The aim of this research is to explore the city’s origins and most important periods of transformation, through research on different scale-levels, encompassing the full range of relevant urban and architectural levels. The focus of the first chapter is to track down and identify the key urban and architectural systems present in the city of Florence, and to understand how these systems have shaped the architectural and urban street-scape of the city. Chapter two approaches the city from the urban fragment (1:5.000) and the urban ensemble (1:1.000). This chapter has an architectural character; by means of presenting certain buildings, their role within the city and connection to the urban fabric is explained. Chapter three combines the knowledge of chapters one and two and presents a refection upon the given information.