99 Fun Facts About Florence

Florence is the capital of which Italian region?

Florence is the capital of Tuscany, the central Italian region that also takes in Pisa, Siena and Lucca; with roughly 360,000 residents it ranks about eighth among Italy's cities by population.

Florence was founded by the Romans in 59 BC as what?

Julius Caesar founded Florentia in 59 BC as a colony for veteran soldiers, laid out on a military grid along the Via Cassia, with its forum where Piazza della Repubblica stands today.

The Latin name Florentia means what?

Florentia is Latin for 'the flourishing town', from florere, to flourish or bloom; the modern name Firenze descends from the medieval form Fiorenza through regular sound shifts.

Florence stands on which river?

Florence stands on the Arno, which rises on Monte Falterona in the Apennines and flows west through Pisa to the sea; its waters powered the city's medieval wool and textile mills.

From 1865 to 1871 Florence served as what?

Florence was capital of the Kingdom of Italy from 1865 to 1871, taking over from Turin; the king lived in Palazzo Pitti and parliament sat in Palazzo Vecchio until the capital passed to Rome.

The Florentine dialect became the basis of standard Italian largely thanks to which writers?

Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio wrote the Divine Comedy, the Canzoniere and the Decameron in 14th-century Florentine, and their prestige made that dialect the model for literary Italian.

The gold florin was first struck in Florence in which year?

Florence first struck the gold florin in 1252; each coin held about 3.5 grams of nearly pure gold and kept the same design until 1533, becoming the standard trade coin of Europe.

Which Medici was the first to control Florence 'from behind the scenes'?

Cosimo the Elder, back from exile in 1434, ran Florence from behind the scenes for thirty years while holding few offices, his power resting on the Medici bank and its papal accounts.

Which three artists enjoyed the patronage of Lorenzo 'the Magnificent' de' Medici?

Lorenzo the Magnificent's circle included Michelangelo, Leonardo and Botticelli: the teenage Michelangelo lived in his household, and in 1482 Lorenzo sent Leonardo to Milan as a cultural envoy.

Including Milan's Pius IV, how many popes bore the Medici name?

Four popes bore the Medici name: three from the Florentine family plus Pius IV, who came from the separate Milanese Medici di Marignano line and reigned from 1559 to 1565.

The Dominican friar Savonarola was hanged and burned in which Florentine square in 1498?

Savonarola was hanged and burned in Piazza della Signoria on 23 May 1498, on a spot now marked by a plaque in front of Palazzo Vecchio, after defying Pope Alexander VI.

In 1527 Florentines expelled the Medici and named whom 'King of Florence'?

The restored republic proclaimed Jesus Christ 'King of Florence', reviving a Savonarolan idea, and in 1528 carved the decree over the door of Palazzo Vecchio; imperial and papal armies restored the Medici in 1530.

What title did Cosimo I de' Medici receive over the whole region in 1569?

The Medici grand dukes ruled until Gian Gastone died in 1737 and the region passed to the House of Lorraine.

Which political handbook did a Florentine ex-diplomat write after his imprisonment and exile in 1513?

The Prince was written in 1513 at its author's farm outside Florence after his torture and banishment, and dedicated to Lorenzo de' Medici, Duke of Urbino; the Medici later commissioned his Florentine Histories.

Florence Cathedral was begun in 1296 to whose design?

Arnolfo di Cambio drew up the cathedral's plan when the first stone was laid in 1296; he is also credited with Palazzo Vecchio, and the church was consecrated in 1436 after 140 years of work.

What distinction does Brunelleschi's cathedral cupola hold?

Brunelleschi's cupola, raised between 1420 and 1436 without wooden centering, is the largest masonry dome ever built, its octagonal base spanning some 45 metres; it was Europe's first great dome since antiquity.

Besides the dome, Brunelleschi is famous for developing which mathematical technique in art?

Brunelleschi worked out linear perspective around 1415, painting the Baptistery as seen from the cathedral door and showing through a peephole that all receding lines met at a single vanishing point.

Michelangelo said the Baptistery's east doors were beautiful enough to stand where?

Ghiberti's gilded bronze panels have been called the Gates of Paradise ever since; the originals are now in the cathedral museum.

Michelangelo's David was carved between 1501 and 1504 and stands how tall?

