Mythos Florenz. Handschrift einer Stadt

For 300 years, Florence was the artistic and economic centre of the early modern period. This book traces the myth of this wealthy and powerful city — a myth already created by contemporary chroniclers and writers that continues to shape its reception today. Texts by Leonardo Bruni, Luca Landucci, Vespasiano da Bisticci and Poggio Bracciolini accompany this approach to art, history, and philosophy. A plate section with more than a hundred colour illustrations likewise conveys a narrative of the era and allows for different readings of ideas, concepts and historical connections. Influential figures are introduced in short portraits, among them numerous women. The tension between the common good and the Medici family's hold on power runs through the works of the artists as well as the sculptures and the design of public squares. Alongside its art-historical perspective, the book thus also develops an everyday history of a city that survived wars, outbreaks of plague, famines and social upheavals.