Short answers, pulled from the story.
Florence is the capital and most populous city of the Italian region of Tuscany, with 361,625 inhabitants. It lies about 275 km northwest of Rome, in a basin formed by surrounding hills, with the Arno river flowing through it.
Many academics consider Florence the birthplace of the Renaissance, where it became a major artistic, cultural, commercial, political and financial center. It was home to artists such as Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and Botticelli, and it holds what is believed to be the greatest concentration of art in proportion to its size in the world.
Florence was founded as a Roman garrison in 59 BC for veteran soldiers, built in the style of an army camp. Its Latin name was Florentia, meaning the Flourishing Town, from florere.
The Medici were one of European history's most important noble families and the most powerful family in Florence from the 15th to the 18th centuries. They produced two popes in the early 16th century, Leo X and Clement VII, and reigned as Grand Dukes of Tuscany from Cosimo I in 1569 until the death of Gian Gastone de' Medici in 1737.
The Florentine dialect forms the base of standard Italian and became the language of culture throughout Italy due to the prestige of works by Dante Alighieri, Petrarch, Giovanni Boccaccio, Niccolo Machiavelli and Francesco Guicciardini. Writers used the Florentine vernacular descended from Latin instead of Latin itself, and it was adopted as the basis for a national literary language.
Opera was invented in Florence in the late 16th century with the premiere of Jacopo Peri's Dafne, after the Florentine Camerata experimented with setting Greek mythology to music. The piano was also invented in Florence in 1709 by Bartolomeo Cristofori.
Florence served as the capital of the Kingdom of Italy from 1865 to 1871, replacing Turin. The capital was then moved to Rome after the withdrawal of French troops allowed the capture of that city.