Florence Sentence Examples
This happened six hundred years ago, in the city of Florence in Italy.
Thence it runs westward to Florence and through the gorge of Golfolina onwards to Empoli and Pisa, receiving various tributaries in its course, and falls into the sea 71 m.
The Arno, which has its source in the Monte Falterona, one of the most elevated summits of the main chain of the Tuscan Apennines, flows nearly south till in the neighborhood of Arezzo it turns abruptly north-west, and pursues that course as far as Pontassieve, where it again makes a sudden bend to the west, and pursues a westerly course thence to the sea, passing through Florence and Pisa.
There are three higher commercial schools, with academic rank, at Venice, Genoa and Ban, and eleven secondary commercial schools; and technical and commercial schools for women at Florence and Milan.
There are in Italy six clearing houses, namely, the ancient one at Leghorn, and those of Genoa, Milan, Rome, Florence and Turin, founded since 1882.
The Italian people, that people which gave to the world the commerce and the arts of Florence, was not indeed as yet apparent.
The privileges confirmed to the Lombard cities by the peace of Constance were extended to Tuscany, where Florence, having War of ruined Fiesole, had begun her career of freedom and clues prosperity.
The introduction of the factions into Florence in 1215, owing to a private quarrel between the Buondelmonti, Amidei and Donati, is a celebrated instance of what was happening in every burgh.
The only gleam of success which shone on his ill fortune was the revolution which placed Florence in the hands of the Ghibellines in 1248.
While the former faction gained in Lombardy by the massacre of Ezzelino, the latter revived in Tuscany after the battle of Montaperti, which in 1260 placed Florence at the discretion of the Ghibellines.
AdvertisementThe Mediterranean was left to be fought for by Genoa and Venice, while Guelph Florence grew still more powerful in Tuscany.
The Guelph party was held together with a less tight hand even in cities so consistent as Florence.
Florence after the date 1292, it becomes criminal to be scioperato, or unemployed in industry.
In Tuscany, where the Guelph party was very strongly organized, and the commercial constitution of Florence kept the nobility in check, the communes remained as yet free from hereditary masters.
But the adventurers death in 1328 saved the stronghold of republican institutions, and Florence breathed freely for a while again.
AdvertisementOnly Florence and Venice, at the close of the period upon which we are now entering, maintained their republican independence.
And Venice was ruled by a close oligarchy; Florence was passing from the hands of her oligarchs into the power of the Medicean merchants.
These five powers were the kingdom of Naples, the duchy of Milan, the republic of Florence, the republic of Venice and the papacy.
Pisa and Perugia were threatened with extinction, and Florence dreaded the advance of the Visconti arms, when the plague suddenly cut short his career of treachery and conquest in the year 1402.
When the Visconti dynasty ended by the dukes death in 1447, he pretended to espouse the cause of the Milanese republic, which was then re-established; but he played his cards so subtly as to make himself, by the help of Cosimo de Medici in Florence, duke de facto if not de jure.
AdvertisementThis balance could not have been established without the concurrent aid of Florence.
The necessities of war and foreign affairs soon placed Florence in the power of an oligarchy headed by the great Albizzi family.
During their season of ascendancy Pisa was enslaved, and Florence gained the access to the sea.
Instead of opposing Francesco Sforza in Milan, he lent him his prestige and influence, foreseeing that the dynastic future of his own family and the pacification of Italy might be secured by a balance of power in which Florence should rank on equal terms with Milan and Naples.
The first entry of any moment made by the Venetians into strictly Italian affairs was in 1336, when the republics of Florence and St Mark allied themselves against Mastino della Scala, and the latter took possession of Treviso.
AdvertisementThe Medici became yearly more indispensable to Florence, the Bentivogli more autocratic in Bologna, the Baglioni in Perugia; and even Siena was ruled by the Petrucci.
During the following fourteen years of his brilliant career he made himself absolute master of Florence, and so modified her institutions that the Medici were henceforth necessary to the state.
He crossed the Alps in 1495, passed through Lombardy, entered Tuscany, freed Pisa from the yoke of Florence, witnessed the expulsion of the Medici, marched to Naples and was crowned tliereall this without striking a blow.
As a consequence of the battle of Ravenna, the Medici returned in 1512 to Florence.
As an immediate result of this catastrophe, Florence shook off the Medici, and established a republic. But Clement, having made peace with the emperor, turned the remnants of the army which had sacked Rome against his native city.
The marquessate of Mantua was made a duchy; and Florence was secured, as we have seen, to the Medici.
Naples, easily worsted by the French, under Miollis, left the British alliance, and made peace by the treaty of Florence (March 1801), agreeing to withdraw her troops from the Papal States, to cede Piombino and the Presidii (in Tuscany) to France and to close her ports to British ships and commerce.
Count Serristori, the grand-ducal comiiissioner, arrived in Florence on the 4th of May 1849; the -iational guard was disbanded; and on the 25th, the Austrians inder dAspre entered Florence.
On his refusal Florence rose as one man, and he, feeling that he could not rely on his troops, abandoned Tuscany on.
On the 3rd of September the news of Sedan reached Florence, and with the fall of Napoleons empire the September convention ceased to have any value.
In August there were strikes among the dock laborers of Genoa and the iron workers of Florence; the latter agitation developed into a general strike in that city, which aroused widespread indignation among the orderly part of the population and ended without any definite result.
Riots broke out also in Naples, Florence, Rome and Bologna.
Giuseppe Ferraris Rivoluzioni d haIfa (1858) deserves notice as a work of singular vigour, though no great scientific importance, and Cesare Balbos Sommario (Florence, 1856) presents the main outlines of the subject with brevity and clearness.
Educated at the universities of Bonn and Heidelberg, he obtained a position in Florence through the influence of an Englishman, William Craufurd, but soon he entered the Prussian diplomatic service and was employed in Florence, in Constantinople and in Rome.
From 1851 to 1860 he represented his country in Florence.
He remembered his connexion with Florence when he wrote Romische Briefe von einem Florentiner (Leipzig, 1840-44), and his residence in Rome was also responsible for his Geschichte der Stadt Rom (3 vols., 1867-70)..
Other works which may be mentioned are Zeitgenossen, Biografien and Charakteristiken (Berlin, 1862); Bibliografia del lavori pubblicati in Germania sulla storia d'Italia (Berlin, 1863); Biographische Denkblatter nach personlichen Erinnerungen (Leipzig, 1878); and Saggi di storia e letteratura (Florence, 1880).
His tenure of office was marked by an increased zeal for missions in Protestant lands, and by the removal of the society's headquarters from Rome to Fiesole near Florence in 1870.
