The important women in Florence

March 8 Women’s Day, a time to celebrate the female figure and I will tell you about some curiosities of those Florentine women who exposed themselves and fought to change things.

This day is usually traced back to the fire in the Triangle factory where over 100 Italian and Jewish women died, Women’s Day was already  at the Socialist Congress of 1907, in which women’s issues and women’s votes were highlighted.

In Italy we need to wait  1922 for the anniversary and only in 1945 for the right to vote to women!

The history of Florence has been characterized by women who have lived in past times but who have been important protagonists of their time.

Catherine de' Medici (the niece of Lorenzo the Magnificent) was married to Henry II, King of France, better known as the Black Queen because since her husband’s death she wore only black clothes. Queen of the Italian Renaissance as well as being strong and capable was a very innovative woman.

It seems she introduced in France the use of the fork, the béchamel sauce and a fragrant water "Water of the Queen", an ancient recipe of the modern eau de Cologne.

Anna M. Luisa dei Medici ,then was the last woman of the Medici family, Electress Palatine, for having married the Elector Palatine Wilhem. We owe to her and to the "family pact" stipulated with the Lorraine (her successors) the obligation to leave in Florence and not to move elsewhere, all the works of art of the family.

Thanks to this, today we can admire all the treasures of the Medici family in three centuries of hegemony over Florence and Tuscany and we have the responsibility to preserve them properly.-