Around the first half of the eighth century BC, shortly before the foundation of Rome, the remains of a few individuals were buried inside funerary vessels in a small necropolis on the edge of what is now Piazza della Repubblica. The tombs, provided with simple grave goods, represent the first evidence of human presence in this area, perhaps already linked to a stable settlement and a route across the Arno.
Florence was founded on the south-eastern edge of a fluvial-lacustrine basin that filled in during the Upper Pleistocene, between 500,000 and 10,000 years ago, in an alluvial zone squeezed to the north by the hills separating the Arno valley from the Mugello region, and to the south by the foothills of the Chianti uplands. In prehistoric times, this area was covered with extensive marshes; the bed of the Arno, much broader and more irregular than it is today, formed stretches of water, offshoots, islands and fords, some of which were still present in medieval and modern times and are still attested to in numerous place names (Isolotto, Cascine dell’Isola, Bisarno, Pantano). Other watercourses, descending from the hills, branched off in turn before flowing into the Arno, forming ponds and sediment deposits, and creating a marshy environment. The valleys of the rivers and streams, however, were also used as communication routes, in particular, for connections with Emilia and, via the Mugello, with Romagna. In the higher parts of this area, at the foot of the hills or on their summits, there is evidence of human habitation from very remote times, and of the first settlements in the middle of the Neolithic period (fifth-third millennium BC), especially in the areas of Sesto Fiorentino and Fiesole. But even in the lower areas, some slight elevations provided dry ground above the marshes, making a suitable environment for human settlement. One of these, close to a narrowing of the Arno riverbed and flanked by several streams, one of which was to be named Mugnone, corresponds to the area now occupied by Piazza della Repubblica and the adjacent streets. Here, on the western edge of Piazza della Repubblica, a series of tombs dating from 800-750 BC was discovered between 1892 and 1894. They consisted of small pits (wells) in each of which a vase containing the ashes of the deceased and some grave goods had been buried. The necropolis, known as the Gambrinus necropolis, from the name of the café where it was found, bears witness to a non-occasional human presence in this area as early as the Iron Age (eighth century BC), and probably suggests that there was a way across the Arno here via a ford, roughly where the Ponte Vecchio stands today. Added to this evidence is the finding of a construction in Via del Proconsolo that has yielded ceramic artefacts with inscriptions dating from between the end of the seventh and the beginning of the sixth century BC. And an excavation, again in Via del Proconsolo, has yielded a bucchero cup – a particular type of pre-Roman black pottery, with a shiny surface – engraved with the first Etruscan inscription found in Florence.
The finds thus confirm the presence of human activities taking place with a certain continuity from prehistoric to pre-Roman times, when there was increasing evidence of cultural and commercial relations between the area where Florence was to be built and the Etruscan settlements. The continuity of human presence from the Iron Age onwards is supported both by movable finds – for example, ceramics typical of the countryside around Florence and Fiesole and artefacts imported from other Etruscan areas – and by some building structures dating back to the second or first century BC. During the Etruscan period, the first works to control the waters were implemented in the Florentine plain area. They were carried out as early as the seventh and sixth centuries BC in order to to drain the land, consisting of a fairly regular network of canals directed towards the Arno; this network was later reused in the subsequent Roman land reclamation. These finds confirm the presence of some kind of settlement on the site of the future city, one that can probably be interpreted as a trading area in connection with a river port, and in close relationship with the city of Fiesole.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
- Alle origini di Firenze. Dalla preistoria alla città romana, catalogo della mostra (Firenze, Museo Firenze Com’Era”, 25 giugno 1996-19 gennaio 1997), Firenze, Polistampa, 1996.
- Lunga memoria della piana. L’area fiorentina dalla preistoria alla romanizzazione, catalogo della mostra (Sesto Fiorentino, 1999-2000), a cura di F. Martini, G. Poggesi, L. Sarti, Pontassieve, Centro Stampa 2P, 1999.
- Atlante archeologico di Firenze. Indagine storico-archeologica dalla preistoria all’alto medioevo, a cura di M. Pagni, Firenze, Polistampa, 2010.