The rest of his life was passed in Verona, Mantua and Rome - chiefly Mantua; Venice and Florence have also been named, but without confirmation.
A nobility of this kind often gave way to a democracy which either proved as turbulent as itself, or else grew into an oligarchy ruling under democratic forms. Thus at Florence the old nobles became the opposite to a privileged class.
But something like a new nobility presently grew up among the commons themselves; there were popolani grossi at Florence just as there were noble plebeians at Rome.
He supported himself as a teacher of Greek, first at Verona and afterwards in Venice and Florence; in 1436 he became, through the patronage of Lionel, marquis of Este, professor of Greek at Ferrara; and in 1438 and following years he acted as interpreter for the Greeks at the councils of Ferrara and Florence.
As early as 1875 he published a volume of poems in Gujarati, followed in 1877 by The Indian Muse in English Garb, which attracted attention in England, notably from Tennyson, Max Miller, and Florence Nightingale.
He has recorded one or two interesting notes on Turin, Genoa, Florence and other towns at which halt was made on his route; but Rome was the great object of his pilgrimage, and the words in which he has alluded to the feelings with which he Her letters to Walpole about Gibbon contain some interesting remarks by this ' ` aveugle clairvoyante," as Voltaire calls her; but they belong to a later period (1777).
Three years later he was appointed to the chair of philosophy at the Istituto di Perfezionamento at Florence, and, in 1871, was made professor of philosophy in the university of Rome.
On his own initiative he conducted exhaustive inquiries into the conditions of the Sicilian peasants and of the Tuscan metayers, and in 1877 published in co-operation with Signor Leopoldo Franchetti a masterly work on Sicily (La Sicilia, Florence, 1877).
Its sympathies were always Guelphic, and it was closely allied with Florence, which it assisted in the battle of Monteaperto (1260), and its constitution owed much to her model.
In 1492 he again travelled in Italy, studying in Florence, Rome and Venice, making himself familiar with the writings of Aristotle, though greatly influenced by the Platonic philosophy.
It was under the protection of Siena till 1202, when it declared for Florence and thenceforward passed from one mistress to the other, until early in the 16th century when it finally became Florentine.
They traced their descent to ancestors who had achieved distinction in the political life of medieval Florence and Sarzana; Francesco Buonaparte of Sarzana migrated to Corsica early in the 16th century.
This took place upon his visit to Florence in 1439, as one of the deputies from Constantinople on occasion of the general council.
There have now been recognized in the collections at Cairo, Florence, London, Paris and Bologna several Egyptian imitations of the Aegean style which can be set off against the many debts which the centres of Aegean culture owed to Egypt.
He likewise supported the pope at Ferrara and Florence, and worked hard in the attempt to reconcile the Eastern and Western Churches.
Voigt says that he was the first monk in Florence in whom the love of letters and art became predominant over his ecclesiastical views.
Its damasks and other silk stuffs with patterns of extraordinary beauty surpassed in variety and splendour those of the other chief centres of silk-weaving, such as Florence and Genoa.
Bertolotti's Francesco Cenci e la sua famiglia (2nd ed., Florence, 1879), containing a number of interesting documents which place the events in their true light; cf.
After leaving Rome he again lived a wandering life, often visiting Florence, to which he was drawn by his friends Politian and Marsilius Ficinus, and where also he came under the influence of Savonarola.
It was at Florence that he died on the 17th of November 1494.
On July 8 1891 he married Florence Kling.
The recommendations of Metternich opened to him almost every library except the Vatican; and it was during these three years of study in Venice, Ferrara, Rome, Florence and other cities, that he obtained that acquaintance with European history which was to make him the first historian of his time.
He manoeuvred so skilfully in the campaign against Radagaisus, who led a large force of various Germanic peoples into Italy in 405, that he surrounded the barbarian chieftain on the rocks of Fiesole near Florence and starved him into surrender.
Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini, Italian scholar of the Renaissance, was born in 1380 at Terranuova, a village in the territory of Florence.
Poggio's History of Florence, written in avowed imitation of Livy's manner, requires separate mention, since it exemplifies by its defects the weakness of that merely stylistic treatment which deprived so much of Bruni's, Carlo Aretino's and Bembo's work of historical weight.
But about the year 1452 he finally retired to Florence, where he was admitted to the burghership, and on the death of Carlo Aretino in 1453 was appointed chancellor and historiographer to the republic. He had already built himself a villa in Valdarno, which he adorned with a collection of antique sculpture, coins and inscriptions.
When the Medici again definitely became masters of Florence in 1530, Nardi was exiled from the city and his property confiscated.
Arbib's edition of Nardi's history (Florence, 1842) contains a biography of the author, and so does that of Agenore Gelli (Florence, 1888).
In a letter, Del movimento della cometa apparsa it mese di decembre 1664, published in 1665 under the pseudonym Pier Maria Mutoli, he was the first to suggest the idea of a parabolic path; and another of his astronomical works was Theorica mediceorum planetarum ex causis physicis deducta (Florence, 1666), in which he considered the influence of attraction on the satellites of Jupiter.
Della Rovere, feeling that Rome was a dangerous place for him, fortified himself in his bishopric of Ostia at the Tiber's mouth, while Ferdinand allied himself with Florence, Milan, Venice, and the pope formed a league against Naples (April 25, 1493) and prepared for war.
Charles rapidly advanced southward, and after a short stay in Florence set out for Rome (November 1 494).
His attempt to draw Florence into an alliance failed, but in July Louis of France again invaded Italy and was at once bombarded with complaints from the Borgia's enemies.
In such cases, however, the correct native form should be added within brackets, as Florence (Firenze), Leghorn (Livorno), Cologne (Coln) and so on.
The oldest of these globes was made at Valentia, and is now in the museum of Florence.
Thus Pizigano's map of 1367 extends as far east as the Gulf of Persia, whilst the Medicean map of 1356 (at Florence) is remarkable on account of a fairly correct delineation of the Caspian, the Shari river in Africa, and the correct direction given to the west coast of India, which had already been pointed out in a letter of the friar Giovanni da Montecorvino of 1252.
Of the seven editions of Ptolemy which were published up to the close of the 15th century, all except that of Vicenza (1475) contained Ptolemy's 27 maps, while Francesco Berlinghieri's version (Florence 1478), and two editions published at Ulm (1482 and 1486), contained four or five modern maps in addition, those of Ulm being by Nicolaus Germanus.
His father, a physician of some eminence, settled in Florence, and attached himself to the person of Cosimo de' Medici.
In the year 1459 John Argyropoulos was lecturing on the Greek language and literature at Florence, and Marsilio became his pupil.
He was henceforth assiduous in the performance of his duties, preaching in his cure of Novoli, and also in the cathedral and the church of the Angeli at Florence.
