Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 04.djvu/194

FLORENCE palace are the Boboli Gardens, laid out by Cosmo I. in 1550, in the classical style. Connected with these gardens is the botanical garden, a museum of natural history, the Fontana anatomical collection in wax, etc. Another fine palace, the Riccardi (built in 1440), has a noble gallery with a ceiling painted by Luca Giordano, and a library of 40,000 volumes, open to the public. But the crowning glory of Florence is its Grand Gallery, occupying the upper floor of the Uffizi, a building erected after a design of Vasari, by Cosmo I., consisting of two parallel corridors or galleries, each 448 feet in length, and 72 feet apart, united at one end by a third corridor. This contains some masterpieces of statuary, as the world-renowned “Venus de Medici,” “The Knife-Grinder,” the “Fawn,” “Niobe and her Children,” etc. The collection of pictures comprises superb examples of all the best schools. A splendid apartment, known as the Tribuna, contains the rarest treasures of the collection, and is in itself a wonder of art, with its cupola inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and its rich marble pavement. Besides the Riccardi and Laurentian libraries, the Magliabecchi library, containing a rare, extensive, and valuable collection of books, is also open to the public. Florence is subject to fogs in the winter; but in spring and autumn it is a delightful residence. The literary and educational institutions are both numerous and important. At the head of these is the famous Academia della Crusca. The charitable institutions are numerous, extensive, and well conducted.

The encouragement given under the late as well as the present government, to artistic and scientific studies, has conferred advantages on Florence unknown in most other parts of Italy. Manufactures silks, straw hats, articles of virtu, as intaglios, etc., jewelry, porcelain, perfumery, etc. Florence has produced more celebrated men than any other place in Italy, or, perhaps, of Europe; among others may be specified Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Villani, Cosmo and Lorenzo de Medici; Galileo, Michael Angelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Benvenuto Cellini, Alberti, Lapo, Brunelleschi, Giotto, Andrea del Sarto, Machiavelli; Popes Leo X. and XI., Clement VII., VIII., and XII. The origin of this city is not clearly ascertained; but it owed its first distinction to Sylla, who planted in it a Roman colony. In 541 it was almost wholly destroyed by Totila, King of the Goths. About 250 years afterward it was restored by Charlemagne. It then became the chief city of a famous republic; and was for a lengthened period in Italy what Athens had been in Greece in the

days of Xenophon and Thucydides. At length, in 1537, the Medici, from being the first of her citizens, became sovereign dukes of Florence. The city afterward became the capital of the former grand-duchy of Tuscany till 1860, when it was annexed to the new kingdom of Italy, and in 1865, the seat of government was transferred thither from Turin. Pop. about 235,000.  FLORENCE CRITTENTON MISSION, an organization, established in 1883 by C. F. Crittenton, having for its purpose the tendering of aid to women in need of it, particularly those of an unfortunate class. The mission has established homes in seven cities of the United States, and has one in Marseilles, France, and another in Tokyo, Japan. Its principal establishment is in New York City, and here over 1,000 girls have been cared for. The head office is in Washington, D. C., and a feature of the mission is the provision of summer homes, to which girls can be sent for the summer holidays.  FLORENTINE SCHOOL, a school of painting remarkable for greatness; for attitudes seemingly in motion; for a certain dark severity; for an expression of strength by which grace is perhaps excluded; and for a character of design approaching to the gigantic. This school has an indisputable title to the veneration of all the lovers of the arts, as the first in Italy which cultivated them.  FLORES, a department of Uruguay, with an area of 1,744 square miles. The surface is level and well watered. The chief industry is the raising of cattle. Wheat and corn are also produced. The capital is Trinidad. Pop. about 25,000.  FLORIDA, a State in the South Atlantic division of the North American Union, bounded by Alabama, Georgia, the Atlantic Ocean, Gulf of Mexico, and the Straits of Florida; area, 58,680 square miles; admitted as a State in 1845; number of counties, 54. Pop. (1890) 391,422; (1900) 528,542; (1910) 751,139; (1920) 968,470; capital, Tallahassee.

Topography.—The surface of the State is very low and flat, gradually rising from a few feet above sea-level along the coast to a central ridge with an altitude of about 300 feet. The flat lands extending along the coasts consist of open grass-grown savannahs, cypress swamps, pine forests, and “cabbage hammocks,” so called from the extensive growth of the cabbage palms. The W. part of the State, excepting on the coast, is quite hilly. The S. part of the peninsula is built up of successive coral