During the Renaissance (15-16th century), Florence was ruled by the Medici family. Under their patronage the arts, science and literature flourished as nowhere else in Europe. Florence was the city of such writers as Dante, Petrarch, and Macchiavelli, and artists and engineers such as Boticelli, Brunelleschi (who built the magnificent dome on the church of St. Mary of the Flowers), Alberti, Leonardo Da Vinci, and Michelangelo. Also Galileo could count on the support of this family. He also gave lots of his tools to the de Medici. A few of them can still be seen in the Museum of Science, next to the Arno river. The de Medici asked Brunelleschi to construct the church of San Lorenzo.
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