Ficino died at Florence in 1499.
The Berlin herbarium is especially rich in more recent collections, and other national herbaria sufficiently extensive to subserve the requirements of the systematic botanist exist at St Petersburg, Vienna, Leiden, Stockholm, Upsala, Copenhagen and Florence.
Meanwhile, in June 1499, war had again broken out with Venice, mainly owing to the intervention of the pope and emperor, who, with Milan, Florence and Naples, urged the sultan to crush the republic. On the 28th of July the Turks gained over the Venetians at Sapienza their first great victory at sea; and this was followed by the capture of Lepanto, at which Bayezid was present, and by the conquest of the Morea and most of the islands of the archipelago.
In Florence he entered the Society of Jesus, taking the habit in Rome in 1655; it was calumniously rumoured that he adopted this course in order to escape punishment for having poisoned his wife.
Maret (afterwards duc de Bassano) for Italy where they had missions to Florence and Naples respectively, when the two envoys were kidnapped by Austrian orders in the Valtelline.
His daughter, Florence Marryat, herself a novelist, published his Life and Letters in 1872.
What is probably a Roman imitation of this work was found in 1583 near the Lateran, and is now in the Uffizi gallery at Florence.
In 1861 he was appointed United States consul at Trieste, but ill-health compelled him to resign and remove to Florence, where he died on the nth of July 1865.
He died at Florence on the 10th of May 1860.
Either Florence or a later editor of his work made considerable borrowings from the first four books of Eadmer's Historia novorum.
Florence's work is continued, up to 1141, by a certain John of Worcester, who wrote about 1150.
Here the main line from Milan divides, one portion going on parallel to the line of the ancient Via Aemilia (which it has followed from Piacenza downwards) to Rimini, Ancona and Brindisi, and the other through the Apennines to Florence and thence to Rome.
He became famous as a teacher of Greek letters and the Platonic philosophy; in 1463 he was made professor at Padua, and in 1479 he was summoned by Lorenzo de' Medici to Florence to fill the professorship vacated by John Argyropoulos.
One of his pupils at Florence was the famous John Reuchlin.
Before long the reciprocal need of fresh territory and frontier disputes, especially concerning Poggibonsi and Montepulciano, led to an outbreak of hostilities between Florence and Siena.
During the 12th and 13th centuries there were continued disturbances, petty wars, and hasty reconciliations between Florence and Siena, until in1254-1255a more binding peace and alliance was concluded.
This army, led by the podesta of Florence and twelve burgher captains, set forth gaily on its march towards the enemy's territories in the middle of April 1260, and during its first campaign, ending on the 18th of May, won an insignificant victory at Santa Petronilla, outside the walls of Siena.
This defeat crushed the power of Florence for many years, reduced the city to desolation, and apparently annihilated the Florentine Guelfs.
The territories of the state were enlarged; a friendly alliance was maintained with Florence; trade flourished; in 1321 the university was founded, or rather revived, by the introduction of Bolognese scholars; the principal buildings now adorning the town were begun; and the charitable institutions, which are the pride of modern Siena, increased and prospered.
In 1387 fresh quarrels with Florence on the subject of Montepulciano led to an open war, that was further aggravated by the interference in Tuscan affairs of the ambitious duke of Milan, Gian Galeazzo Visconti.
In consequence of the decisions of the council of Pisa, Florence and Siena had declared against Gregory XII.
In 1431 a fresh war with Florence broke out, caused by the latter's attempt upon Lucca, and continued in consequence of the Florentines' alliance with Venice and Pope Eugenius IV., and that of the Sienese with the duke of Milan and Sigismund, king of the Romans.
In 1453 hostilities against Florence were again resumed, on account of the invasions and ravages of Sienese territory committed by Florentine troops in their conflicts with Alphonso of Naples, who since 1447 had made Tuscany his battleground.
Peace was once more patched up with Florence in 1454.
The conspiracy of the Pazzi in 1478 led to a war in which Florence and Milan were opposed to the pope and the king of Naples, and which was put an end to by the peace of 13th March 1480.
He based his foreign policy on alliance with Florence and France, and directed the internal affairs of the state by means of the council (collegio) of the balia, which, although occasionally reorganized for the purpose of conciliating rival factions, was always subject to his will.
And finally by an agreement with Cosimo de' Medici, duke of Florence, the Spaniards were sent away on the 5th August 1552 and the Sienese took possession of their fortress.
The literary history of Siena, while recording no gifts to the world equal to those bequeathed by Florence, and without the power and originality by which the latter became the centre of Italian culture, can nevertheless boast of some illustrious names.
When the spring had come, being still very poor and in feeble health, he started homewards on foot by Florence, across the Apennines, through Bologna, Parma, Piacenza, Turin, over the Alps, through Savoy and Dauphine to Lyons, andfinally to Paris, where he arrived in excellent health.
In 1860, with the Cavour party, he opposed the work of Garibaldi, Crispi and Bertani at Naples, and became secretary of Luigi Carlo Farini during the latter's lieutenancy, but in 1865 assumed contemporaneously the editorship of the Perseveranza of Milan and the chair of Latin literature at Florence.
Conradin's first invitation to Italy came from the Guelphs of Florence, by whom he was asked to take arms against Manfred, who had been crowned king of Sicily in 1258.
In 1824 he was transferred to Florence, where he remained five years.
The Harmonies poetiques et religieuses appeared in 1829, when he had left Florence.
In 1634 there were two glass-houses in Rome and one in Florence; but whether any of these produced ornamented vessels, or only articles of common use and window glass, would not appear to have as yet been ascertained.
There is more than one meaning of Florence discussed in the 1911 Encyclopedia.
Epidemic diseases are rare and children's diseases mild; cholera has visited Florence several times, but the city has been free from it for many years.
The Badia, Santo Spirito, Santa Maria Novella, are a few among the many famous and beautiful churches of Florence.
The streets and piazze of the city are celebrated for their splendid palaces, formerly, and in many cases even to-day the residences of the noble families of Florence.
Few cities are as rich as Florence in collections of works of artistic and historic interest, although the great majority of them belong to a comparatively limited period - from the 13th to the 16th century.
The total population of Florence in 1905, comprising foreigners and a garrison of 55 00 men, was 220,879.
The original Studio Fiorentino was founded in the 14th century, and acquired considerable fame as a centre of learning under the Medici, enhanced by the presence in Florence of many learned Greeks who had fled from Constantinople after its capture by the Turks (1453).
In 1859 after the annexation of Tuscany to the Italian kingdom it was revived and reorganized; since then it has become to some extent a national centre of learning and culture, attracting students from other parts of Italy, partly on account of the fact that it is in Florence that the purest Italian is spoken.
