Origins

Florence's recorded history began with the establishment in 59 BC of a settlement for Roman former soldeirs, with the name Florentia (May She Flourish).

Julius Caesar had allocated the fertile soil of the valley of the Arno to his veterans.

They built a castrum in a chessboard pattern of an army camp, with the main streets, the cardo and the decumanus, intersecting at the present Piazza della Repubblica. This pattern can still be found in the city center. Florentia was situated at the Via Cassia, tha main route between Rome and the North. Through this advantageous position, the settlement could rapidly expand into an important commercial center. Emperor Diocletian made Florentia the capital of the province of Tuscia in the 3rd century AD. St Minias was Florence's first martyr. He was beheaded at about 250 Ad, during the anti-Christian persecutions of the Emperor Decius. The Basilica of San Miniato al Monte now stands near the spot. The seat of a bishopric from around the beginning of the 4th century AD, the city experienced subsequent turbolent periods of Ostrogothic rule, during which the city was often besieged and ravaged. The population may have fallen to as few as 1,000 persons. Peace returned under the Lombard rule in the 6th century.