The House of Lorraine’s government over Tuscany was interrupted by the occupation by the French troops led by Napoleon. In 1799 Grand Duke Ferdinand III was forced into exile in Vienna, and in 1801 Tuscany was ceded to France, which established the Kingdom of Etruria with the Bourbon-Parma dynasty at its head. The kingdom was short-lived: in 1807 it was suppressed, and Tuscany was annexed to the Empire. French domination, exercised from 1809 through Elisa Bonaparte, who was granted the title of Grand Duchess, lasted until 1814, when Ferdinand III regained the Grand Duchy.
During the Napoleonic period, fresh impetus was given to urban planning. However, the proposals were often as ambitious as they were unsuccessful. In 1810, for example, the idea of constructing a grandiose square dedicated to Napoleon for leisurely walks and military drills in the area between San Marco and the city walls, was put forward, but remained on paper. On the other hand, the opening of the Cascine to citizens, sought by Élisa Bonaparte, and the redesigning of the access area to the park, or the project to reopen the ring road inside the walls, also intended for public promenades, did take place.
At the same time, measures were taken to improve the organisation and management of the city. The pavements of many streets were re-laid, night lighting was improved, rainwater was channelled from the roofs down to the street level. Plans were made to open, widen or straighten several streets, but the sudden end of the Empire brought these plans to an end. On the other hand, between 1808 and 1811, the suppression of religious orders was indeed carried out, which entailed the incorporation of their assets into state property. In Florence the measure affected as many as 67 monasteries; some of these had gardens and land within the walls, which were confiscated. Many of the complexes, abandoned by religious orders, were put to public use: as schools, academies, hospices, barracks.
With the Restoration – and especially after the accession to the throne of Leopold II in 1824 – urban reconfiguration continued at an accelerated pace, often taking up projects from the French period that had remained unfinished. For example, Via San Leopoldo was opened as an extension of Via Larga, the cathedral rectory was rebuilt to enlarge Piazza del Duomo, and Via dei Calzaioli was widened. The interventions were aimed at rationalising public spaces, but also at creating more modern and decorous urban environments. Outside the walls, new avenues were opened in the Parco delle Cascine, to facilitate a social ritual that was by now characteristic of every large city: the passeggio of carriages.
Florence began to embrace modernity. Between 1836 and 1837, two metal suspension bridges were built at the ends of the city, the San Ferdinando bridge (upstream) and the San Leopoldo bridge (downstream), in order to channel traffic coming from via Pisana and via Aretina. In 1847, the Leopolda station was built outside Porta al Prato, the end of the Florence-Livorno railway, and in 1848 the Maria Antonia station was built for the Florence-Pistoia line, which penetrated the city, stopping behind Santa Maria Novella.
Around the middle of the nineteenth century, Florence began to expand again, filling the vacant areas within the walls but also extending outside them. Between 1844 and 1855, the Barbano quarter was created around Piazza Maria Antonia – today Piazza dell’Indipendenza – a new large rectangular area modelled on English squares. Between 1850 and 1855, on the other hand, the Cascine quarter was created in the triangle of land outside the walls and adjacent to the park. The district was intended as a new gateway to the city and had distinctly bourgeois characteristics. To realise it, a section of the fourteenth-century walls was demolished, for the first time since their construction.