Several of the Florence hospitals are of great antiquity, the most important being that of Santa Maria Nuova, which, founded by Folco Portinari, the father of Dante's Beatrice, has been thoroughly renovated according to modern scientific principles.
Florence is the centre of a large and fertile agricultural district, and does considerable business in wine, oil and grain, and supplies the neighbouring peasantry with goods of all kinds.
A bishop of Florence is mentioned in A.D.
Totila besieged Florence in 542, but was repulsed by the imperial garrison under Justin, and later it was occupied by the Goths.
We find the Longobards in Tuscany in 570, and mention is made of one Gudibrandus Dux civitatis Florentinorum, which suggests that Florence was the capital of a duchy (one of the regular divisions of the Longobard empire).
Charlemagne was in Florence in 786 and conferred many favours on the city, which continued to grow in importance owing to its situation on the road from northern Italy to Rome.
At the time of the agitation against simony and the corruption of the clergy, the head of the movement in Florence was San Giovanni Gualberto, of the monastery of San Salvi.
The simoniacal election of Pietro Mezzabarba as bishop of Florence (1068) caused serious disturbances and a long controversy with Rome, which ended in the triumph, after a trial by fire, of the mdnk Petrus Igneus, champion of the popular reform movement; this event indicates the beginnings of a popular conscience among the Florentines.
Florence (1865-1872), but decreased or increased very slightly after the removal of the capital to Rome, and increased at a greater rate from 1881 onwards.
Florence is the capital of a province of the same name, and the central government is represented by a prefect (prefetto), while local government is carried on by a mayor (sindaco) Under the Carolingian emperors Tuscany was a March or margraviate, and the marquises became so powerful as to be even a danger to the Empire.
It is at this Ghibel- time that the people of Florence first began to acquire influence, and while the countess presided at the courts of justice in the name of the Empire, she was assisted by a group of great feudal nobles, judges, lawyers, &c., who formed, as elsewhere in Tuscany, the boni homines or sapientes.
Florence frequently waged war with these nobles and with other cities on its own account, although in the name of the countess, and the citizens began to form themselves into groups and associations which were the germs of the arti or gilds.
The emperor Lothair when in Italy forced Florence to submit to his authority, but at his death in 1137 things returned to their former state and the Florentines fought successfully against the powerful counts Guidi.
By 1176 the Florentines were masters of all the territory comprised in the dioceses of Florence and Fiesole; but civil commotion within nobles, headed by the Alberti and strengthened by the many feudal families who had been forced to leave their castles and dwell in the city (1177-1180).
In the end the Alberti, though not victorious, succeeded in getting occasionally admitted to the consulship. Florence now formed a league with the chief cities of Tuscany, made peace with the Guidi, and humbled the Alberti whose castle of Semifonte was destroyed (1202).
In 1222 Florence waged war successfully on Pisa, Lucca and Pistoia, and during the next few years against the Sienese with varying results; although the emperor supported the latter as Ghibellines, on his departure for Germany in 1235 they were forced to accept peace on onerous terms. During the interregnum (1241-1243) following on the death of Pope Gregory IX.
But, although greatly strengthened, the Guelphs, who now may be called the democrats as opposed to the Ghibelline aristocrats, were by no means wholly victorious, and in 1251 they had to defend themselves against a league of Ghibelline cities (Siena, Pisa and Pistoia) assisted by Florentine Ghibellines; the Florentine Uberti, who had been driven into exile after their plot of 1258, took refuge in Siena and encouraged that city in its hostility to Florence.
Count Giordano entered Florence, appointed Count Guido Novello podestd, and began a series of persecutions the city broke out between the consoli and the greater against the Guelphs.
In 1279 Pope Nicholas sent his nephew, the friar preacher Latino Frangipani Malabranca, whom he had created cardinal bishop of Ostia the same year, to reconcile the parties in Florence once more.
A plot of the Donati to establish their influence over Florence with the help of Boniface VIII.
On the 1st of November Charles reached Florence, promising to respect its laws; but he permitted Corso Donati and his friends to attack the Bianchi, and the new podestd,Cante dei Gabrielli of Gubbio, who had come with Charles, punished many of that faction; among those whom he exiled was the poet Dante (1302).
Corso Donati, who for some time was the most powerful man in Florence, made himself many enemies by his arrogance, and was obliged to rely on the popolo grasso, the irritation against him resulting in a rising in which he was killed (1308).
In this same year Henry of Luxemburg was elected king of the Romans and with the pope's favour he came to Italy in 1310; the Florentine exiles and all the Ghibellines of Italy regarded him as a saviour and regenerator of the country, while the Guelphs of Florence on the contrary opposed New both him and the pope as dangerous to their own liberties and accepted the protection of King Robert of Naples, disregarding Henry's summons to submission.
He besieged Florence without success, and died of disease in 1313.
Between 1320 and 1323 he harried the Florentines and defeated them several times, captured Pistoia, devastated their territory up to the walls of the city in spite of assistance from Naples under Raymundo de Cardona and the duke of Calabria (King Robert's son); never before had Florence been so humiliated, but while Castruccio was preparing to attack Florence he died in 1328.
Florence was in the 14th century a city of about 100,000 inhabitants, of whom 25,000 could bear arms; there were Ito churches, 39 religious houses; the shops of the ante della lana numbered over 200, producing cloth worth 1,200,000 florins; Florentine bankers and merchants were found all over the world, often occupying responsible positions in the service of foreign governments; the revenues of the republic, derived chiefly from the city customs, amounted to some 300,000 florins, whereas its ordinary expenses, exclusive of military matters and public buildings, were barely 40,000.
In 1347 Florence was again stricken with famine, followed the next year by the most terrible plague it had ever experienced, which carried off three-fifths of the population (according to now threatened Florence in the person of Castruccio p Villani).
In 1351 Giovanni Visconti, lord and archbishop of Milan, having purchased Bologna and allied himself with sundry Ghibelline houses of Tuscany with a view to dominating Florence, the city made war on him, and in violation of its Guelph traditions placed itself under the protection of the emperor Charles IV.
The first of these bands with whom Florence came into contact was the Great Company, commanded by the count of Lando, which twice entered Tuscany Y but was expelled both times by the Florentine troops (1358-1359).
In 1362 we find Florence at war with Pisa on account of commercial differences, and because the former had acquired the lordship of Volterra.
In 1375 Florence became involved in a war which showed how the old party divisions of Italy had been obliterated.
Although a large part of the people disliked the idea of a conflict with the church, an alliance with Florence's old enemy Bernabo Visconti was made, war declared, and a balia of 8, the Otto della guerra (afterwards called the "Eight Saints" on account of their good management) was created to carry on the campaign.
