We’ve just arrived in Florence, Italy. The train ride from Venice was easy, so we checked in, unpacked, and headed out to explore the neighborhood. It didn’t take long for us to learn that when it comes to Florence, it all started 800 years ago.
At one end of our street, Via Calzaiuoli, stands the gigantic Catedral di Santa Maria del Fiore. The other end stops at a large square called Piazza della Signoria. There are fountains, ornate buildings, and beautiful statues everywhere you look.
Poor Neptune
An impressive fountain called the Fountain of Neptune dominates Piazza della Signoria. We thought it was impressive, but guidebooks say this fountain has always been something of an embarrassment to the Florentines. The quality of the work isn’t quite up to their standards. I guess I’m more easily impressed than the average Florentine.
Unfortunately for Neptune, Michelangelo’s statue of David stands on the other side of the piazza. No one can compete with David. Not even Neptune.
The statue of David standing in Piazza della Signoria is a copy. The original is in a museum not far from here. We’ll go see the real David tomorrow.
On the walk from our hotel toward Piazza della Signoria, one building especially stands out. It’s called Orsanmichele. Its exterior walls are lined with statues of the saints. Good ones, too, done by the greatest sculptors that ever lived. Nothing for a self-respecting Florentine to be embarrassed about here.
Any sculpture by a great master costs a fortune. And Orsanmichele is lined with them. Where did all that money come from?
800 Years Ago…
The story begins in the 12th century. It’s the Dark Ages. Most of the local population are peasants and serfs, living and working on plots of land belonging to the nearest lord. But in the 12th century, little towns were starting to pop up here and there.
One of the main activities of folks back then was weaving wool into cloth. It was a multi-step, labor-intensive process. Weavers couldn’t weave fast enough – woven cloth was in high demand.
In one of those little enclaves, people who knew the ins and outs of weaving put their heads together. They thought that maybe, instead of each weaver working independently, if they could organize themselves and work together, it might pay off. They decided to give it a try.
They divided weaving activities into stages, then asked weavers to only do work related to a particular stage. Not everyone was happy about it, but over time, each weaver would become a specialist at one stage of the process.
It took a while, but ultimately the results of their experiment was beyond anyone’s wildest expectations. As an organized group, they were able to weave wool into cloth much faster.
One might have expected the quality of cloth produced to suffer, but the quality of cloth increased dramatically, too. Those guys were onto something.
No Going Back Now
Specialization allowed people to get better and better at their particular skill. People started thinking of ways to improve their particular stage of the process.
Wool cleaners found better ways to prepare wool for spinning. Dyers found better dyes and better ways to dye wool before sending it to the weavers. And so on.
As a group, they became so proficient at cloth production, they started using up wool faster than local sheep could provide it. So guess what? They started importing wool.
And of course, they formed a new group that specialized in importing the best wool at the lowest cost and the fastest delivery.
People took note of how well the wool workers were doing. It wasn’t long before the whole “specializing and organizing” thing started to catch on. Physicians and pharmacists created their own group. So did judges, lawyers, and notaries.
The people who had teamed up and organized themselves had stumbled onto something big. The name of the little town where this was happening was Firenze – Florence.
Firenze wouldn’t be little for long.
To be continued…
