The Geometry of the Master Plan of Roman Florence and Its Surroundings

Carol Martin Watts ()
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Carol Martin Watts: Kansas State University, The College of Architecture, Planning and Design

Chapter Chapter 12 in Architecture and Mathematics from Antiquity to the Future, 2015, pp 177-188 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Like many cities founded by the Romans, Florence, the Roman Florentia, was oriented to the cardinal points. The major streets, a north-south cardo and east-west decumanus, met in the center of the rectangular walled town. A gate was located at each of the four intersections of major street and city wall. A grid of secondary streets divided the city into blocks. The steps traced in this paper indicate a logical way in which the colony of Florence could have been laid out, consistent with what is known of Roman practices and with the observable traces of the Roman settlement. Relatively simple geometrical operations integrate the city with its landscape, which is linked with the cosmos through the path of the sun, providing the initial positioning of the city. What at first glance may seem to be a pragmatic adaptation to the site conditions is shown to be a rigorous geometric relationship, predicated on using a meaningful set of whole numbers, in an affirmation of the genius loci of Florentia.

Keywords: Urban Regulate; Cardinal Point; City Wall; Secondary Street; Quarter Point (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-319-00137-1_12

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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-00137-1_12

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