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Home , Lorenzo Bartolini, Luigi Pampaloni, Monument to Dante, Raffaello Romanelli

ItinerariItinerari PIAZZE FFIRENZEIRENZE e 17th may 2009 nell’nell’800 MUSICA

Piazza dell’Indipendenza

The 19th Century itineraries: Squares and Music TheThTh brass band of the Scuola Marescialli e Brigadieri deidede Carabinieri is one of the fi ve Carabinieri bands whosewhwh origin lies in the buglers of the various Legions TheTh 1919thth CCenturyt FFlorencel ititinerariesi i – 17th1717 h may 2200900009 of the Carabinieri, from which the fi rst bands were designed signifi cantly to coincide with Piazza later formed with brass and percussion instruments. the150th anniversary of the unifi cation of dell’Indipendenza, Today the Brass Band – based in Florence at the to the newly born unifi ed state (1859 11.00 am-12.30 am School with the same name – is a small band with – 2009) – will take citizens and tourists on the a varied repertoire (symphonies, operas, fi lm sound discovery of the traces of a Century that left a Fanfara (Brass tracks as well as blues and jazz), especially trained for profound impression on the face of Florence. band) of the its main activity: the performance of ceremonies with The idea is to restore the role of 19th Century Scuola Marescialli assemblies and marches typical of military music. The band wears the so-called Grande Uniforme Speciale, a Florence within the collective imagination, e Brigadieri alongside the Florence of Medieval and very special uniform with its typical hat known as the times. This is why one of the dell’Arma dei “lucerna” (cocked hat) and the red and white plume Carabinieri that sets it apart from the musicians of other units of Century’s typical customs will be renewed: the Carabinieri (red-blue plume). the military band concert in a city square. The band is conducted by Maresciallo Ennio Robbio.

On the morning of the by playing the “Mameli Many of the tricolour Th ere is one place that 27th April 1859 - day Hymn”, displayed their fl ags that fl ew in Florence is symbolic of 19th of the peaceful revolution loyalty to the same national on 27th April 1859 had Century Florence: Piazza that brought an end to sentiment as the crowd. It horizontal stripes: these dell’Indipendenza. Th is is the Grand Duchy of is well known that after fl ags had most likely been the background to which Tuscany and marked the this event the Regiment made by replacing the Guido Nobili, 1850, beginning of the process of the Imperial and Royal bottom red stripe of the old lawyer and writer, sets that was to end with the Tuscan Gendarmerie Tuscan fl ag with a green his autobiographical tale unifi cation of Tuscany to was transformed into stripe. Th e Tuscan troops whose title alone, “Distant the dawning Kingdom the Legion of Tuscan who left for the second war Memories”, conveys the of - the crowd that Carabinieri and a of independence used these deeply rooted change that his was gathered in the square year later joined the fl ags and kept them along generation was witness to. Th e saw a detachment of the Carabinieri of the newly side the regulation fl ag up volume will be distributed free Gendarmerie arriving unifi ed state. until 1865. of charge during the event. from Piazza San Marco. Many of those present were afraid, but their fear quickly vanished when they saw that it was the 1859 brass band of the Imperial and Royal Gendarmerie of the Grand Duchy who, 2009

17th May 2009, Piazza dell’Indipendenza and surroundings The theme of the tour is the peaceful revolution of 1859 that marked PIAZZE the beginning of great transformations in Florence. e AssessoratoAl al TurismoTi 10.30 am Piazza Indipendenza. Information desk opens where you will be able to MUSICA Con la partecipazione di book afternoon guided tours and where the volume Memorie lontane (Distant Memories) will be distributed free of charge. 11.00 am The Carabinieri brass band will leave Piazza San Marco, cross via degli Arazzieri and via 27 Aprile and will end up in Piazza Indipendenza. FORTHCOMINGRTRTHCHCOMOMINING DATES 11.30 am The band arrives in Piazza Indipendenza, lines up in the assigned area 28st June: and the concert begins. Piazza della Repubblica; 12.30 pm The band goes back to Piazza San Marco where the performance will 27th September: end. In collaborazione con Piazza d’Azeglio; 3.30/4.30 pm Free guided tours, leaving from the information desk in Piazza 17th October: Indipendenza, to the 19th-century monuments of Piazza Indipendenza . and Piazza San Marco, for the Gipsoteca dell’Accademia and Istituto Geografi co Militare. Written by Uffi cio Promozione Turistica e Uffi cio Centro Storico Unesco Translation: Ursula Armstrong From 11th May guided tours can also be booked by phone, calling 055 2654753 for NTL Traduzioni - Firenze

depliant inglese.indd 1 6-05-2009 16:07:07 on the road that was to residential area of the city. of Florentine architecture, been left unchanged for The Square open as a continuation Half way down the new by proposing a new centuries. This change of Via degli Arazzieri: a thoroughfare and at the residential model of will be refl ected in the and its History straight axis constituted by centre of the quarter a ordered space – almost a square’s name: initially Erected at the beginning Via Santa Apollonia (now large rectangular square happy salon - the square dedicated to the beautiful of the 1840’s on the green via 27 Aprile) that pushed was planned and realised. seems to create a break princess Maria Antonia areas within the city walls, out from the northern It is with this square that with the past, despite its di Borbone Due Sicilie, Piazza dell’Indipendenza edge of the city (then for the fi rst time – at apparent continuity, in wife of the Grand Duke was the result of a represented by Piazza San the edge of a grid of which not even the seats Leopoldo II and then, after previous project aimed at Marco) going west towards roads virtually unaltered of power were reserved 1859, to attained national building popular housing the city walls where it met since medieval times – a any kind of preconstituted Independence. with the ramparts of the new symmetrical and scenographic structure. Fortezza di San Giovanni uniform perspective is On the other hand, both (commonly known as introduced that until then the continuity and the the had been completely break with the past refl ect to distinguish it from the foreign to the urban the social milieu of the Forte di San Giorgio that Florentine landscape. residents, exponents due to its position was Although references to of the newly emerging – and still is – known as the Renaissance can bourgeoisie who will Forte di ). Those easily be found within be the major agents of houses were to make the architectural forms change that, along with up the initial heart of the chosen and the context the end of the Grand new Barbano quarter, remains faithful to the Duchy, will see the end destined to become the codifi ed classicism typical of a Florence that had Florentine Monuments from the19th Century Discovering a Century: The guided tours

