Amazing Florence Italy

Florence (, ; Old Italian: Fiorenza, Latin: Florentia) is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with 367,569 inhabitants (1,500,000 in the metropolitan areaBilancio demografico anno 2008, dati ISTAT).

The city lies on the River Arno and is known for its history and its importance in the Middle Ages and in the Renaissance, especially for its art and architecture. A centre of medieval European trade and finance and one of the richest and wealthiest cities of the timehttp://search.barnesandnoble.com/Economy-of-Renaissance-Florence/Richard-A-Goldthwaite/e/9780801889820, Florence is often considered the birthplace of the Italian Renaissance; in fact, it has been called the Athens of the Middle Ages.Profs. Spencer Baynes, L.L.D., and W. Robertson Smith, L.L.D., Encyclopaedia Britannica. Akron, Ohio: The Werner Company, 1907: p.675 It was long under the de facto rule of the Medici family. From 1865 to 1870 the city was also the capital of the Kingdom of Italy.

The historic centre of Florence attracts millions of tourists each year and was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1982. Florence is widely regarded as one of the most beautiful cities in the worldhttp://www.intstudy.com/articles/florence.htmhttp://www.aboutflorence.com/, and its artistichttp://www.learner.org/interactives/renaissance/florence_sub2.html, historic and cultural heritage and impact in the world remains vast up to this day. The city has also a major European impact in music, architecture, education, cuisine, fashion, philosophy, science and religion. The historic centre of Florence contains numerous elegant piazzas, Renaissance palazzi, academies, parks, gardens, churches, monasteries, museums, art galleries and ateliers. The city boasts a wide range of collections of art, especially those held in the Pitti Palace and the Uffizi, (which receives about 1.6 million tourists a yearhttp://www.itvnews.tv/Blog/Blog/the-50-most-visited-places.html). Florence is arguably the best-preserved Renaissance city in the worldhttp://travelguide.affordabletours.com/search/Article/guide/19/ and is regarded by many as the art capital of Italy. It has been the birthplace or chosen home of many notable historical figures, such as Dante, Boccaccio, Botticelli, Niccolò Machiavelli, Brunelleschi, Michelangelo, Donatello, Galileo Galilei, Catherine de' Medici, Antonio Meucci, Guccio Gucci, Salvatore Ferragamo, Roberto Cavalli and Emilio Pucci, to name but a few.