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Medieval Florence - The Markets

While at the end of the thirteenth and in the course of the following century the two centers of religious and civil power were being organized and developed, the functions of market and retail commerce stretched out around the Mercato Vecchio (on the site of the old forum), the Mercato Nuovo and the Mercato del Grano (later Orsanmichele), along the streets and in any small widening available.

The Loggia de' Tavernai stood in the midst of the Mercato Vecchio, built some time in the fourteenth century (in the sixteenth century Vasari's Loggia del Pesce was erected, today reconstructed in the Piazzetta dei Ciompi).

On the corner between the Mercato Vecchio and Via Calimala stood the largest tabernacle in the city, which was then enlarged and transformed into a small open oratory called S. Maria della Tromba (now to be seen, rebuilt, after the nineteenth-century destruction of the old center, at the base of the tower of the Arte della Lana).

The city had specific spaces for commerce, the markets, but production and trade developed everywhere, in open and closed spaces, in public and private spaces: the entire city was a workshop and market.

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