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Building of the Uffizzi Palace by Cosimo de Medici

The city was transformed into a social and economic body, therefore capable of playing a political role in an organism that, above all, was political. The urbs always prevailed over the civitas. What gave the urban community its cohesion was no longer common interest in economy prosperity, but rather harmony with the will-leadership of the Prince. Therefore, the buildings erected in that century were the fruits of a government, of a court; expression of a power not of a people.

They were also clearly the results or a cultural policy that used artistic production and urban design as prestigious tools for affirming the State. As such they are also described by Vasari who continually emphasized the relationship between his artistic idea and the will of the Duke. Cosimo's activities clearly reflect his c6nstant desire for order (Uffizi, Ponte Sta Trinita, the remodelling of Santa Croce and Santa Maria Novella, and the Palazzo Vecchio, and the Boboli Gardens designed alonged symmetrical axes, etc.) for harmony (as seen in how well the new works blended in with existing setting) and glory.

His policies aimed at making Florence a capital as a formally and politically controllable entity. Therefore, the internal structure of the city had to become an expression of princely power and the grandeur of the State. Thus, the residence of the Medici, the ruling family, was moved from Palazzo Medici to the Palazzo della Signoria to the Palazzo Pitti.

In a similar manner the Uffizi was built to concentrate government functions in a continuous structure intelligently based on existing ones, while clearly affirming itself as a manifestation of absolute power. On the town planning level, the hierarchy of the absolutist state led to the development of that process of specialization of the city's functional areas, a process that had already begun in the previous century.

The areas for government and managing state affairs, the elite residential areas and the productive areas tended to become separate and easily identifiable. The fifteenth century architects' attempts to transform the Medieval city by introducing new monumental buildings to serve as generators for further developments in adjacent areas, according to an hierarchical unitary view of the urban context, was resolved in the sixteenth century through a dynamic concept of routes and lines between the various functional areas of the city.

The city became a series of sequences. Some roads were developed as "preferential" (Via dei Servi, Via Maggio, etc.), while statues, columns and other elements created visual and symbolic - or purely symbolic - reference points within their respective settings (piazzas, intersections, etc.) and structured the sequence of the preferential routes.

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