Michelangelo's David stands 5.17 metres tall, carved from a single block of Carrara marble abandoned by earlier sculptors; commissioned for the cathedral's buttresses, it was set outside Palazzo Vecchio in 1504.

In 1873 the original David was moved from the square outside the Palazzo Vecchio to where?

The original David has stood in the Galleria dell'Accademia since 1873, under a skylit tribune built for it; a marble replica took its place outside Palazzo Vecchio in 1910.

Vasari's building for Cosimo I, begun in 1560 and later a gallery, originally served as what?

Vasari began the Uffizi in 1560 as government offices for Cosimo I's magistrates, whence the name, which simply means 'offices'; the upper floor became a Medici gallery and the state archive stayed there until 1989.

Which Botticelli painting in the Uffizi did climate protesters glue images to in February 2024?

In February 2024 two Ultima Generazione climate activists glued photographs onto the protective glass of Botticelli's The Birth of Venus in the Uffizi; the painting itself was unharmed.

The Vasari Corridor, about a kilometre long, was built in 1565 so Cosimo I could do what?

The corridor let Cosimo I walk between his palaces unseen, running from Palazzo Vecchio through the Uffizi and over the Ponte Vecchio to Palazzo Pitti; Vasari finished it in five months for his son Francesco's wedding.

Which trade did Ferdinando I expel from the shops on the Ponte Vecchio in 1593?

Butchers had traded on the Ponte Vecchio since the 1400s, but in 1593 Ferdinando I de' Medici expelled them, partly over the stench beneath his corridor, reserving the shops for goldsmiths and jewellers.

Why is the Ponte Vecchio the only medieval bridge left in Florence?

The retreating Germans spared it in 1944 while blowing up every other bridge in Florence, demolishing the buildings at each end of the Ponte Vecchio instead; the present bridge dates from about 1345.

Who liberated Florence on 4 August 1944?

New Zealand, South African and British troops of the Allied Eighth Army reached Florence on 4 August 1944, entering the Oltrarno district first; fighting north of the river went on for another week.

The great flood of the Arno that damaged millions of books and artworks struck on which date?

The river burst its banks on 4 November 1966 after days of torrential rain, swamping the city centre in water and heating-oil mud several metres deep and damaging millions of books and some 14,000 artworks.

What were the volunteers who rescued art after the 1966 flood nicknamed?

Thousands of volunteers who waded into the flooded libraries and churches to rescue books and paintings were nicknamed the Mud Angels; marble plaques around the city mark the flood's high-water line.

The Palazzo Vecchio's 94-metre campanile is off-centre because its architect built it on top of what?

The campanile was raised over an older tower called 'the Cow' (La Vacca), once the Foraboschi family's, which fixed its off-centre position on the façade; work began in 1299 and the tower reaches 94 metres.

The church nicknamed the Temple of the Italian Glories holds the tombs of Michelangelo, Galileo and whom?

Machiavelli's tomb, with its 1787 monument by Innocenzo Spinazzi, stands in the same nave as Michelangelo's and Galileo's; Rossini and Foscolo are also buried there, while Dante has only a cenotaph.

Stendhal syndrome is named for the author's 1817 visit to which Florentine church?

Psychiatrist Graziella Magherini coined the term in 1989 after seeing more than a hundred cases among visitors.

Dante was condemned to exile from Florence in which year?

Dante, a White Guelph, was sentenced to exile in 1302 after the Black Guelphs seized Florence, on pain of death by fire if he returned; he died in Ravenna in 1321.

Piazzale Michelangelo, the viewpoint above the city, was laid out in 1869 by which architect?

Giuseppe Poggi laid out Piazzale Michelangelo in 1869 as the crown of his ring-road scheme of the late 1860s; its terrace holds bronze copies of David and the Medici Chapel allegories.

How many players does each team field in calcio storico fiorentino?

Each calcio storico side fields 27 players, the calcianti, on a sand-covered pitch laid out in a central piazza; the city's historic quarters meet in semi-finals and a final every June.

Which two musical inventions are credited to Florence?

Florence gave the world opera and the piano: Jacopo Peri's Dafne was staged there in 1598, and Bartolomeo Cristofori, the Medici court's keeper of instruments, built the first pianos there around 1700.

Bistecca alla fiorentina is a large T-bone from which breed of cattle?

