Benedetto Dei's Landmarks

Title: Benedetto Dei's Landmarks
Description: This dataset maps the city's landmarks around the year 1472 according to Florentine trade agent Benedetto Dei.

In his Cronica Fiorentina (Archivio di Stato di Firenze, MS 119) Dei set out to describe the beauties of Florence as selected for an imagined foreign visitor. ‘Guests – he wrote – lack any knowledge of Florence, and therefore need to know, understand, reflect upon and enjoy what the city is really like.’ He selected his audience carefully: ‘visitors should not be uncouth, neither herdsmen nor unfortunate, nor soldiers, but should be reasonable people with good common sense (persone che abbino teste e ciervello e del sale in zuccha), essential qualities to appreciate the most ambitious architectures that made Florence a 'new Rome'.

See also the ‘City Descriptions’ tour. This geodataset draws on the texts transcribed by Giuseppina Carla Rombi in her essay ‘Descrizioni e Rappresentazioni della città di Firenze nel XV secolo’ (Florence, 1976).
Is Part Of: Arts of Florence
number: 03