He remained master of Florence for one day, during which he reformed the constitution, probably with the help of Salvestro de' Medici.
Florence, alone in resisting him, engaged Hawkwood, who with an army of 7000 men more than held his own against the powerful lord of Milan, and in 1392 a peace was concluded which the republic strengthened by an alliance with Pisa and several north Italian states.
In 1393 Maso degli Albizzi was made gonfaloniere, and for many years remained almost master of Florence owing to his influential position in the Arte della Lana.
In 1397-1398 Florence had two more wars with Gian Galeazzo Visconti, who, aspiring to the conquest of Tuscany, acquired the lordship of Pisa, Siena and Perugia.
Hawkwood being dead, Florence purchased aid from the emperor Rupert.
The Imperialists were beaten; but just as the Milanese were about to march on Florence, Visconti died.
His territories were then divided between his sons and his condottieri, and Florence, ever keeping her eye on Pisa, now ruled by Gabriele Maria Visconti, made an alliance with Pope Boniface IX., who wished to regain Perugia and Bologna.
This was agreed to, and in 1405 the city was sold to Florence for 260,000 florins; and Gino Capponi,' the Florentine commissioner, took possession of the citadel, but a few days later the citizens arose in arms and recaptured it from the mercenaries.
After a six months' siege Pisa surrendered on terms (9th October 1406), and, although it was not sacked, many of the citizens were exiled and others forced to live in Florence, a depopulation from which it never recovered.
Florence now acquired a great seaport and was at last able to develop a direct maritime trade.
But Ladislas still occupied the papal states, and Florence, alarmed at his growing power and ambition, formed a league with Siena, Bologna and Louis of Anjou who laid claim to the Neapolitan throne, to drive Ladislas from Rome.
Alexander having died in May before entering the Eternal City, Cardinal Cossa was elected as John XXIII.; Florence without offending him made peace with Ladislas, who had ceased to be dangerous, and purchased Cortona of the pope.
In 1413 Ladislas attacked the papal states once more, driving John from Rome, and threatened Florence; but like Henry VII., Gian Galeazzo Visconti, and other enemies of the republic, he too died most opportunely (6th of August 1414).
The new pope came to Florence in 1419 as he had not yet regained Rome, which was held by Francesco Sforza for Queen Joanna II.
Although 11,000,000 florins had been spent on recent wars Florence continued prosperous and its trade increased.
An attempt to capture Lucca led Florence, in alliance with Venice, into another costly war with Milan (1432-1433).
A revolution was only averted through the intervention of Pope Eugenius IV., who was then in Florence.
On the 6th of October 1434 Cosimo returned to Florence, and for the next three centuries the history of the city is identified with that of the house of Medici.'
In 1437 Florence and Venice were again at war with the Visconti, whose chief captain, Niccolo Piccinino, on entering Tuscany with many Florentine exiles in his train, was signally defeated at Anghiari by the Florentines under Francesco Sforza (1440); peace was made the following year.
The former at once assumed Magnin - the reins of government and became ruler of Florence in a way neither Cosimo nor Piero had ever attempted; he established his domination by means of balie consisting of the signory, the accoppiatori, and 240 other members, all Mediceans, to be renewed every five years (1471).
He was received with enthusiasm on returning to Florence and became absolute master ' The history of Florence from 1434 to 1737 will be found in greater detail in the article Medici, save for the periods from 1494 to 1512 and from 1527 to 1530, during which the republic was restored.
An attempt by the Venetians to seize Ferrara led to a general Italian war, in which Florence also took part on the side hostile to Venice, and when peace was made in 1484 the republic gained some advantages.
Peace was made when the pope agreed to come to terms in 1486, and in 1487 Lorenzo regained Sarzana, which Genoa had taken from Florence nine years previously.
At this time the Dominican Fra Girolamo Savonarola was in Florence and aroused the whole city by his denunciations of ecclesiastical corruption and also of that of the Florentines.
Lorenzo, during whose rule Florence had become one of the greatest centres of art and literature in Europe, died in 1492.
The king demanded the cession of Pisa, Leghorn and other towns, which Piero granted, but on returning to Florence on the 8th of November 1494 he found the opposition greatly strengthened and his popularity forfeited, especially when the news of his disgraceful cessions to Charles became known.
Ambassadors, one of whom was Savonarola, were sent to treat with the French king, but no agreement was arrived at until Charles entered Florence on the 17th of November at the head of 12,000 men.
The king, realizing what street fighting in Florence would mean, at once came to terms; he contented himself with 120,000 florins, agreeing to assume the title of "Protector and Restorer of the liberty of Florence," and to give up the fortresses he had taken within two years, unless his expedition to Naples should be concluded sooner; the Medici were to remain banished, but the price on their heads was withdrawn.
But Charles would not depart, a fact which caused perpetual disturbance in the city, and it was not until the 28th of November, after an exhortation by Savonarola whom he greatly respected, that he left Florence.
On his way back he passed through Florence, and, although the republic had refused to join the league, it believed itself in danger, as Piero de' Medici was in the king's train.
At the same time League Charles violated his promise by giving aid to the Pisans against in their revolt against Florence, and did not restore the Charles other fortresses.
Italy, Piero de' Medici, encouraged by the league, enlisted a number of mercenaries and marched on Florence, but the citizens, fired by Savonarola's enthusiasm, flew to arms and prepared for an energetic resistance; owing to Piero's incapacity and the exhaustion of his funds the expedition came to nothing.
The league now attacked Florence, for Pope Alexander VI.
That same year Piero made another unsuccessful attempt on Florence.
The pope having been satisfied, the situation in Florence was less critical for the moment.
Cesare Borgia, who had seized many cities in Romagna, suddenly demanded the reinstatement of the Medici in Florence, and the danger was only warded off by appointing him captain-general of the Florentine forces at a large salary (1501).
After some hesitation the republic agreed to the demand,and the council was opened at Pisa, whereupon the pope immediately placed Florence under an interdict.
In August the Spaniards took Prato by storm and committed hideous atrocities on the inhabitants; Florence was in a panic, a group of the Ottimati, or nobles, forced Soderini to resign and leave the city, and Cardona's new terms were accepted, viz.
Lorenzo, entered Florence with the Spanish troops; a parlamento was summoned, and a packed balia formed which abolished the Greater Council and created a constitution similar to that of Lorenzo the Magnificent.
When Filippo Strozzi, and above Second all his wife, threw their influence in the scales against expulsion the Medici, and the magistrates declared for their ex of the pulsion from power, Passerini, Ippolito and Alessandro Medici left Florence (17th of May 1527).
Francesco Carducci was elected gonfaloniere in his place, and on the 29th of June 1529 the pope and the emperor concluded a treaty by which the latter agreed to re-establish the Medici in Florence.
