The Italian language developed with Dante on the banks of the Arno, and it is in the Florence region that the purest Italian is spoken today. Dante Alighieri was a prior in Florence in 1300, and his masterpiece remains the Divina Commedia (Divine Comedy), the highest achievement of spiritual knowledge of the age, in which Dante visits Inferno, Purgatory and Paradise. The 14th century was dominated by the names of Petrarca and Boccaccio.

Machiavelli - the statesman born in Florence, was both the pioneer of Italian unity and the author of Il Principe (The Prince), an essay on political science and government dedicated to Lorenzo II de' Medici.