Florence Co

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The origins of Florence go back to the agrarian law passed by Julius Caesar in 59 BC which established the colony of Florentia. However according to recent archaeological findings it was not until the Augustan period – between 30 BC and 15 BC – that this came into effect. The castrum which formed a rectangle of 500m by 400m was bordered by the current Via Cerretani Via del Proconsolo Via Tornabuoni and by a line drawn parallel with Via delle Terme and Via Vacchereccia. The city soon had a temple dedicated to Jupiter. In the first decades of the 2nd century AD probably during the reign of Hadrian (who had built the new Cassian Way which passed through Florence) a massive urban redevelopment plan affecting almost the entire city embellished Florence with new and restored monuments. Residential areas were demolished to make way for important public buildings such as the large thermal complex in Via delle Terme the theatre between Via dei Gondi and Palazzo Vecchio and the amphitheatre outside the city walls (which could hold an audience of 1 500) the curved outline of which can still be seen between Via de’ Bentaccorti and the Peruzzi residences. Florence which had several thousand inhabitants by this time grew along the roads leading to the city. Despite the important political and administrative role the city played following the Diocletian reforms (when Florence became the capital of Tuscia corresponding to the current regions of Tuscany and Umbria) Florence was unable to escape from the general decadence mainly demographic which was typical of many Roman cities from the middle of the 4th century on and the devastation of the countryside due to the Radagaiso incursion. However the distruction of the Mugnone Valley by the barbarian hordes of Radagaiso on the part of Stilicone marked the definitive triumph of Christianity in Florentia which according to tradition was introduced by Saint Minias martyred in the amphitheatre in 250 and buried on the hill which bears his name. The church of Santa Felicita built outside the urban perimeter immediately to the south of the Arno and the centre of a thriving Greco-Syrian community was meant to correspond to the first extramural cathedral of San Lorenzo (consecrated by Bishop Ambrose in 393). After the threat of Radagasio and above all in the reign of Theodor Florence enjoyed a long period of peace. Subsequently however it was besieged by Goths during the Gothic-Byzantine War in that it was the seat of the imperial garrison and saved by the arrival of Byzantine reinforcements from Ravenna who met the enemy in Mugello in a battle whose outcome is still uncertain (541-2). Peacefully reoccupied by the Byzantines in 553 Florence remained under the rule of the exarch of Ravenna for twenty years until 570 when the Longobards occupied Tuscany. In this period Florence did not decline as much as it had in the past: archaeological evidence confirms this revealing that even as far as buildings were concerned there was a slow passage from late antiquity to the High Mediaeval with adaptation and continuous employment of Roman buildings.

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