A Day in La Vita Fiorentina

I am in Florence for five weeks, living like a resident.  Here is a photo essay of a rather ordinary day.  No museums visits.  No shopping in swanky boutiques--not that I ever do very much of that.  This is an account of Monday, when I ate three simple meals, two of them at home, went to straighten out my Italian bank card so I can withdraw funds, wrote two thousand words of my WIP, and puttered around the house.  Here is the best part, how it looks.

A particularly beautiful sunrise from my terrace.

Walking through the Piazza della Signoria on my way to breakfast.

I pass my favorite building in Florence--Orsanmichele.

The choices for breakfast

My favorite coffee bar, the best coffee in the center.

A typical Italian breakfast, delicious.  Euros 2.40. About $2.65

On my block, the store that has all the necessities.  You go in
and tell them what you want and they get it for you.

My bank, just a few steps from my front door in the piazza.

Some crime fighter pass by as I enter the bank

Where I spend most of the day working.

You can tell I think that I love it here.

Annamaria Alfieri

Bologna and Arezzo

Florence is incomparable. No doubt about that.

But.

Taking nothing away from the greatest art treasury in the world, there are also great pleasures to be had in two small cities that are very nearby. My favorite thing about Bologna and Arezzo is that unlike the international tourist mecca that is Florence, these two seem one hundred percent Italian. Not that they are lacking in artistic wonders, to be sure, but their vibe is local, focused.

Bologna is red. From the brick and paint on its stately buildings, to the liberality of its democratic politics, to the mouthwatering tomato-y richness of its Tagliatelle alla Bolognese. Only half an hour by fast train from Florence one finds delights for the eye, the taste buds, the soul. In the heart of the city are two adjoining piazzas often thronged with students at its famous university—along with Paris, one of the two oldest in Europe. In the center of Piazza del Nettuno, is a fountain graced with a wonderful muscular Neptune by Giambologna.

On this recent visit, we were privileged to attend an opening at our friend Tiziana Sassoli’s Galleria Fondantico. Tiziana is a world-class expert in the paintings of her region of Italy from the fourteenth to the eighteenth century. For the launch of her latest exhibition, she recreated a still life. Amazing.

Take a look at the full exhibition by visiting the gallery at www.seleart.com/fondantico. Don’t miss the painting I wanted to take home (if only!), Donato Creti’s splendid Minerva. When you get to the website click on “Galleria” to see the show.

Arezzo is a totally different sort of town: as peaceful as Bologna is bustling, as Tuscan restrained as Bologna is voluptuous. In the church of San Francesco is one of the greatest masterpieces of the Renaissance: Piero della Francesca’s “Legend of the True Cross.” Here is a self-portrait he placed in one of the panels of the fresco. Read the legend in Piero’s pictures at http://www.casasantapia.com/art/pierodellafrancesca2.htm.

Arezzo has a long and glorious artistic and literary history that includes Guido of Arezzo who invented the system of musical notation, Petrarch (who was born there in 1304), and the painter and art historian Giorgio Vasari. The modern-day genius Roberto Benigni the writer/director of “Life is Beautiful” is also an Aretine and you may recognize his native city’s Piazza Grande from the scenes of the movie shot there.

On the train back to Florence from Arezzo, I got to thinking about going home to New York this coming Saturday. As we sped through the Tuscan countryside of acres of vineyards and olive groves, villas surrounded by midnight green cypresses, and hills topped by castles and monasteries, I wondered how I could leave all this beauty. Nor can I stay here and do without my dear ones in New York any longer. I have long said that when I am in Italy, the people here consider me American. When I am in the States, people think of me as Italian. Whether I am here or there, a part of me is far away from home.

Talking Murder in Florence

Leighton Gage and Annamaria 

This past weekend, we got a wonderful visit from the gifted mystery novelist and generous crime-writing colleague, Leighton Gage. Leighton is literally an international man of mystery. (Yes, I know, I should find a more original way to say so, but I cannot resist my only opportunity to write this sentence and mean it.) Having lived in several countries and visited many more, Leighton now lives in and writes about Brazil. You can read about him and his fascinating books at www.leightongage.com.

We talked murder at the dinner table, walking in the piazza, and sitting on the terrace. We also covered a lot of South American history and territory of which he has an encyclopedic knowledge.

On Saturday, we witnessed a parade that seemed to be the investiture of a new group of rookies for the Polizia Municipale di Firenze. It included a Renaissance Band in costume, lots of flags, and handsome modern day citizens portraying Dante and Beatrice and Savonarola (presumably at some point in his life between the Bonfire of the Vanities and point where he himself was burned at the stake in the Piazza Della Signoria).

The newly-minted cops looked great in their full dress uniforms. I dare any other municipality to show us a chicer police force.

This got me to thinking about effect all this pomp and circumstance might have on the success of law enforcement. In New York, after all, our young police officers, as far as I know, get what amounts to a High School graduation ceremony with uniforms. If they are lucky, they hear a speech by the mayor and have an opportunity to get their picture taken with their mother. To my knowledge, a guy wearing red and white stockings and carrying sword has never attended.

So what of the crime rate in these parts? A brief Google search produced the following paragraphs from Wikipedia:

“At 0.013 per 1,000 people, Italy has the 47th highest murder rate in the world. This makes the murder rate in Italy less than 1/3 that of the United States. Italy is also safer than Finland, France, Iceland, Australia, Canada and the U.K. and only marginally less safe than Spain, Germany and Holland.

Italy is also a country with lower rates of rape than most other nations of the Western world. It has the 46th highest per-capita rate of rape in the world meaning that Italian women are 7 times safer than American women. Similarly, Italy has a lower per capita rate of rape than most of the advanced Western countries in the European Union.”

Do you think this gift of safety for the Italian people has anything to do with the ghost of Savonarola showing up when the municipal police recruits receive their badges?

Annamaria Alfieri

PS: I scanned the crowd at the parade and saw no trace of Hannibal Lecter. Perhaps he was off somewhere having lunch.