500 years in 500 meters

By 1300, the population of Florence grew to over 100,000 people. A series of laws were enacted to encourage order and dignity, express a shared spirit of civic pride, and to make the city il più bello che si può (as beautiful as possible). Towers were reduced to a uniform height and regulations were passed to dictate the appearance of buildings, including requiring stone cladding up to 10 meters on the façade of a palace. Unlike the feudal nobility living in castles in the remote countryside, a 14th-century Florentine merchant lived on top of his workplace and built a palace that could serve as both an office and a warehouse. This setup was nothing new, for the combination of shops and warehouses with flats above them was derived directly from ancient Rome and is still popular throughout Italy today.

A wonderful example of this construction is the Palazzo Davanzati, built for the wool merchant family Davizzi in the 1330s. The building is divided into three stories; the ground floor, used for business; second and third floors used as living spaces. The floors diminish in height and rustication as they progress to the top of the building, once crenellated and now crowned by an elegant loggia. If you look closely, you can still find medieval accoutrements on the building such as iron rings for tethering horses, brackets for torches and horizontal rails for hanging tapestries and banners.

Walk to piazza degli Strozzi and find the Florentine Renaissance palace par excellence, Palazzo Strozzi, begun by Giuliano da Sangallo in 1489. By the time the descendants of Palla Strozzi returned from exile in Naples, Filippo Strozzi had amassed a huge fortune and was ready to spend lavishly in his hometown. The Strozzi made peace with the Medici and Filippo’s palace proclaimed the family’s triumphant return to Florentine life. The plans for the palace called for a structure of unprecedented scale, even though Filippo pretended that all he wanted was a simple, useful house devoid of pomp, suitable only for himself and his family. He cleverly involved armchair architect Lorenzo il Magnifico as advisor for his project and, with Lorenzo’s blessing, Palazzo Strozzi became the grandest palace built in the 15th century. Broadly modeled on Michelozzo’s design for the Palazzo Medici, the massive palace has grand entrances on three sides and is completely clad in pietra forte, which decreases in size and projection on each story. Take note of the elegant arched windows decorated with rosettes and interlocking crescent moons, a symbol of the Strozzi.