Florence Italy

Florence began as a settlement established by Julius Caesar in 59 BC for his veteran soldiers. It was named Florentia and built in the style of an army camp with the main streets, the cardo and the decumanus, intersecting at the present Piazza della Repubblica. Situated at the Via Cassia, the main route between Rome and the North, and within the fertile valley of the Arno, the settlement quickly became an important commercial center. Emperor Diocletian made Florentia capital of the province of Tuscia in the 3rd century AD.