Description
Piazza della Repubblica is a large rectangular square in Florence's historic center, about 75 by 100 meters. With its arcades, the Arcone and its historic cafés, it is the city's living room, but everything you see is rather recent.
The painter Telemaco Signorini looked at the new buildings and called them "pigsties." To make room for them, in the late 1800s, Florence had razed an entire medieval quarter, with towers, churches, shops and the old Jewish Ghetto.
And yet this has been the center of the city for two thousand years. Here the two main streets of Roman Florentia crossed and the forum opened, with the Capitolium. In the Middle Ages came the Mercato Vecchio, a labyrinth of stalls and alleys.
After the years when Florence was the capital, the neighborhood, poor and unhealthy, was condemned by the "Risanamento." In its place rose arcades, the great Arcone and a statue of Victor Emmanuel II on horseback, which the Florentines did not like at all.
The square is a rectangle of about 75 meters by 100, closed in by arcades and palaces, with lampposts from 1909. The north side is Palazzo Levi, with the Paszkowski and Gilli cafés, and the south side is that of the Giubbe Rosse. A large inscription runs along the top of the Arcone.
In the historic cafés writers and artists gathered. The Giubbe Rosse was born in 1897 as a beer hall, with waiters in red jackets in the Viennese fashion; Paszkowski dates from 1903, Gilli from 1733. At the Giubbe Rosse Marinetti's Futurists even came to blows with the Florentines of La Voce.
Every Easter the square is crossed by the two processions of the Scoppio del Carro. Of the old market only the Column of Abundance remains, set up again in 1956 near the spot where the Roman streets crossed. On top, a copy of the Abundance that was once by Donatello.
The painter Telemaco Signorini looked at the new buildings and called them "pigsties." To make room for them, in the late 1800s, Florence had razed an entire medieval quarter, with towers, churches, shops and the old Jewish Ghetto.
And yet this has been the center of the city for two thousand years. Here the two main streets of Roman Florentia crossed and the forum opened, with the Capitolium. In the Middle Ages came the Mercato Vecchio, a labyrinth of stalls and alleys.
After the years when Florence was the capital, the neighborhood, poor and unhealthy, was condemned by the "Risanamento." In its place rose arcades, the great Arcone and a statue of Victor Emmanuel II on horseback, which the Florentines did not like at all.
The square is a rectangle of about 75 meters by 100, closed in by arcades and palaces, with lampposts from 1909. The north side is Palazzo Levi, with the Paszkowski and Gilli cafés, and the south side is that of the Giubbe Rosse. A large inscription runs along the top of the Arcone.
In the historic cafés writers and artists gathered. The Giubbe Rosse was born in 1897 as a beer hall, with waiters in red jackets in the Viennese fashion; Paszkowski dates from 1903, Gilli from 1733. At the Giubbe Rosse Marinetti's Futurists even came to blows with the Florentines of La Voce.
Every Easter the square is crossed by the two processions of the Scoppio del Carro. Of the old market only the Column of Abundance remains, set up again in 1956 near the spot where the Roman streets crossed. On top, a copy of the Abundance that was once by Donatello.