Florence in the Nineteenth Century - Attractions in Florence

From the end of the eighteenth to the early years of the nineteenth centuries, international politics inevitably involved Tuscany, and Ferdinando III of Lorraine could not prevent the Grand Duchy from being occupied by Napoleon's army.
This occupation lasted from 1799 to 1814 and took on various forms. During the French occupation, laws and the government organization were improved, and many major public works were launched in Tuscany, such as the expansion of the road network (Val Tiberina, etc.) and the organization of the hospital system, just to cite a few examples. In 1808 the religious orders were suppressed and their assets were taken over by the State which thus came into the possession of vast areas and many buildings.

The grand duchess Elisa surrounded herself with artists such as Antonio Canova, Lorenzo Bartolini, Giuseppe Cacialli, and Pietro Benvenuti. The architect Giuseppe Del Rosso and the engineers Paolo Veraci and Salvatore Falleri prepared grandiose urban renewal plans.
Del Rosso (1760-1831), Zanobi's son, distinguished himself among young architects who tried to directly relate the issue to the culture of the French Enlightenment, even on the theoretical level.
His complex activity as historiographer, critic and teacher played a very important role in guiding the culture of the times through his influence over his pupils, even though the Restoration interrupted the process he started, marking a return to accademicism.

It was Del Rosso who developed grandiose plans for a Napoleonic Forum (1810) and for reorganizing the city centen The creation of the Forums that would been in the area between the walls, Via Larga, Via S. Sebastiano (today Via Gino Capponi) and the extension of Via del Mandorlo (now Via G. Giusti) would have required the demolition of the convents of San Domenico al Maglio, of Santa Caterina, of San Clemente, of Santa Lucia, and the occupation of the gardens and property of San Marco and the Annunziata.
The Forum was to have served as "a pleasant setting for the citizens for every type of entertainment and military exercises", with a colossal monument to Napoleon in the middle. It is significant that these grandiose projects were rejected by Paris as too costly for a city lacking much more necessary structures.
It was also Del Rosso who prepared the plans for widening Via Calzaiuoli (1811) and for expanding the piazza in front of the Baptistry, on the side of the archibishop's palace, which was done later, at the end of the century, as part of the "reorganization" of the center and called for a continuous portico "to service as a fruit and vegetable market" on the western and southern sides.
During the same years, plans were made to widen Via Martelli, straighten the south side of Pjazza del Duomo, extend piazza della Signoria as far as the Mercato Nuovo (today the straw market), open what is today Via XXVII Aprile and extend the lungarno from the Ponte alla Carraia as far as the portico of Ognissanti.
Some of these projects were resumed during the Lorraine Restoration. In the works Del Rosso did between 1812 and 1817 from the Liceo Regio in Borgo Pinti to the Teatro Goldoni in Via Santa Marta, the Mannerist variations of the architectural language are the result of the resolution of the design tradition in an original version of the principles of neoclassical poetics, such as the rejection of ornamentation, the elegant smooth and prevalently full surfaces and the search for simplicity of proportions.
In 1810, on the site of the secularized convent of S. Orsola, Bartolomeo Silvestri built the Manifattura Tabacchi in Via Guelfa, one of the first examples of an industrial building in the urban context.

During the French domination, in 1813, the Galleria and the music conservatory were annexed to the Accademia di Belle Arti. In 1859 the Accademia's organization was modernized.

Elisa lavishly furnished Palazzo Pitti transforming it into the Empire Style. Furniture and other pieces brought from Paris influenced tastes in local production such as the Manifattura di Doccia (porcelain) and alabaster from Volterra.

With measures that must be related to similar initiatives in other cities (such as Lucca), in a truly modern vision that conferred a new dimension to the role and concept of green public areas, Elisa transformed the grand duke's park, Le Cascine into a public park.
Up to then it had only been open to Florentines on the Feast of the Ascension or special occasions, and from that time on, it was the place for the daily stroll. Le Cascine were also the site of military exercises that attracted huge crowds on parade days.

