Graz from the West in 1565 (“Florentiner Ansicht“, i.e. Florentine View) Anonymous, 1866

The City as a Wedding Present

The so called “Florentine View”, the first city veduta of Graz, offers a bird’s eye view on the city from the west (from the right bank of the Mur river). It is one of the 14 views of Austrian cities that Francesco de’ Medici commissioned to be painted on the walls of the courtyard of the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence on the occasion of his wedding with Archduchess Joanna, daughter of Emperor Ferdinand I and sister of Archduke Charles II. A drawing by the Graz painter Cäsar Pambstl probably served as a reference for this city view of Graz.