Beyond Renaissance in Florence - The Central Market of San Lorenzo

The San Lorenzo Market or Central Market is famous all over the world and frequented by anyone who visits Florence. Outside there are stalls for souvenirs, clothing, items made with leather and fabrics, inside groceries on the ground floor, restaurants and gastronomies on the first floor.

The building is also a work of art, one of the most important iron and glass constructions of the nineteenth century, built between 1870 and 1874 as part of the major urban restructuring of the city connected to "Firenze Capitale" and managed by architect Giuseppe Poggi. The then Mercato Vecchio and the Ghetto, a miserable and degraded district located in the area of ​​the current Piazza della Repubblica, was transformed into a monumental Piedmontese-Napoleonic styled center. The inhabitants were evicted and the poor were housed in wooden and iron shacks. Major building speculations were made by the wealthy Florentine families owning the buildings and land, especially through the Società Anonima Edificatrice (SAE), the main construction company, in which took part as shareholders, the best names of the Florentine bourgeoisie of the time, including the architect Giuseppe Poggi. It was a much discussed operation, that involved the destruction of many historic buildings, churches, tabernacles and towers, ("50,000 square meters of history" as they said back then), but the new ruling class of the Kingdom of Italy was very confident and filled with nationalist rhetoric. There was no space for discussion, Florence had to look like Paris. Famous is the comment of Telemaco Signorini, the great Macchiaiolo painter, who was asked if he was crying for the "filth" that was being demolished, and who replied: "No, I cry over the filth that is being built!".

The area for the new market was identified in the popular district called the "Camaldoli di San Lorenzo", near the new railway station and the new Parisian-style boulevards. The project, clearly inspired by Les Halles in Paris, was commissioned to architect Giuseppe Mengoni (1829-1877), expert in iron architecture. His masterpiece remains the Galleria di Milano, inaugurated in 1877, just the day after Mengoni had died after a fall from the scaffolding he had climed for some checks. 
Iron architecture was typical of the time, connected to industrialization processes, to the production of steel and cast iron and to the development of engineering that had allowed the construction of railways (and deadly armaments!), structures of all kinds - using metal and glass structures - used for bridges, greenhouses, buildings for universal exhibitions, warehouses, stations, markets and shopping galleries.

The Central Marker is a  square structure of 5000 square meters and 30 m high with a 10.5 m high base made of pietra serena, and a series of 10 arches running on each side, inspired by the nearby Palazzo Medici Riccardi.  On each side we find  doors sided by pillars with classical capitals decorated with foliage.
For this project the Neapolitan company Guppy & C was comissioned, founded by the English Thomas Richard Guppy, and one of the most advance in Italy, specialized in the production of cast iron and steel, iron structures, parts of ships, railway tracks and machinery of all kinds. The truss beams, on the other hand, were imported from Belgium. In short, only the best specialist of the time were employed and the best materials were used.

The Central Market suffered the changes of the center of Florence. The enormous increase in tourism filled the external market with souvenirs and items for tourist. The internal food market  decayed up to the point it was almost closed due to the depopulation of the historic center, now occupied by hotels, B & Bs, residences and offices, and filled with supermarkets. Fortunately, in recent years the upper floor - a very bright space thanks to the glass ceilings created in 1980 for the sake of fruit and vegetables sold there - has been renovated and populated with very popular restaurants and delicatessens. This change has also helped the underlying food market, saving it from closing. (Picture above: North side of the market)