The belly button of Florence - The Column of Abundance and its long history

Not all cities have a "belly button", an exact center marked by a column, but Florence does. It is the Column of Abundance in Piazza della Repubblica.
Florence was founded by the Romans in 59 BC and all the surrounding land assigned to the veterans of Julius Caesar as a reward for the end of their service. When building a city, the Romans first chose its center, on the basis of religious but also rational considerations. They called it “umbilicus urbi” (belly button of the city) and from there they drew two perpendicular lines, the decumanus from south to north and the cardo from east to west. From this basis they started tracing, in a very geometric way, the urban blocks up to the city walls, then the squares that delimited the fields in the countryside, in this case assigned to the veterans. The Romans, obsessed with symmetry, always used to build cities as military camps. They were rational, cruel and very organized. This was their strength, the moment they changed, they lost everything.

In Florence, that central point was marked by a column even in Roman times, but the original was lost in the Middle Ages. In 1431, when the square became the central market of the city, another column was erected. made out of precious Elba granite (a volcanic stone, actually solidified lava). At its top was placed a pietra serena statue by the great Donatello representing the Dovizia or Abundance: a female figure holding a cornucopia, the horn full of fruit and flowers, symbol of fertility and wealth. However, the pietra serena, though beautiful to look at, is not suitable for outdoor structures as it flakes and crumbles because of bad weather. In fact, in 1721 the statue fell, it shattered and was replaced by a new one of the same kind, sculpted by Giovan Battista Foggini, the most fashionable artist at the time.

Between 1885 and 1895, during the urban transformation of the area and the relocation of the market, the column was dismantled and put in a warehouse, because it disturbed the gigantic monument of King Vittorio Emanuele II on horseback, which was placed in the square center. It was not until 1956 - after Italy had become a republic and the statue of the king evicted and relocated to the suburbs - that the column was reassembled and a copy of the statue placed at its top. However, it was put about two meters further from its original place, so as not to obstruct traffic. There were no pedestrian or limited traffic areas back then, and cars, buses, trams, trucks, etc., used to drive through Piazza della Repubblica. Perhaps the arbitrary relocation of this sacred marking place brought bad luck to the city? In 1980, for safety reasons, the statue was replaced with a copy in fiberglass, basically plastic. In 2012, a piece of the Corinthian capital weighing 80 kg collapsed to the ground, shattering. Luckily it was raining and no one was sitting at the base of the column! Another restoration followed, hopefully it will be definitive this time.

A curiosity. On the column there are still two iron circles: the one at the top held a bell that indicated the beginning and end of the activity of the surrounding market; the one at the bottom was where dishonest traders, swindlers and insolvent debtors were chained so that they could be identified, mocked and insulted by people. The Florentines liked these public punishments (see La pietra dell'acculata), as they believed that this public celebration, marking the guilty for life, was able to educate them and those who mocked them. Of course this was true for minor offenses, for all the others there was the hangman. Those were the times.