Until the beginning of the 19th Century only two honorary monuments adorned Floren- The Gipsoteca The Military ce: Cosimo I in and Ferdinando I in Piazza Santissima Annunziata of the Accademia Geographical Institute (both by Giambologna and his studio). The great sculptural decoration of the city had On display in the charming The institute has its origins in always been devoted to biblical heroes or pagan divinities and designed to be placed space that was once the the Technical Offi ce of the Ge- within specifi c architectural settings (Giotto’s bell tower and ). A more women’s entrance to the neral Staff Corps of the Italian urban dimension was created with the great masterpieces of Renaissance in San Matteo hospital are to Army, that in 1861 brought Piazza della Signoria (’s , Cellini’s Perseo, Giambologna’s Ratto delle be found the plaster cast together the traditions and Sabine) or with the honorary columns (like for instance the column of ). collections of two important experience of the cartogra- The placing of ’s statues Arnolfo di Cambio and Nineteenth Century sculp- phy offi ces of the pre-unifi ed in two niches of the new Canonical houses in Piazza del Duomo in 1830 is then per- tors, and states. The 1872 “Military fectly in keeping with the Florentine tradition. In those same years (from 1834 to 1858) Luigi Pampaloni, as well as Topographical Institute” was the empty niches of the Uffi zi Loggia were also fi lled up with Illustrious Tuscans (as a collection of paintings by transformed in 1882 into the foreseen by Vasari): the best sculptors of the time participated in the operation. With the pupils of the Accademia Military Geographical Institu- the annexing of Tuscany to the dawning Kingdom of Italy and the capital’s later move di Belle Arti, some of whom te (IGM), with the task of car- to Florence, renewed interest for celebratory sculpture begins, linked to the urban de- were to become famous ar- rying out all the geodetic and coration of the squares. The fi rst fruit of this interest is the monument to in the tists (such as Silvestro Lega topographical work necessa- middle of Piazza Santa Croce (at the side of the church from 1968) made by Enrico Pazzi or Cesare Mussini). The large ry to satisfy the civil and mili- for the occasion of the 1865 Dante celebrations. It will then be the turn of an offi cer of number of busts on display is tary demands of the nation. the newly unifi ed state: in 1872 the monument to General Manfredo Fanti by Pio Fedi testimony to the importan- The old building of the Sa- (also author of Ratto di Polissena under the Loggia della Signoria) will be placed in the ce enjoyed by portrait art in pienza, based between Piaz- middle of Piazza San Marco from where the general, to whom the Italian Army owes its European bourgeois circles za San Marco and Piazza organisation, looks towards the then War Ministry. In the thirty years that follow the city of the period, at a time when Santissima is to fi ll its squares with more or less successful celebratory monuments: the Obelisco photography did not yet exist. Annunziata, initially conceived ai Caduti della Guerra d’Indipendenza (memorial for the soldiers fallen in the Italian by Niccolò da Uzzano (1430) independence war) in Piazza dell’Unità Italiana; Vittorio Emanuele II by Emilio Zocchi as a boarding school for in the middle of the square with the same name (now Piazza della Repubblica), that young people, was used over later emigrated to the entrance of the Cascine; Cosimo Ridolfi by the centuries for the most in Piazza Santo Spirito; Ubaldino Peruzzi by Romanelli and Bettino Ricasoli by Augusto diverse purposes (centre for Rivalta in Piazza dell’Indipendenza. As well as the squares the spaces along the River cloth weaving, foundry for the Arno also became theatrical wings for celebratory monuments: Piazza Demidoff for Ni- artillery of the Republic, cola Demidoff (begun in 1828 by Lorenzo Bartolini and completed by Romanelli in 1871); Menagerie of Lions – for the new Lungarno Vespucci for by Cesare Zocchi, Goldoni by Ulisse gathering together animals Cambi and Daniele Manin by Urbano Nono (now in Piazzale Galileo); the square with the symbolic to the Florentine same name at the Ponte alle Grazie bridge for the Caduti di Mentana (memorial for the State – during the age of Co- soldiers fallen in the battle of Mentana) by Oreste Calzolai (completed at the beginning simo I and, in the Lorenese of the 20th Century) and lastly, where the Arno and Mugnone meet at the Cascine for era, seat to the Royal Sta- the “Monumento dell’Indiano” (monument to the Indian) by the English sculptor Charles bles). An invaluable collection Fuller (picturesque memorial to the cremation of the Maharajah of Kolapoor, Rajaram of instruments, records and Chuttraputti). Finally, to seal the exception to the 19th Century tradition, the monument knowledge are conserved to Michelangelo in the middle of the made by Giuseppe Poggi: there and can be consulted over and above its artistic value this work remains the most evident and visible sign of both by public and private that series of monuments that innervated late 19th Century Florence. users.

depliant inglese.indd 2 6-05-2009 16:07:11