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Medieval Florence - Life in the Streets

The streets of Florence were called ‘rughe’ and were filled with activity from sunrise till evening. Many small artisan workshops used the street as an extension of their working space and the shops (bottega indicating both shop and workshop) spilled out into the street or the piazza, with awnings and counters in masonry or wood for displaying their goods.

The last examples of 'madielle’ still to be found are nowadays on Ponte Vecchio or in Borgo S. Jacopo. Circulation in the narrow streets of the center was anything but easy. Goods and materials were transported on donkeys and mules. Pedlars and beggars abounded.

The public criers and heralds of the Commune called out various types of information, provisions of the Commune, laws, sentences. Where the lanes widened and formed small squares, and sometimes along the way, were wells with stone steps, set in niches in the building walls. Every neighborhood in the 57 parishes had a well, which, like the church, served as a point of encounter for the people, especially for the housewives and the servants who, at dusk, would go there to get water for the house.

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