The Renaissance at a Glance: The Panoramic View of Florence

Since its inauguration in 1869, hardly anyone who travels to Florence will miss a visit to the Piazzale Michelangelo to enjoy the panoramic view of the city. But there is more than meets the eye. In this chapter it is argued that around 1800 the panorama of Florence started to grow into an iconic view, in line with the formative role that historians began to assign to the fifteenth-century Republic of Florence in Europe’s early cultural development; an idea that culminated in Burckhardt’s characterization of Florence as the cradle of modern man. Bearing this idea in mind, this chapter studies how the panorama, as seen from the southern hills, captures at a glance the Tuscan city in its almost unaltered early Renaissance state and demonstrates how it slowly grew into a very popular image that conjures up Florence’s historical achievements in a nutshell.