Although alone against papacy and empire, the citizens The siege of showed the greatest spirit and devotion, and were Florence.
The signory, at last realizing that Malatesta was a traitor, dismissed him; but it was too late, and he now behaved as though he were governor of Florence; when the troops attempted to enforce the dismissal he turned his guns on them.
But Florence was torn by factions - the Ottimati the signory was abolished, Alessandro created gonfaloniere for life, and his lordship made hereditary in his family by imperial patent.
Thus Florence lost her liberty, and came to be the capital of the duchy (afterwards grand-duchy) of Tuscany (see Tuscany).
In 1809 Florence was made capital of the kingdom of Etruria, but after the fall of Napoleon in 1814 Ferdinand was reinstated.
In 1848 there was a liberal revolutionary movement in Florence, and Leopold granted a constitution.
In 1859, after the Franco-Italian victories over the Austrians in Lombardy, by a bloodless revolution in Florence Leopold was expelled and Tuscany annexed to the Sardinian kingdom.
In 1865 Florence became the capital of the kingdom of Italy, but after the occupation of Rome in 1870 during the FrancoPrussian war, the capital was transferred to the Eternal City (1871).
Davidsohn's Geschichte der Stadt Florenz (Berlin, 1896); P. Villari's Savonarola (English ed., London, 1896) is invaluable for the period during which the friar's personality dominated Florence, and his Machiavelli (English ed., London, 1892) must be also consulted, especially for the development of political theories.
Among the English histories of Florence, Napier's Florentine History (6 vols., London,1846-1847) and A.Trollope's History of the Commonwealth of Florence (4 vols., London, 1865) are not without value although out of date.
Francis Hyett's Florence (London, 1903) is more recent and compendious; the author is somewhat Medicean in his views, and frequently inaccurate.
In the autumn, after the capture of Atlanta, all the prisoners who could be moved were sent to Millen, Georgia and Florence, South Carolina.
He went to Marseilles with his wife and subsequently to Florence, where at the instance of General La Marmora he undertook to write an account of the Italian army.
The Guelph and popular element which constituted the force and prosperity of Florence was hostile to Pisa, and led to its downfall.
Owing to the political and commercial interests binding Florence to the Roman court, the Guelph element naturally prevailed there, while the growth of its trade and commerce necessarily compelled that state to encroach on waters subject to Pisan rule.
The chroniclers ascribe the first war with Florence, which broke out in 1222, to a most ridiculous motive.
In 1228 the Pisans met and defeated the united forces of Florence and Lucca near Barga in the Garfagnana, and at the same time they despatched fifty-two galleys to assist Frederick II.
But meanwhile Florence had made alliance with Genoa, Lucca and all the Guelph cities of Tuscany against its Ghibelline rival.
The sympathies of Dante Alighieri, the Florentine patriot and foe of Rome, were naturally in favour of the victims of an aristocratic prelate, opposed to all reconciliation with Florence.
By this means they were enabled to capture the island of Giglio, and, attacking the Pisan harbour, carried off its chains, bore them in triumph to Florence, and suspended them in front of the baptistery, where they remained until 1848.
To that end he filled it with celebrated scholars, and, leaving only a few chairs of letters and philosophy in Florence, compelled the Florentines to resort to Pisa for the prosecution of their studies.
And, although that monarch was ostensibly the friend of Florence, they did not hesitate, even in his presence, to assert their own independence, and, casting the Florentine ensign, the Marzocco, into the Arno, made instant preparations for war.
Soderini, who was perpetual gonfalonier of Florence, and Machiavelli, the secretary of the Ten, urged on the war.
In 1509 Florence encamped her forces on three sides of the distressed city, which at last, reduced to extremity by famine, was compelled to surrender on the 8th of June 1509.
At one end this street is terminated by the Siegestor, while at the other is the Feldherrenhalle (or hall of the marshals), a copy of the Loggia dei Lanzi at Florence, containing statues of Tilly and Wrede by Schwanthaler.
The Festsaalbau, erected by Klenze in the Italian Renaissance style, is adorned with mural paintings and sculptures, while the Königsbau, a reduced copy of the Pitti Palace at Florence, contains a series of admirable frescoes from the Niebelungenlied by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld.
Her peculiarities excited suspicion, and charges seem to have been brought against her by some of the Dominicans to answer which she went to Florence in 1374, soon returning to Siena to tend the plague-stricken.
He vented his anger upon Catherine, who reproved him for minding temporal rather than spiritual things, but in the beginning of 1378 sent her on an embassy to Florence and especially to the Guelph party.
During the troubles that ensued in Florence Catherine nearly lost her life in a popular tumult, and sorely regretted not winning her heart's desire, "the red rose of martyrdom."
In 1267 he entered the Dominican house of Santa Maria Novella in Florence, and in 1272 that of St Catherine in Pisa.
He would have been executed had not the Austrians intervened in his favour, and he was exiled instead to Briinn in Moravia; in 1823 he was permitted to settle in Florence, where he spent the rest of his days engaged on his Storia del reame di Napoli.
See Gino Capponi's memoir of him published in the Storia del reame di Napoli (2nd ed., Florence, 1848).
At the age of nineteen, however, he had no thought of renouncing the world, for he was then passionately in love with the daughter of a neighbour, a Strozzi exiled from Florence.
Thence he was despatched to St Mark's in Florence.
The Florence streets rang with Lorenzo's ribald songs (the "canti carnascialeschi"); the smooth, cultured citizens were dead to all sense of religion or morality; and the spirit of the fashionable heathen philosophy had even infected the brotherhood of St Mark.
When Savonarola returned to Florence in 1490, his fame as an orator had gone there before him.
In 1491 he was invited to preach in the cathedral, Sta Maria del Fiore, and his rule over Florence may be said to begin from that date.
This, too, Lorenzo promised, after some hesitation; but upon hearing the third clause, "You must restore the liberties of Florence," Lorenzo turned his face to the wall and made no reply.
It was probably the noise of these sermons that caused the friar's temporary removal from Florence at the instance of Piero de' Medici.
He relegated many of the brethren to a quieter retreat outside the city, only retaining in Florence those best fitted to aid in intellectual labour.
His efforts were successful; religion and learning made equal progress; St Mark's became the most popular monastery in Florence, and many citizens of noble birth flocked thither to take the vows.
This news drove Florence to revolt.
The resuscitated republic instantly sent a fresh embassy to the French king, to arrange the terms of his reception in Florence.
He was most respectfully received at the camp, but could obtain no definite pledges from the king, who was bent on first coming to Florence.
