The stadium underwent renovations for the 1990 FIFA World Cup[5] which included removing the running track and increasing the seating capacity.

At the World Cup, the ground hosted three matches in Group A and Argentina's penalty shootout win over Yugoslavia in the quarter-finals.

Madonna performed, with Level 42 as her opening act, the final show of her Who's That Girl World Tour at the stadium on 6 September 1987.

[citation needed] She performed at the stadium again 25 years later on 16 June 2012 to a sold-out crowd of 42,434 people during her MDNA Tour.

[citation needed] The Italy national football team has played at the stadium, the first occasion being on 7 May 1933 in a 2–0 win over Czechoslovakia.

[citation needed] On 27 October 1954, a reserve game between Fiorentina and nearby rivals Pistoiese was under way at the Stadio Artemio Franchi when a group of UFOs traveling at high speed abruptly stopped over the stadium.

However, this suggestion was contradicted by the chemical analysis of the substance that was undertaken at the Institute of Chemical Analysis at University of Florence, which found it to contain boron, silicon, calcium and magnesium, which according to science writer Philip Ball, did not seem to match with the spider theory: Magnesium and calcium are fairly common elements in living bodies, boron and silicon much less so - but if these were the main elements that the white fluff contained, it doesn't sound to me as though they'd come from spiders.