Florenz - Ponte alle Grazie
Florence (/ˈflɒrəns/ FLORR-ənss; Italian: Firenze [fiˈrɛntse] (listen))[a] is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 360,930 inhabitants in 2023, and 984,991 in its metropolitan area.
Florence was a centre of medieval European trade and finance and one of the wealthiest cities of that era. It is considered by many academics to have been the birthplace of the Renaissance, becoming a major artistic, cultural, commercial, political, economic and financial center. During this time, Florence rose to a position of enormous influence in Italy, Europe, and beyond. Its turbulent political history includes periods of rule by the powerful Medici family and numerous religious and republican revolutions. From 1865 to 1871 the city served as the capital of the Kingdom of Italy. The Florentine dialect forms the base of Standard Italian and it became the language of culture throughout Italy due to the prestige of the masterpieces by Dante Alighieri, Petrarch, Giovanni Boccaccio, Niccolò Machiavelli and Francesco Guicciardini.
The city attracts millions of tourists each year, and UNESCO declared the Historic Centre of Florence a World Heritage Site in 1982. The city is noted for its culture, Renaissance art and architecture and monuments. The city also contains numerous museums and art galleries, such as the Uffizi Gallery and the Palazzo Pitti, and still exerts an influence in the fields of art, culture and politics. Due to Florence's artistic and architectural heritage, Forbes ranked it as the most beautiful city in the world in 2010.
Florence plays an important role in Italian fashion, and is ranked in the top 15 fashion capitals of the world by Global Language Monitor; furthermore, it is a major national economic centre, as well as a tourist and industrial hub.
(Wikipedia)
Ponte alle Grazie is a bridge, reconstructed after 1945, over the Arno River in Florence, region of Tuscany, Italy.
History
The original bridge was called Ponte di Rubaconte after the name of the podestà Rubaconte da Mandello who had commissioned construction in 1227, making it older than the Ponte Vecchio. It was rebuilt in 1345 with nine arches, making it the longest in Florence. Giorgio Vasari attributed the design to an architect by the name of Lapo Tedesco, the architect of the Bargello.
In 1346, two of the arches in the Oltrarno neighborhood were filled up to extend the bank, leaving the seven arch structure seen in a 17th-century print on this page. This landfill widened the street of Piazza dei Mozzi, which leads to the Palazzo Mozzi.
On the city side was a small oratory with an icon of the Madonna Alle Grazie, which also gave the bridge its name. Structures were erected at each of the pylons, and remained there till a widening of the road, to make way for railway track. These structures initially were either chapels, once dedicated to Saints Catherine of Alexandria, Barbara, and Lawrence; or erected as huts for female hermits or Romite. These women, wishing to avoid the scandals of some of the nunneries in the city, were said to have immured themselves here, receiving their food from passersby through small slots. These hermitages were ultimately cleared and the remaining women moved to a convent near Santa Croce, renamed the Murate, or Immured. The houses became dwellings until cleared in the 1870s.
In August 1944, the bridge was destroyed by the retreating Germans as they withdrew before the advancing Allied forces in World War II. Following the end of the War, a competition was held to create a new design for a replacement bridge. The winning design, the work of a group formed of architects including Giovanni Michelucci, Edoardo Said, Edoardo Detti, Riccardo Gizdolich and Danilo Know and an engineer, Piero Melucci, feature four slender piers with thin arches between them. The new bridge was completed in 1953. While the new design is harmonious with the surrounding city, its modern design and construction materials do not mirror the shape of the prior bridge.
(Wikipedia)
Florenz (italienisch Firenze [fiˈrεnʦe]) ist eine italienische Großstadt mit 372.038 Einwohnern (Stand 31. Dezember 2019). Nach Einwohnern ist sie die achtgrößte Stadt Italiens. Florenz ist die Hauptstadt sowie größte Stadt der Region Toskana und der Metropolitanstadt Florenz, in der etwa eine Million Menschen leben.
Florenz ist für seine Geschichte berühmt. Als Zentrum des spätmittelalterlichen europäischen Handels- und Finanzwesens war sie eine der reichsten Städte des 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts. Florenz gilt als die Wiege der Renaissance. Aufgrund seiner kulturellen Bedeutung – insbesondere für die bildende Kunst – wurde es schon im 19. Jahrhundert auch als das „italienische Athen“ bezeichnet.
Durch die mächtige Dynastie der Familie Medici stieg Florenz in der Renaissance zu einer der florierendsten Metropolen Europas auf. Zahlreiche Kunstschaffende und Geistliche waren hier beheimatet: Leonardo da Vinci verbrachte große Teile seiner Jugend in Florenz, Michelangelo fand Unterschlupf in der Kirche der Medici, Galileo Galilei wohnte als Hofmathematiker in den Palästen der Medici. Von 1865 bis 1871 war die Stadt die Hauptstadt des neu gegründeten Königreichs Italien.
Das historische Zentrum von Florenz zieht Jahr für Jahr Millionen von Touristen an. Euromonitor International platziert die Stadt mit fast 4,2 Millionen Besuchern im Jahr 2015 weltweit an 40. Stelle unter den meistbesuchten Städten. Die historische Innenstadt wurde von der UNESCO im Jahre 1982 zum Weltkulturerbe erklärt. Aufgrund des künstlerischen und architektonischen Erbes hat das Forbes Magazine Florenz als eine der schönsten Städte der Welt ausgewählt. Hingewiesen wird vor allem auf den Reichtum an Museen, Palästen und Denkmälern.
(Wikipedia)