Charles entered Florence on the 17th of November 1494, and the citizens' fears evaporated in jests on the puny exterior of the "threatened scourge."
The monarch was cowed, accepted moderate terms, and, yielding to Savonarola's remonstrances, left Florence on the 24th of November.
After seventy years' subjection to the Medici Florence had forgotten the art of self-government, and felt the need of a strong guiding hand.
So the citizens turned to the patriot monk whose words had freed them of King Charles, and Savonarola became the lawgiver of Florence.
Without holding any official post in the commonwealth he had created, the prior of St Mark's was the real head of the state, the dictator of Florence, and guarded the public weal "Dictator with extraordinary political wisdom.
Pleasure-loving Florence was completely changed.
He organized the boys of Florence in a species of sacred militia, an inner republic, with its own magistrates and officials charged with the enforcement of his rules for the holy life.
He bided his time, and the transformation of sceptical Florence into an austerely Christian republic claiming the Saviour as its head only increased his resolve to crush the man who had wrought this marvel.
Then came a third, threatening Florence with an interdict in case of renewed refusal.
Piero de' Medici's fresh attempt to re-enter Florence failed; nevertheless his followers continued their intrigues, and party spirit increased in virulence.
The plague ended, Florence was plunged in fresh troubles from Medicean intrigues, and a conspiracy for the restoration of Piero was discovered.
There he continued to preach with unabated zeal; and, since the women of Florence deplored the loss of his teachings, one day in the week was set apart for them.
The government now hoped that Alexander would be appeased and Florence allowed to breathe freely.
On awaking he addressed kind words to the compassionate brother, and then prophesied that dire calamities would befall Florence during the reign of a pope named Clement.
Savonarola's party was apparently annihilated by his death, but, when in 1529-1530 Florence was exposed to the horrors predicted by him, the most heroic defenders of his beloved if ungrateful city were Piagnoni who ruled their lives by his precepts and revered his memory as that of a saint.
The standard modern work on Savonarola is Pasquale Villari's, La Storia di Fra Girolamo Savonarola e de' suoi tempi (Florence, 1887) based on an exhaustive study of the original authorities and containing a number of new documents (English translation by Linda Villari, London, 1889).
The large double doors of cedar wood, covered with bronze showing a geometric interlaced pattern, have been compared with those of Ghiberti at the Baptistery of Florence.
In many respects the resemblance between Verona and Florence is very striking; in both cases we have a strongly fortified city built in a fertile valley, on the banks of a winding river, with suburbs on higher ground, rising close above the main city.
The arches are mostly pointed, and in other respects the influence of northern Gothic was more direct in Verona than in Florence.
Summoned to appear before a chapter of his order at Genoa, he fled in 1542 to Pisa and thence to another Italian reformer, Bernardino Ochino, at Florence.
He then settled in Florence, where he died on the 19th of October 1884.
After its suppression and the falling off in interest of the Biblioteca italiana the next of any merit to appear was the Antologia, a monthly periodical brought out at Florence in 1820 by Gino Capponi and Giampetro Vieusseux, but suppressed in 1833 on account of an epigram of Tommaseo, a principal writer.
In 1843 he was sent to school at Frankfort, and in the winter of 1844 accompanied his family to Florence, where his future career as an artist was decided.
Though his artistic training was mainly German, and his master belonged to the same school as Cornelius and Overbeck, he loved Italian art and Italy, and the first picture by which he became known to the British public was "Cimabue's Madonna carried in Procession through the Streets of Florence," which appeared at the Royal Academy in 18J5.
During these years he painted several Florentine subjects- "Tybalt and Romeo," "The Death of Brunelleschi," a cartoon of "The Pest in Florence according to Boccaccio," and "The Reconciliation of the Montagues and the Capulets."
The latter are full of the spirit of Florence and the Florentines, and show a keen sense of humour, elsewhere excluded from his work.
The Chronicon was very popular during the middle ages, and in England was extensively used by Florence of Worcester and other writers.
Towards the close of the century comes John Wycliffe and his English travelling preachers, who passed the torch to Hus and the Bohemians, and in the next age Savonarola, who was to Florence what Jeremiah had been to Jerusalem.
Such Italian as is spoken by the lingering minority has marked divergences of pronunciation and inflexion from the language of Rome and Florence.
His finances, therefore, remained embarrassed despite the comparative pause in the war, although in 1339 he had repudiated his debt to his Italian creditors, a default that brought about widespread misery in Florence.
The utmost confusion prevailed in Florence and other parts of Tuscany.
Baldasseroni prime minister, on the 25th the Austrians entered Florence and on the 28th of July Leopold himself returned.
On the 27th of April there was great excitement in Florence, Italian colours appeared everywhere, but order was maintained, and the grand-duke and his family departed for Bologna undisturbed.
He entered the diplomatic service in 1869 and began as an attache in Florence, eventually in Rome.
Niccolo MACHIAVELLI (1469-1527), Italian statesman and writer, was born at Florence on the 3rd of May 1469.
The year of Charles VIII.'s invasion and of the Medici's expulsion from Florence (1494) saw Machiavelli's first entrance into public life.
In the same year Piero Soderini was chosen gonfalonier for life, in accordance with certain changes in the constitution of the state, which were intended to bring Florence closer to the Venetian type of government.
On his return to Florence early in January 1503, Machiavelli began to occupy himself with a project which his recent attendance upon Cesare Borgia had strengthened in his mind.
The bad faith of the condottiere Paolo Vitelli (beheaded at Florence in 1499) had deeply impressed him.
He was now determined, if possible, to furnish Florence with a national militia.
Meanwhile the league of Cambray had disturbed the peace of Italy, and Florence found herself in a perilous position between Spain and France.
Florence, in extreme terror, deposed the gonfalonier, and opened her gates to the princes of the house of Medici.
The national militia in which he placed unbounded confidence had proved inefficient to protect Florence in the hour of need.
He was exiled from Florence and confined to the dominion for one year, and on the 17th of November was futher prohibited from setting foot in the Palazzo Pubblico.
Supported by the power of the papacy, with the goodwill of Florence to back him, Giuliano would have found himself in a position somewhat better than that of Cesare Borgia; and Borgia's creation of the duchy of Romagna might have served as his model.
He earnestly admonished Leo, for his own sake and for Florence, to found a permanent and free state system for the republic, reminding him in terms of noble eloquence how splendid is the glory of the man who shall confer such benefits upon a people.
In the same year, 1520, Machiavelli, at the instance of the cardinal Giulio de' Medici, received commission from the officers of the Studio pubblico to write a history of Florence.
In his hands the history of Florence became a text on which at fitting seasons to deliver lessons in the science he initiated.