The classic bistecca alla fiorentina comes from the Chianina, a huge white breed raised in the Val di Chiana; the T-bone is cut thick, grilled over charcoal and served very rare.

Which fashion house has been based in Florence since 1928?

Salvatore Ferragamo settled in Florence on his return from Hollywood in the late 1920s and the shoemaker has been headquartered there since, in the medieval Palazzo Spini Feroni that he bought in 1938.

Fiorentina football club is nicknamed the Viola because of what?

The nickname comes from its purple colours: viola means purple in Italian, and Fiorentina has worn purple since 1929; the club was formed by a 1926 merger and has played at the Stadio Artemio Franchi since 1931.

The Boboli Gardens behind the Palazzo Pitti were laid out for whom?

Eleonora di Toledo, Cosimo I's wife, bought Palazzo Pitti in 1549 and had Niccolò Tribolo lay out the Boboli Gardens behind it from 1550; they became a model for European court gardens.

Around 1325, at its medieval peak, Florence's urban population may have reached what?

Chronicler Giovanni Villani's figures suggest Florence's population peaked at around 120,000 about 1325, ranking it among Europe's largest cities; within a generation the Black Death had cut that number drastically.

The Revolt of the Ciompi in 1378 was an uprising by whom?

The Ciompi were the wool combers and carders, unguilded labourers of the cloth trade, who seized the Signoria in the summer of 1378 and briefly won guilds of their own before the oligarchy crushed them.

UNESCO listed the historic centre of Florence as a World Heritage Site in which year?

UNESCO inscribed the Historic Centre of Florence on the World Heritage List in 1982, citing its concentration of Renaissance art and architecture; the listing covers the area within the line of the 14th-century walls.

Which Florentine's map did Columbus use to sell his voyage to the Spanish monarchs?

Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli, a Florentine astronomer, argued in a 1474 letter and chart that Asia lay a short sail west across the Atlantic; Columbus obtained a copy and used it to press his case in Spain.

In 2016 Florence rejected which chain's bid to open a branch in Piazza del Duomo?

Florence refused McDonald's a site on Piazza del Duomo in 2016 under a new rule requiring new food businesses in the historic centre to use mostly local products; the chain sued the city for about €18 million.

Which ruler conquered Florence in 774 and placed it in a march governed from Lucca?

Charlemagne took Florence in 774 while overthrowing the Lombard kingdom, and the city was placed in a frontier march governed from Lucca; its population had sunk to about 1,000 during the Gothic War.

The Medici cousins who retook Florence in 1512 later became which two popes?

The cousins became Leo X and Clement VII: Cardinal Giovanni de' Medici, who rode back into Florence with Spanish troops in 1512, was elected in 1513, and Giulio followed in 1523; both employed Michelangelo on Medici projects.

By roughly how much did the Black Death of 1348 reduce Florence's population?

The Black Death of 1348 cut Florence's population by over half within a year, emptying whole streets and workshops; the city took centuries to regain its early 14th-century size.

Which architect led the design of Florence's Santa Maria Novella railway station in the 1930s?

Giovanni Michelucci led the team that designed Santa Maria Novella station, completed in the mid-1930s as a landmark of Italian Rationalism, its low stone front set behind the apse of the church it is named for.

What did Mayor Dario Nardella start doing to church steps in 2017 to deter picnicking tourists?

Mayor Dario Nardella began spraying them with water: from 2017 the steps of churches in the historic centre were hosed at lunchtime so that tourists could not sit and eat on them, after he complained of the rubbish left behind.

Who finished Giotto's Campanile in 1359, leaving off the spire Giotto had planned?

Francesco Talenti, who took over as cathedral architect, completed the campanile in 1359 with its upper storeys of tall windows but dropped the 50-metre spire of Giotto's design, leaving the tower at 84.7 metres.

Florentines once believed the Baptistery began as a Roman temple to which god?

Medieval chroniclers such as Villani held that the Baptistery had been a temple of Mars, the Roman city's protector; excavations instead found a Roman house beneath it, and the building dates from the 11th and 12th centuries.

Which sculptor made the Baptistery's earliest bronze doors, now on the south side?

Andrea Pisano cast the south doors between 1330 and 1336; their 28 quatrefoil panels show twenty scenes from the life of John the Baptist and eight Virtues, and they hung on the east side until Ghiberti's doors displaced them.

Who designed the upper façade of Santa Maria Novella, completed in 1470?

