The Barbarian invasions seriously impaired the importance of Florentia. In 405, the city managed to halt the hordes of Radagaisus, but later it could not avoid being involved in the disastrous Gotho- Byzantine war.
The Barbarian invasions seriously impaired the importance of Florentia. In 405, the city managed to halt the hordes of Radagaisus, but later it could not avoid being involved in the disastrous Gotho- Byzantine war. Its strategic position as bridgehead on the Arno and strong point in the communications route between Rome and Padania explains why the city was so keenly contested between the Goths and the Byzantines. In 541-44 new city walls were built utilizing the structures of various large Roman buildings: the Campidoglio, the reservoir for the water of the Baths and the Theater. The wall was trapezoidal and its modest size testifies to the decline of the city, greatly depopulated; there may have been less than a thousand inhabitants. Around the end of the 6th century when the Lombards conquered northern and central Italy, Florence also fell under their dominion. This was the beginning of what may be considered the darkest period in the city's history. Cut off from the major routes, the main reason for its existence suddenly vanished. For their north-south communications, the Lombards abandoned the central Bologna-Pistoia-Florence route as being too exposed to the incursions of the Byzantines who still held control of the eastern part of Italy and Lucca was chosen as the capital of the duchy of Tuscany as it lay along the road they used for internal communications. In any case, during the period of Lombard domination, especially after Queen Theodolinda had been converted to the church of Rome, a number of religious buildings were founded in the city, including the Baptistery of San Giovanni (St.John the Baptist) although not of course in its present form and size and its foundations are still visible in the "subterraneans" of the church.

Source: www.firenze.net

BACK <<