or sensed without even entering any of its myriad world-class museums. Elegant young Florentines hurry down the narrow cobblestone streets, across the spacious stone-paved piazza, and past the great august palazzi with the same confidence and pride as their forebears.

Europe’s cultural revolution was financed in large part by the medicis (and those who flourished under their commercial success), Florence’s unrivalled ruling family throughout much of the renaissance. They came to power as shrewd bankers and used their unprecedented acumen and wealth to foster artistic and intellectual genius.

The city is filled with this heritage: fully half a dozen principal museums, as well as myriad churches and palazzo, house major paintings and sculpture of that golden period when Florence was, as D.H Lawrence described it, “Man’s perfect centre of the universe”.

However it’s not only sights and history that make Florence a special place for visitors. The nuts and bolts of where you stay and what you eat will make this city special in and off-season. Many affordable hotels are listed are housed in imposing palazzi that date from the date of the medicis and Michelangelo and his peers. You may find yourself sleeping beneath a ceiling decorated with colourful frescoes whose origins reach back into the centuries, or sampling a glass of Chianti in the cantina of a palazzo built before the locally born Giovanni da Verrazzano set eyes on New York Harbor. The rustic though delicious cuisine of this region, la cucina Toscana, from the heart of the nation’s Wine-and olive-producing farmland, is one of the finest in Italy-certainly one of the most sought after in the world but don’t worry, it is possible to get a dinner fit for Florentine duke for a song. 

SET ON THE BANKS OF THE RIVER ARNO AMONG GENTLE HILLS, FLORENCE AND ITS ARTISTIC TREASURES EPITOMISE THE FLOWERING OF THE RENNAISSANCE. THE LATE 14^TH AND 15^TH  CENTURIES SAW AN EXPLOSION OF CREATIVITY AND A RETURN TO THE PRINCIPALES AND STYLES OF THE CLASSICAL WORLD. IN NO OTHER CITY CAN THE DEVELOPMENT  OF THE RENAISSANCE ART BE TRACCED SO COMPREHENSIVELY IN SUCH A RELATIVELY SMALL SPACE.