Leon Battista Alberti completed the upper façade of Santa Maria Novella in 1470 for the merchant Giovanni Rucellai, whose name runs across the frieze; its S-shaped scrolls masking the aisle roofs were copied on churches across Italy.

The Officina Profumo-Farmaceutica, called the world's oldest pharmacy, dates from when?

The Officina traces its origins to 1221, when Dominican friars arriving at Santa Maria Novella began growing herbs for medicines; by 1381 they were selling rose water as a plague disinfectant, and the shop opened publicly in 1612.

The pharmacy's oldest scent, Acqua della Regina, was made in 1533 for whose wedding?

Catherine de' Medici took the scent to France on marrying the future Henry II in 1533; the friars' perfumer Renato Bianco followed her to Paris, where he was known as René le Florentin.

Before it became a museum in 1865, what was the Bargello?

A Pazzi conspirator was hanged from its windows in 1479, and it stayed the police headquarters until 1859.

Donatello's bronze David in the Bargello is celebrated as the first what since antiquity?

Donatello's David, cast around the 1440s for the Medici, was the first freestanding nude male statue since antiquity; the boy wears only a laurel-topped hat and boots and rests a foot on Goliath's severed head.

The New Sacristy at San Lorenzo holds Medici tombs carved with personifications of what?

Michelangelo carved the four times of day, Night and Day, Dawn and Dusk, to recline on the tombs of Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino, and Giuliano, Duke of Nemours; the tomb meant for the Magnificent was never completed.

Which Medici pontiff commissioned the Laurentian Library at San Lorenzo in 1523?

Pope Clement VII commissioned the Laurentian Library from Michelangelo in 1523 to house the Medici manuscripts; he rejected a skylight for the vestibule for fear of leaks, and Ammannati built the staircase in 1559 from Michelangelo's model.

Brunelleschi's Ospedale degli Innocenti, the first pure Renaissance building, was what?

The Innocenti was a foundling hospital, paid for by the silk guild and opened in 1445 to take in abandoned infants; Andrea della Robbia's blue-and-white roundels of swaddled babies on the loggia advertise that purpose.

Orsanmichele, ringed by guild statues, was built in the 1330s to serve as what?

Orsanmichele was built from 1337 as a grain market and granary, with grain stored upstairs, on the site of the kitchen garden of San Michele; its arcades were walled in and the ground floor became a church around 1400.

Who designed the Palazzo Medici, the family's first grand palace, begun in 1444?

Michelozzo di Bartolomeo designed the Palazzo Medici from 1444, with rusticated stone below and the city's first Renaissance courtyard; the family had rejected Brunelleschi's model as too showy, and the Riccardi bought the palace in 1659.

What nickname do Florentines give Ammannati's marble Neptune outside Palazzo Vecchio?

Florentines mock Ammannati's statue as Il Biancone, 'the big white one', for its pale bulk; the old jingle 'Ammannato, Ammannato, che bel marmo hai rovinato' says he ruined a fine block of marble.

The Loggia dei Lanzi takes its name from what?

The loggia is named for the Lanzichenecchi, German mercenary pikemen (Landsknechte) whom Cosimo I quartered there as his bodyguard around 1541; its roof later became a terrace from which the court watched ceremonies in the square.

Cellini's bronze Perseus in the Loggia dei Lanzi holds up whose severed head?

Seen from behind, the back of Perseus's helmet hides a self-portrait of Cellini.

What do visitors do to the bronze boar Il Porcellino to ensure they return to Florence?

Visitors rub its snout, polished bright by centuries of hands, and drop a coin from the boar's mouth into the grating below; Pietro Tacca cast the bronze around 1634 after a Hellenistic marble in the Uffizi.

Anna Maria Luisa, the last Medici, left the family art to the state on what condition?

Under her 1737 Family Pact, Anna Maria Luisa gave the Medici collections to the state on condition that none of it could leave the city, keeping the Uffizi and Pitti treasures in Florence; she died in 1743.

Count Negroni's 1919 Florentine cocktail swapped an Americano's soda water for what?

Count Camillo Negroni asked bartender Fosco Scarselli at Caffè Casoni on Via de' Tornabuoni to stiffen his Americano with gin instead of soda water in 1919, and the gin, Campari and vermouth mix took his name.

Which Medici court architect is credited with the precursor of Florentine gelato?

