Hotel Alinari :::...::: Fortezza da Basso Florence - Fortezza da Basso - Central Railway Station of Santa Maria Novella

Fortezza da Basso

Firenze Fiera SpA is the joint-stock company running the three main exhibition and congress venues in Florence:

The Fortezza da Basso, a short distance from the Central Railway Station of Santa Maria Novella, is one of the city's most important monuments from the Medici era. It was designed by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger in the first half of the 1500s on commission from Alessandro de' Medici. The complex extends over an area of almost 100,000 square metres (55,000 indoor); the number and variety of its rooms and spaces make it an ideal setting for the conferences and trade fairs.

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The Fortezza da Basso is located only few steps from the railway station of Florence SMN and from Alinari Hotel.

Standing to the Alinari Hotel you will have the comfort of organize with more calm the day, because you are only few minutes from it

Fortezza da Basso events

Start

End

Type

Detail

06/03/2010

14/03/2010

Fiera

SALONE DEL MOBILE DI FIRENZE - Fortezza da Basso - Firenze

16/04/2010

17/04/2010

LitfibaTour 2010 - Mandela Forum - Firenze

History of Fortezza da Basso
One military fortress like espositiva center: the case of the Fortress da Basso of Florence. If never he could not imagine Alexander of Medici, the young duca of Florence (officially son of Lorenzo II, duca of Urbino but for the truth natural son of Pope Clemente VII), that those fortress that it had made to construct in 1534-1535 in the heart of rinascimental Florence, from the court architect Antonio from Sangallo "il giovane", to defense and protection of its person and its power, against the riots of a submitted citizenship but rebellious, it'll be transformed, at a distance of four centuries, in an historical monument opened to the visibility and usability of all, transforming from personal shelter to place deputy to receive, in its new functions of exhibition and congressual agency, the entire world.
It was the 15 July of 1534: after to have consulted famous astrologers in order to establish, in according to habit of the time, the more propitious day and hour, was leyed, to the presence of the duca and under the protection of the Pope, the first stone of the fortress, raised in the center of the city, between Saint Gallo Door and Prato Door. The shape thought from the Sangallo is of a irregular pentagon one, with five bastions and a bastion on the long side, that it watches the city:
stand out over all the mastio that it incorporates the Faenza Door, one of the greater doors of the town-walls city building. For the construction Alessandrina was demolished preexistent buildings, comprised a nuns convent (the Monastery of the Saint Umility) and the Mugnone torrent was divert (is visible, under Faenza Door, before arched of the medioevale bridge of Calender, of boccaccesca memory, from where the torrent passed).
Antonio from Sangallo "il giovane", architect of Lorenzo the Magnificent, known then like valid planner and skillful cornerer of great works to Florence and Rome, was grandson of Giuliano from Sangallo and Antonio the Old. He seems however that the preferences of the duca for its fortress-palace had fallen initially on Michelangelo, which he did not hesitate to refuse the work not wanting to submit itself to who with the force had put in servitude its city.
Between the more spectacular atmospheres, the Octagonal Hall or knows like Arms Hall, grandmaster of rinascimental military architecture, with cover to eight sails resolved with the technique of the herringbone, that already Brunelleschi had adopted for the Cupola of Saint Maria of the Flower. Around the fortress, like building vestment, in a alternating of rough drafts to tip of diamond and spherical segment, evoked symbolically the coat of arms of Medici.
After the tragic died of duca Alexander in 1537, at the hands of the cousins, Lorenzino, protect from Filippo Strozzi, that it attracted the duca in an love ambush, were died, in the 1543 Fortress it was redeemed from Cosimo I. In the next century the fortress was used like as arsenal and foundry, be able to predispose arms for an 30,000 persons army and like warehouse of grand dukes for the sumptuous equipments of their festivities and ceremonies. Under Piero Leopoldo he was used after correction house and men and women worked you; become subsequently possession of the soldiers until the current use, like center from 1966 of the International Handicraft Exhibition, and therefore like exhibition and congressual quarter.