Although Florence is inseparably tied to her Renaissance, Romanesque and Gothic roots and does not willingly stray towards modernism, another architectural style is apparent in some areas of the city: art nouveau.
In Italy, the style was initially called ‘Floral,’ then ‘Liberty,’ after a dealer of oriental objects in London, Arthur Lasenby Liberty. From about 1880 until the 1920s, art nouveau was at its height in many parts of the world, including Italy. The decline of the beautiful and fanciful Liberty style was rapid, especially in Europe, helped in part by Adolf Hitler’s and Benito Mussolini’s ideas of bringing unity to their people through architecture. Thus, unfortunately, the style faded away under the dictate of Fascist architecture. Probably because art nouveau was bourgeois, the Fascist regime ordered that Liberty buildings be destroyed.
However, quite a few survive in and around Florence. Florentine born and bred Giovanni Michelazzi was the main architect of the Liberty buildings in the city, while Galileo Chini decorated most of these palazzi with his sublime painting, ceramic tiles and plaster work. Together, these two men left grand examples of the Liberty style.