n Florence, a rich and famous city of Italy in the province called Tuscany,
Florence was a prominent wealthy city in this time. Cervantes uses accuracy in mentions of this city even as a side story. https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=dmpMcyeEX5EC&oi=fnd&pg=PP11&dq=florence+italy+history&ots=42mXVMTzJE&sig=xUVIM3YmkozvPJuF-AuJojgYBqc#v=onepage&q=florence%20italy%20history&f=false
This website is a very comprehensive resource about medieval pottery in Italy. It is rather difficult to navigate properly since part of the original navigation was implemented with some scripting method that is now obsolete, but all pages should be reachable by means of normal href links. It was updated until circa 2004.
Part of Galileo’s genius was to transfer the spirit of the Italian Renaissance in the plastic arts to the mathematical and observational ones.