Giuseppe Cacialli (1770-1828), the architect of the Regie Fabbriche did some of the interior decorating in Palazzo Pitti and completed the wing of the Meridiana that had been started by Gasparo Paoletti, his teacher.
Cacialli also completed the construction of the Villa del Poggio Imperiale (1807-28) that was begun by Pasquale Poccianti during the French domination. Some of Cacialli's most important works developed interesting solutions for interiors (the bath in Palazzo Pitti, the chapel and loggia on the Villa del Poggio Imperiale, the palace of the Gherardesca counts, his patrons).
In Florentine neoclassical architecture, the reference to antiquity was almost always filtered through the local Renaissance tradition. Cacialli and Poccianti were among the few architects of the period who did not go to Rome to study ancient monuments.

In 1821, the palazzo on Via Ghibellina (fig. 26) was built in a very short time for Prince Camillo Aldobrandini, of the Roman branch of the Borghese family. The pre-existing structures, the result of subsequent work - from the joining of very old buildings, ordered by the Salviati family in the latter half of the XV century to Gherardo Silvani's early XVII century transformations - were complemented by parts Baccani added to the new building.
The building's considerable bulk - it takes up an entire city block - was conceived with a symmetrical arrangement of the parts that resolves the particular visual conditions in the context of the narrow Via Ghibellina through the skillful distinction, in the general design of the long façade, of smaller parts that are clearly defined in and of themselves.
After having studied architecture in Rome, upon his return "home" the still young Florentine Giuseppe Manetti (1761 - 1817), received a commission from the prince to build the Opera del Duomo and other public buildings. He also taught at the Florentine Accademia. He was later engineer in the office of bridges and roads under the French government, and first architect of the Reali Fabbriche after the Restoration. Later, among other things, he designed the transformation of the Ponte Vecchio into a covered gallery on the model of the Parisian passages
Leopold II made every effort to pick up the work begun by Pietro Leopoldo to make Tuscany a modern state through an intensive program of reforms.

The first urban projects, that were mostly justified by the need for easier and faster communications, were however, related to the taste for regularity and the rationalization of the structures and their modernization that had already been developed at the end of the preceding century, and found new impetus as the neoclassical style took root.

In 1824 the tower and arch ("arco dei Pizzicotti") of Palazzo Spini-Feroni overlooking Lungarno Acciaioli were demolished (fig. 4, n.1). It was justified because of traffic, but it eliminated one of the terminals that defined the section of the river between the Ponte Vecchio and Santa Trinita as a "closed lake".
In 1838 the palazzo was transformed into a hotel (Albergo d'Europa), and from 1846 to 1871 it was the Florentine city hall.
The extension of Via Larga (1826-1830) into Via San Leopoldo (now Via Cavour) up to the walls created an alternative to the old Via San Gallo running north, with a new, wider and straight road (fig. 4 n. 2).
The opening of the cross-streets, Via Salvestrina and Via Santa Apollonia (later Via XXVII Aprile), were connected with this work, as was the development of the area around Piazza Maria Antonia (later Piazza dell'Indipendenza) in relation to the goods traffic crossing the axis of Via della Ruote.

During the same period, Baccani, commissioned by the secular deputation of the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore, designed the southern side of Piazza del Duomo, straightening the twists and uneven pattern and creating a unitary structure, characterized by a controlled neoclassical rigor (fig. 4 n. 3).
The same architect designed the railing around the cathedral to "eliminate indecencies and abuses". Similar barriers were placed around S. Giovanni and Orsanmichele. These were not the sole examples of the period's renewed interest in problems of "urban furnishing", as revealed in the taste for the modernization of buildings according to principles of decorum and regularity.
For example, in 1838 a gate was built along the riverbank in what is now Piazza d'Ognissanti; it was taken down in 1858 with the opening of the Lungarno Nuovo.

The two metal suspension bridges spanning the Arno, upstream (Ponte San Ferdinando) and downstream (Ponte San Leopoldo), built between 1836 and 1837 to plans prepared by the firm of the Séguin brothers, French engineers, made it possible to sort vehicle traffic outside the walls (fig. 4 n. 5).

