Gaetano Baccani's 'Systematization' of the Piazza del Duomo in Florence

Emilio de Fabris' completion of the west front of Santa Maria del Fiore is the best known of the architectural interventions carried out during the nineteenth century in the Piazza del Duomo and Piazza di San Giovanni in Florence. But this initiative was preceded by an earlier one that was more radical in character, insofar as it transformed the area around the Campanile and Duomo. A proposal of November 1823 by architect Gaetano Baccani resulted in the demolition of a large part of the late medieval cathedral canonry and the creation of an extensive new piazza on the south side of Santa Maria del Fiore. This intervention introduced two issues that were to become fundamental to the notion of urban patrimony. On the one hand, it prompted consideration of the relationship between a historic monument and its ambience; on the other, it brought into focus the tension that was likely to exist between conservation and the creation of a modern urban environment.