Bernardo Buontalenti is credited with serving the Medici court a frozen cream of milk, honey and egg around 1559, the ancestor of gelato; he also designed the Forte di Belvedere and the grotto in the Boboli Gardens.

Why does the façade of Florence's great Franciscan basilica carry a Star of David?

Its architect was Jewish: Niccolò Matas set a Star of David in his 1863 neo-Gothic façade; denied burial inside among the greats, he lies under the threshold instead.

Whose huge painted Crucifix, wrecked by the 1966 flood, now hangs in a refectory?

Cimabue painted the Crucifix around 1265 for the Franciscan basilica; the flood stripped much of its paint and it hangs in the refectory after restoration, while Giotto, his reputed pupil, frescoed the Bardi and Peruzzi chapels.

The Brancacci Chapel, the 'Sistine Chapel of the early Renaissance', is in which church?

The Brancacci Chapel is in Santa Maria del Carmine, across the river in Oltrarno; Masaccio painted its Expulsion from Eden and Tribute Money in the mid-1420s, and Filippino Lippi completed the cycle in the 1480s.

The lost Battle of Anghiari mural was painted for which room of the Palazzo Vecchio?

The mural was commissioned in 1503 for the Salone dei Cinquecento, the hall built for the republic's Great Council in the 1490s; its painter's experimental technique failed, and Vasari later frescoed the walls, legend says over a hidden fragment.

Antonio Meucci built an acoustic telephone in 1834 for which Florentine workplace?

Meucci worked as a stage technician at the Teatro della Pergola, where in 1834 he rigged an acoustic pipe telephone between the stage and the control room; the theatre, built in 1656, pioneered tiers of boxes.

Which Florence-born journalist called Khomeini a tyrant and shed her chador mid-interview?

Oriana Fallaci, born in Florence in 1929, tore off her chador during her 1979 interview with Khomeini after calling him a tyrant; Kissinger called his own interview with her the most disastrous conversation he ever had with the press.

Which mayor of Florence (2009-14) went straight from city hall to prime minister of Italy?

Matteo Renzi was mayor of Florence from 2009 until February 2014, when at 39 he became the youngest prime minister Italy had yet had; his successor at Palazzo Vecchio was Dario Nardella.

In 1487 Lorenzo de' Medici was presented with a giraffe by the sultan of which land?

The Mamluk sultan of Egypt, Qaitbay, sent the giraffe with an embassy in 1487; Lorenzo promised it to Anne of France as a diplomatic sweetener, but the animal died in Florence before it could travel.

Santa Maria Nuova hospital, founded in 1288, was endowed by whose father?

Folco Portinari, father of Dante's Beatrice, founded Santa Maria Nuova in 1288, reputedly at the urging of his servant Monna Tessa; it has operated ever since and is among the world's oldest working hospitals.

Fra Angelico frescoed the cells of which Florentine convent, later home to Savonarola?

Fra Angelico painted an Annunciation and a fresco in each friar's cell at San Marco in the 1440s, after the convent was rebuilt at Medici expense; Savonarola was its prior in the 1490s and Pico della Mirandola is buried there.

Whose face is the hooded Nicodemus thought to show in the Pietà in the cathedral museum?

The hooded Nicodemus is taken to be a self-portrait of Michelangelo, who carved it for his own tomb from about 1547; he attacked the Pietà in frustration in 1555, and Christ's left leg was never replaced.

The Marzocco, Florence's heraldic lion, rests a paw on a shield bearing what?

Donatello's Marzocco of 1419 steadies a shield bearing the fleur-de-lis, the red lily of Florence; live lions were kept at public expense until 1771, and Pisan prisoners were made to kiss the statue in 1364.

Ponte Santa Trinita, rebuilt after the war, is the oldest what?

Ammannati's Ponte Santa Trinita of 1569 is regarded as the oldest elliptic arch bridge in the world; rebuilt stone by stone after the war, it regained the head of its statue of Spring, fished from the river in 1961.

In Forster's A Room with a View, what do Lucy and George witness in a Florentine square?

Lucy sees a murder, an Italian stabbed in a quarrel over money in the square, and faints; George catches her and throws her blood-spattered photographs into the river, and the 1908 novel ends with the couple back in Florence.

In the 2001 film Hannibal, Lecter hides in Florence as a library curator under what alias?