Having condensed his doctrines in the Principe and the Discorsi, he applies their abstract principles to the example of the Florentine republic. But the History of Florence is not a mere political pamphlet.
It would seem that from the date of Machiavelli's discourse to Leo on the government of Florence the Medici had taken him into consideration.
But literary criticism is merged in admiration of the wit, the humour, the vivacity, the satire of a piece which brings before us the old life of Florence in a succession of brilliant scenes.
Some time after the Mandragola, he composed a second comedy, entitled Clizia, which is even homelier and closer to the life of Florence than its predecessor.
It seems written to expose the corruption of domestic life in Florence, and especially to satirize the friars in their familar part of gobetweens, tame cats, confessors and adulterers.
But soon after his return to Florence he fell ill.
He resided successively in Florence and Paris, and travelled about Europe as private physician to Prince Jerome Bonaparte, but when Pius IX.
Charles Felix, who was then at Modena, repudiated the regent's acts, accepted Austrian military assistance, with which the rising was easily quelled, and exiled Charles Albert to Florence.
Its terminus is at Kisumu (Port Florence) on Kavirondo Gulf, Victoria Nyanza.
On a commission from Rucellai he designed the principal facade of the church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence, as well as the family palace in the Via della Scala, now known as the Palazzo Strozzi.
Peter Lombard (c. r r 50) added as a seventh that of ordination, and to this number the Latin Church adhered at the councils of Florence and Trent.
The victory of the democratic principle was entirely new in the Netherlands, though it had been anticipated in Florence, and was perhaps inspired by Italian example.
As Pisa was also attacked by Florence and Lucca it could never recover the disaster.
He died at Florence on the 29th of March 1058.
After the 9th century few baptisteries were built, the most noteworthy of later date being those at Pisa, Florence, Padua, Lucca and Parma.
They are still in general use, however, in Florence and Pisa.
Her majesty personally superintended the committees of ladies who organized relief for the wounded; she helped Florence Nightin War.
Meanwhile Queen Victoria spent some weeks at Florence at the Villa Palmieri, and returned home by Darmstadt and Berlin.
On the 19th of February the queen left home for a visit to Florence, and spent it in the Villa Palmieri.
In 1894 the queen stayed for some weeks at Florence, and on her return she stopped at Coburg to witness the marriage between two of her grandchildren, the grand duke of Hesse and the Princess Victoria Melita of Coburg.
England, in particular, owes much to it, for there Florence Nightingale acquired the practical knowledge which enabled her afterwards to turn her remarkable gift of organization to such brilliant account.
The despatch of Florence Nightingale with a staff of trained nurses, to superintend the administration of the military hospitals was the direct result of the publicity given to the details of the Crimean War by The Times, and it formed a new departure which riveted the eyes of the civilized world.
Luckes, Hospital Sisters and their Duties; Morten, How to become a Nurse; Florence Nightingale, Notes on Nursing; Nightingale Boyd, "Nursing," in Quain's Dictionary of Medicine.
In the middle ages Arezzo was generally on the Ghibelline side; it succumbed to Florence in 1289 at the battle of Campaldino, but at the end of the century recovered its strength under the Tarlati family.
In 1336 it became subject to Florence for six years, and after intestine struggles, finally came under her rule in 1384.
One of these, which settled at Florence before the year II oo, divided in the 13th century into the two branches of San Miniato and Sarzana.
He afterwards visited England, and for a time resided at Genoa and Florence.
His Istoria dei suoi tempi was published in Florence in 1583; a new edition appeared also in Florence in 1872.
In the 12th and 13th centuries it enjoyed free institutions; in 1361 it fell under the power of Florence.
One of the earliest attempts at a methodical arrangement of plants was made in Florence by Andreas Caesalpinus (1519-1603), who is called by Linnaeus Primus verus systematicus.
In his work De Plantis, published at Florence in 1583, he distributed the 1520 plants then known into fifteen classes, the distinguishing characters being taken from the fruit.
Gardens also early existed at Florence and Bologna.
The life was largely used by subsequent chroniclers, among others by Florence of Worcester, Simeon of Durham, Roger of Hoveden, and William of Malmesbury.
Of the many historians of the middle ages, besides the authors of biographies, chronicles, cloister annals, &c., may be mentioned Haymo, Anastasius, Adam of Bremen, Ordericus Vitalis, Honorius of Autun, Otto of Freising, Vincent of Beauvais and Antoninus of Florence.
This schism had lasted since the 16th of July 1054; but now a union with the Eastern Church was successfully accomplished at Florence.
The terrible tragedy which was consummated on the 23rd of May 1498 before the Palazzo Vecchio, in Florence, casts a lurid light upon the irreconcilable opposition in which the wearers of the papal dignity stood to medieval piety; for Girolamo Savonarola was in every fibre a loyal son of the medieval Church.
Ferdinand was one of the first sovereigns to enter into diplomatic relations with the French republic (1793); and although, a few months later, he was compelled by England and Russia to join the coalition against France, he concluded peace with that power in 1795, and by observing a strict neutrality saved his dominions from invasion by the French, except for a temporary occupation of Livorno, till 1799, when he was compelled to vacate his throne, and a provisional Republican government was established at Florence.
Nearly two years were passed in Geneva; visiting Italy in 1641, he remained during the winter of that year in Florence, studying the "paradoxes of the great star-gazer" Galileo, who died within a league of the city early in 1642.
The establishment of an insurrectionary republic at Rome drove him into exile in May 1434, and, although the city was restored to obedience in the following October, he remained at Florence and Bologna.
At Florence, whither the council of Ferrara had been transferred on account of an outbreak of the plague, was effected in July 1439 a union with the Greeks, which, as the result of political necessities, proved but temporary.
From Florence he passed to Rome, and became the father of at least two children, later legitimized.
For that knowledge, scanty as it was, he was indebted to Leontius Pilatus, with whose aid Boccaccio (1313-1375) became " the first of modern men " to study Greek to some purpose during the three years that Leontius spent as his guest in Florence (1360-1363).
It was also at Florence that Greek was taught in the next generation by Chrysoloras (in 1396-1400).
Another generation passed, and the scholars of the East and West met at the council of Florence (1439) One of the envoys of the Greeks, Gemistus Pletho, then inspired Cosimo dei Medici with the thought of founding an academy for the study of Plato.
Among the scholars of Italian birth, probably the only one in this age who rivalled the Greeks as a public expositor of their own literature was Politian (1454-1494), who lectured on Homer and Aristotle in Florence, translated Herodian, and was specially interested in the Latin authors of the Silver Age and in the text of the Pandects of Justinian.
It will be observed that the study of Greek had been resumed in Florence half a century before the fall of Constantinople, and that the principal writers of Greek prose had been translated into Latin before that event.