In 1348, the bubonic plague swept through Italy, and killed almost half of the city’s population, creating widespread loss and disruption.

Around the 15th Century, Florence was fortunate to have:

Some of the most influential educational treatises like ‘On the Manners Of A Gentleman And Liberal Studies’ was written in Florence in the 15th century. Many other literary masterpieces like ‘The Human Comedy’ (by Giovanni Boccaccio) or ‘The Divine Comedy’ by the greatest poet of the city, Dante ...

Innovative banking practices like bills of exchange (to facilitate-out-of-city payments) and double-entry bookkeeping, along with the flourishing cloth industry made Florence the wealthiest city in Europe.

Now a fashion city, Florence was initially well-known for woollen cloth, creating a central marketplace for the best-quality wool, cleaned to perfection.

The advanced methods used by creators and artists of Florence(like the four canonical techniques of drawing to produce depth and 3D effects) gave birth to the following masterpieces: