Florence City Rental Car with Hire Car Italy - Your best source for great value Car Rental in Italy!
We offer you 2 quotation engines to allow you to get the best price for your Hire Car in Italy. Just choose which one you want, and compare prices. Both of our engines offer many locations around Italy, and a full fleet of cars is available for hire, from 3 door economy models all the way up to Executive Sedans. We deal only with major, quality-assured hire car companies including Alamo, Budget, Europcar, National, Sixt and Thrifty.
We have 2 Florence City Rental Car with Hire Car Italy Booking Systems for you to choose from! This will allow you to compare prices and choose the best deal! Simply Click the button for Engine #1 or Engine #2, and see which gives you the best deal!
PLEASE NOTE!
The rates shown are the special internet rates for self booking. There are no discounts available if you phone - you should use the booking form.
All Terms and Conditions, and inclusions are detailed in the engine - generate a quote, and you will be shown the details.
48 Hours Notice is REQUIRED for all bookings. We cannot book cars with less notice, or on the day. We at Hire Car Italy look forward to providing for all your car hire needs. We pride ourselves on an excellent level of service at a very competitive price. With a large variety of cars and locations to choose from, Hire Car Italy is an ideal choice for affordable car hire whether you are renting for business or pleasure. Our online services are quick and easy to use and will provide you with the best value Hire Car quotes from our suppliers. We have negotiated the best online prices from our suppliers.
To help you enjoy your hire car holiday we have some details about this area of Italy below and general Italian driving information is available on our Hire Car Italy Travel Information page.
Florence (Italian, Firenze) is a city in the center of Tuscany, in central Italy with the geographical coordinates 43°12' North and 11°15' East of Greenwich.The city on the Arno River has a population of around 400,000, plus a suburban population in excess of 200,000. Florence is the capital of the region of Tuscany and briefly (1865-1871) the capital of the kingdom of Italy. Florence was long ruled (1434-1494, 1512-1527 and 1530-1737) by the Medici family.A centre of medieval European trade and finance, the city is sometimes considered the birthplace of the Italian Renaissance. Florence is famous for its wealth of fine art and architecture.Florence's recorded history began with the establishment in B.C. 59 of a settlement (Florentia) for Roman ex-soldiers. The seat of a bishopric from around the beginning of the 4th century A.D., the city experienced subsequent periods of Byzantine, Ostrogothic, Lombard and Frankish rule, during which the population may have fallen to as few as 1,000.Reviving from the 10th century and governed from 1115 by an autonomous commune, the city was plunged into internal strife by the 13th-century struggle between the Ghibellines, supporters of the German emperor, and the pro-Papal Guelphs, who after their victory split in turn into feuding White and Black factions led respectively by Vieri de Cerchi and Corso Donati. (See Guelphs and Ghibellines.) These struggles eventually led to the exile of the White Guelphs, one of whom was Dante Alighieri. This factional strife was later recorded by the White Guelph Dino Compagni in his Chronicles of Florence.Political conflict did not, however, prevent the city's rise to become one of the most powerful and prosperous in Europe, assisted by her own strong gold currency, the florin (introduced in 1252), the eclipse of her formerly powerful rival Pisa (defeated by Genoa in 1284 and subjugated by Florence in 1406), and the exercise of power by the mercantile elite following an anti-aristocratic movement, led by Giano della Bella, that resulted in a set of laws called the Ordinances of Justice (1293).Of a population estimated at 80,000 before the Black Death of 1348, 25,000 are said to have been supported by the city's woollen industry: in 1345 Florence was the scene of an attempted strike by wool combers (ciompi), who in 1378 rose up in a brief revolt against oligarchic rule in the Revolt of the Ciompi. After their suppression, the city came under the sway (1382-1434) of the Albizzi family, bitter rivals of the Medici. Cosimo de' Medici was the first Medici family member to essentially control the city from behind the scenes, his power coming from a vast patronage network and his alliance to the new immigrants, the gente nuovo. The fact that the Medici were bankers to the pope also didn't hurt. Cosimo was succeeded by his son Piero, who was shortly thereafter succeeded by Cosimo's grandson, Lorenzo in 1469. Lorenzo was a great patron of the arts, commissioning works by Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and Botticelli.After Lorenzo's death in 1492 and his son Piero's exile in 1494, the first period of Medici rule ended with the restoration of a republican government, influenced until his execution (1498) by the teachings of the radical Dominican prior Girolamo Savonarola, whose monomaniacal persecution of the widespread Florentine sodomy and of other worldly pleasures foreshadowed many of the wider religious controversies of the following centuries.A second individual of unusual insight was Niccolò Machiavelli, whose prescriptions for Florence's regeneration under strong leadership have often been seen as a legitimisation of political expediency and even malpractice. Florentines drove out the Medici for a second time and re-established a republic on May 16, 1527. Restored twice with the support of both Emperor and Pope, the Medici in 1537 became hereditary dukes of Florence, and in 1569 grand dukes of Tuscany, reigning for two centuries.The extinction of the Medici line and the accession in 1737 of Francis Stephen, duke of Lorraine and husband of Maria Theresa of Austria, led to Tuscany's inclusion in the territories of the Austrian crown.Austrian rule was to end in defeat at the hands of France and the kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont in 1859, and Tuscany became a province of the united kingdom of Italy in 1861. Florence replaced Turin as Italy's capital in 1865, hosting the country's first parliament, but was superseded by Rome six years later following the latter's addition to the kingdom. After doubling during the 19th century, Florence's population tripled in the 20th with the growth of tourism, trade, financial services and industry. During World War II the city experienced a year-long German occupation (1943-1944). The Allied soldiers who died driving the Germans from Tuscany are buried in cemeteries outside the city (Americans about 6 miles south of the city [1] (http://www.asgdd.it//amevceme.htm), British and Commonwealth soldiers a few miles East of the center on the North bank of the Arno[2] In November 1966 the Arno flooded parts of the centre, damaging many art treasures. There was no warning from the authorities who knew the flood was coming, except a phone call to the jewellers on the Ponte Vecchio.
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