Firenze

It seems that a lot of the famous architecture in this Piazza stemmed from the fact that Firenzie was pissed that Siena and Pisa had better cathedrals and doors than they did. They felt that they were the truly powerful city and had to have architecture to symbolize that fact.
All these "temples to God" were built because people were greedy and wanted a material object to symbolize their power and wealth. Hmmm...