Building on the Arno: early modern Florence, Pisa, and Livorno as sedimented cities

This paper reconsiders the history of urban expansion in the early modern Tuscan cities of Florence, Pisa, and Livorno from an environmental perspective. It focuses on the hydraulic knowledge and technology necessary to build along the Arno, the river connecting all three cities. Already celebrated by artists at the court of the Medici Grand Dukes, the centrality of the Arno has also been recognised by historians of early modern Tuscany, from Giorgio Spini onwards. Scholars, however, have studied primarily reclamation projects for agricultural use, neglecting the urban reaches of the Arno. Focusing on these, this paper will show that (re)moving water was an indispensable feature of early modern urban expansion in Tuscany. Key technologies included the use of piles to secure foundations, as well as other imported building materials such as sand. Flowing water needed to be replaced, or at least covered over, with dead matter to (literally) sustain urban life. The histories of Florence, Livorno, and Pisa are often considered separately. In the early modern period, however, the three cities formed an integrated urban system, with complementary functions: Livorno was the maritime harbour, Pisa the regional marketplace, and Florence the administrative and cultural capital. They can therefore be understood as the three vertices of a Tuscan triapolis. This paper will also suggest that they were sedimented cities. The epithet refers both to the accumulation of layers of urban expansion and to the sedimentation of sand, timber, and other building materials where water had previously stood.