URBAN PLANNING AND ADMINISTRATION IN FLORENCE: 1400-1600

Florence and the region of Tuscany have a long urban history dating from ancient times. The timeframe of this study focuses on a particularly formative stage in Florentine urban development and urban planning and administration during the early modern period when Florence came to govern a large part of the region of Tuscany. Between 1400 and 1600 the transformation of Florence from the capital of a city-state to the metropolitan center of a regional state raised new interurban and areawide issues for Florentine policymakers: for example, regional transportation facilities, jurisdictional issues between the local and central government and between government departments, and energy and environment problems. The attempt of this study is to outline at least in part the policy response of the early modern Florentine government to major interurban and area-wide issues of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and to address a basic question concerning the approach of Florentine policymakers to these issues of the period. Were they case-by-case problem-solvers or long-term planners? The sources for this study include the design concepts and writings of Renaissance and early modern architects and essayists who viewed the city in a new way and defined the formation of a new urban consciousness during this period. In 1349 the Florentine government established a department called the Tower Officials. This office and its successor established in 1549, called the Parte, played a role in the Florentine government resembling in some ways that played by urban and regional planning and transportation departments in modern governments. The many records and statutes of the above as well as other major government offices that implemented and influenced urban policy, for example, the Cinque and then the Nove, provide particularly valuable source materials for a study of early modern Florentine urban planning and administration. Other collections of government statutes referred to also in the text of the study are very helpful research sources for this topic. Following an introduction to the dissertation and a background history of ancient and medieval Florence and also a discussion of the historical environment of early modern Florence, each chapter discusses a particular urban issue or topic, for example, Early Modern Urban Theory, Regional Urban Administration, etc. The last chapter attempts to relate Florentine urban planning and history to a wider historical perspective and supports the general theme expressed in the introduction in response to the basic question asked earlier: were early modern Florentine policymakers case-by-case problem solvers or long-term planners? They became limited planners because they had to be large-scale problem-solvers