When this 'colonia' was planted is very doubtful.

Perhaps the age of Sulla (90-80 B.C.) is the likeliest date; all that is actually certain is that the foundation was made before the end of the first century A.D.This 'colonia', like others, was laid out in chess-board fashion, and vestiges of its streets survive in the Centro which forms the heart of the present town.

The Centro of Florence, as we see it to-day, is very modern.

It was, indeed, laid out a generation ago by Italian architects who designed the broad streets crossing at right angles which form its characteristic.

But this 'Haussmannization' revived, consciously or unconsciously, an old arrangement.