The meaning of the word “Renaissance” is open to a number of different interpretations. The word itself is not in dispute. It means “rebirth”. But when you have to explain what the term really means, it becomes a little more complex. Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci didn’t know that they lived in the Renaissance. It was, in fact, not until the mid 1800s when the Swiss historian Jacob Burckhardt wrote “The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy” that the term became common.
But Burckhardt was not the first to use the term “Rebirth”. That was Giorgio Vasari, who wrote “The Lives of the Artists” in 1550 and who convinced Cosimo I de’ Medici to finance the first Art Academy in Florence in 1563.
Where was this Academy and is it still there? Why was the Renaissance born in Florence?
We will talk about this and more on this tour, and you will see artwork and buildings which were made in the Renaissance.
This is a good tour to get an orientation of Florence and to understand its history.