The French firm built the bridges under a one-hundred years concession (redeemed in 1914). The two suspension bridges introduced the technology of building in steel to Florence.
As to formal definition, they avoided all monumental aspects, and reduced the pylons - which in contemporary examples were usually interpreted as triumphal arches or towers - to clean-cut obelisks, and the ancorages to pedestals for the white marble statues of lions.

The widening of Via Calzaiuoli (1841 - 1844, designed by the engineer E Chiesi; figs. 4 n.8; 21; 22), the first of a nineteenth century series corresponded to the Medieval work in the section between Piazza Signoria and Orsanmichele and was done taking into account the plans Del Rosso drew up during the French occupation.
The street was broadened on the side that faces west, but even the buildings on the opposite side were completely transformed, with the exception of the tower of the Adimari at the corner of Via dei Tosinghi.
The new configuration of uniform buildings was not lacking, as in other period projects, a certain coherency, but replaced the residential and artisan fabric, the product of long historical stratification, with uniform and almost monotonous structures and functions typical of the nineteenth century urban dimension: the stroll, the cafès, the shops, the entertainment. The widening of the street led to the destruction of many interesting Medieval structures such as the Adimari tower, houses and shops, and encountered many difficulties.

The Tuscan railroads were built thanks to private initiative though they were supported and financed by the state. The Florence - Pisa - Livorno line, known as "Leopolda" connecting the region's port with the old capital was the second railroad built in Italy.
Designed in 1838 upon request of the bankers Fenzi, Senn and others, it was built between 1841 and 1848. The project was prepared by the English engineer Robert Stephenson, based on technical and economic research conducted by a committee, that led to the proposal for four alternative lines. In 1848 the Florence - Prato - Pistoia railroad line was inaugurated.
It was later to be called the "Maria Antonia" and was to continue the line through the Apennines as far as Bologna. The first Florentine railroad station, built in 1847 to designs by the architect Presenti for the Florence - Pisa line was prudently kept outside Porta al Prato. The following year the new Maria Antonia station was built behind the monumental complex of Santa Maria Novella (fig. 15) for the Pistoia - Rome line.

In 1847 the apse of Santa Maria Novella was "liberated" from the working class housing that stood next to it, and the tombs were built alongside, replacing the canopied door with a Gothic one (fig. 4, n. 13). Even the windows in the chapel and the nave were restored.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century the factories in Florence had all the features of considerable artisan businesses. The increment in the development of industrial firms marked the beginning of a considerable population increase (1814: population, 81,000; 1831: population 94,000; 1859: population 113,000) and even the damages caused by the flood (1844) led to imbalances of which there were clear signs in the uprisings of 1848 protesting against high rents.
The ground was laid for two basic phenomena that developed contemporaneously: 1. the progressive occupation of the internal gardens or the raising them or both; 2. the creation of new "districts or neighborhoods."

After centuries of spontaneous development, through budding, planned urban development also came to Florence.

The Barbano district (1844-55) around Piazza Maria Antonia, occupied the green area between the old Via Guelfa and Via della Ruote, connecting to the center via the new Via Arazzieri-Via S. Apollonia (today Via XVII Aprile) (figs. 4 n.9; 24).
The Cascine district, which was built after many plans were drawn (1850-55) to the outlines by the engineer F. Gatteschi, destroyed the organic solution of the relationship between the walled city and the Cascine park that formed a wedge along the river as far as the Santa Rosa fishing weir (fig. 4 nos. 16, 23; 27).
Starting from the Ponte alla Carraia bridge, the new lungarno also destroyed the articulated relationship between the areas behind Borgo Ognissanti and the river. The new districts were conceived as strictly residential. We can note that for the first time the introduction of a functional and social selection that was without equal in the history of the old city's structure. As to the shapes of the construction and the urban layout of these projects, we can note the new typologies corresponded to the needs of the new middle class; on the other hand, the selection of the functions, coinciding with the neoclassical taste, characterized the new residential areas according to a typical qualification of uniformity and courtly contents.