Italy - Tuscany - Florence

Almost directly east of Lucca, Florence is remarkable in that, apart from the north, airport side, the surrounding countryside comes right up to the walls of the city, and there are simply no suburbs: the area just to the south of the city has its own very special luminosity, and south of this, is the Chianti area with some wonderful villages and the world-famous city of Siena.

The colony of Fiorentia was established in the 1st century BC by Julius Caesar on the north shore of the Arno river level with the Ponte Vecchio; however, the city had no real significance up until the early 11th century by which time it had evolved into an important Tuscan centre.

Florence did suffer in the Guelph-Ghibelline conflict but, by the 13th century, had become a separate commune: the great wealth derived from the silk and wool trade was directed into banking then dominated by the Pitti, Strozzi, and – above all – the Medici families. Under the patriarch Cosimo de' Medici, that wealth fuelled the beginning of the Renaissance when Florence became the new Athens and the Italian genius flourished with the greatest display of brilliance and purity the world has known.

The early Renaissance was dominated by a triumvirate of three undisputed geniuses: the architect Brunelleschi, the sculptor Donatello and the painter Massacio; Botticelli and Fra Angelico followed; the later "High Renaissance" was symbolised by two immortals, Michaelangelo and, from the anonymous village of Vinci, Leonardo da Vinci.