The Giardino dell’Iris (garden of the iris), the splendid park next to Piazzale Michelangelo, hides a secret related to one of the symbols of Florence, the Florentine lily, a flower that is very similar to the iris.
Every year the park organizes a competition in which contestants must create a lily with the same color tone as that found on the emblem.
The white lily is very common in Florence, but the real symbolic flower of the city is red on a white background. This is because when the Guelfs took over the city, they inverted the colors of the Ghibelline emblem, and today the Giardino dell’Iris is still in search of the true color of the Florentine lily…
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