Room 6
THE URBAN PLANNING OF THE FLORENTINE TERRE NUOVE
The urban plans for the New Lands commissioned by Florence show, even today, how sophisticated the studies in mathematics and geometry underlying them were. The use of proportions and the creation of streets enclosed within a rectangular plan are quite distinctive: this is why in the room we find the reconstruction of the groma, a surveyor’s instrument that had been used to trace out new towns, districts and streets since the time of the ancient Romans. The plans of Castel San Giovanni and Terra Santa Maria (Terranuova Bracciolini) also show that the streets, starting from the central road, the Via Maestra, become narrower and narrower near the walls, conforming to a precise calculation of proportions.