Lecter lives in Florence as Dr Fell, curator of the Capponi Library; he disembowels Inspector Pazzi and hangs him from a window of Palazzo Vecchio, echoing the fate of the real Pazzi conspirators in 1478.

Which Renaissance genius builds gadgets for assassin Ezio in Assassin's Creed II?

Leonardo da Vinci befriends Ezio in Assassin's Creed II, decoding codex pages and building his hidden blades and other gadgets; one mission has Ezio fly Leonardo's flying machine over Venice.

The Accademia della Crusca, the oldest linguistic academy, takes its name from what?

Crusca means bran: the academy, founded in 1583, set out to sift the good flour of the language from the bran, and its Vocabolario of 1612 became the model for Europe's national dictionaries.

Fiorentina's Stadio Artemio Franchi, opened in 1931, was designed by which engineer?

Pier Luigi Nervi designed the stadium in reinforced concrete, with its 70-metre Torre di Maratona and cantilevered helical stairs; opened in 1931, it hosted World Cup matches in both 1934 and 1990.

Savonarola's Bonfire of the Vanities in 1497 was staged on which day?

The bonfire was lit on Shrove Tuesday, the last day of Carnival, in the square before Palazzo Vecchio; mirrors, cosmetics, playing cards, musical instruments and 'immoral' books were heaped on a pyramid and burned.

Botticelli is buried in the church of Ognissanti near which woman, reputedly his muse?

Botticelli asked to be buried at the feet of Simonetta Vespucci, the celebrated beauty who died in 1476 and is reputed to have inspired his paintings; both lie in Ognissanti, the Vespucci family's parish church.

Under Peter Leopold, the state ruled from Florence was the first to abolish what in 1786?

Peter Leopold's penal code of 30 November 1786 made his state the first in the world to abolish the death penalty, along with torture; he ordered the instruments of execution destroyed, and the date is kept as a regional holiday.

Which cousin murdered Florence's first duke in 1537 after luring him with a fake tryst?

The duke bit off part of his killer's finger in the struggle; Lorenzino fled to Venice and was himself killed there in 1548.

Florentine hopes in the 1530 siege died at which battle, where Francesco Ferruccio was killed?

At Gavinana, in the hills above Pistoia, the imperial army routed Ferruccio's relief force on 3 August 1530 and he was killed after capture; Florence surrendered on 12 August and the Medici were restored.

The Medici Bank, Europe's largest in its prime, was founded in 1397 by whom?

Giovanni di Bicci de' Medici founded the bank in 1397, moving from Rome to Florence and later winning the papal account; branches followed in Venice, Geneva, Bruges, London and Lyon, and it fell with the family's 1494 exile.

The cathedral's marble front was only finished in 1887, to whose neo-Gothic design?

Emilio De Fabris won the competition for the neo-Gothic marble façade, finished in 1887 after his death in 1883; the unfinished medieval front had been torn down in 1587 and the wall stood bare for three centuries.

The 1478 Pazzi conspiracy struck at the Medici brothers where?

The conspirators stabbed the brothers during Mass in the cathedral on 26 April 1478; Giuliano died, Lorenzo escaped into the sacristy, and Archbishop Salviati was hanged from the windows of Palazzo Vecchio.

After his 1633 trial, Galileo lived under house arrest at his villa where, near Florence?

Galileo spent his last years under house arrest at Villa Il Gioiello in Arcetri, on the hills south of the city, where he died in 1642; his daughter Maria Celeste was a nun at the nearby convent of San Matteo.

Guccio Gucci opened his first Florence shop in 1921 after working as a bellhop where?

Guccio Gucci worked as a bellhop at the Savoy Hotel, London, where the luggage of wealthy guests inspired him; back in Florence he opened a leather-goods shop on Via della Vigna Nuova in 1921.

Pinocchio's creator Carlo Lorenzini, a Florentine, took his pen name Collodi from what?

Lorenzini took his pen name from his mother's home town, Collodi, a village near Pescia where he spent part of his childhood; earlier he had founded the satirical paper Il Lampione in 1848.

Florence Nightingale, named after the city, was born in 1820 in which house there?

Florence Nightingale was born on 12 May 1820 at Villa Colombaia, her parents' rented villa on the hills southwest of the centre; her elder sister Parthenope was named for the Greek name of Naples.