We Florentines love the city for its red roofs, its beauty balanced between architecture and nature, and its secret gardens. Not one day goes by that we don’t cross between the two banks of the river at least once. Around here we say “di qua e di là d’Arno” (here and there across the Arno): ‘there’ is more the part for the locals, ‘here’ is the area with all the big museums, the Duomo and the Piazza Signoria.
My Florence is the one of Sunday morning walks, an engagement ritual that repeats itself each week and that starts from the most panoramic location in the city: the parvis of the San Miniato al Monte Basilica. From here I descend into the district that for centuries has been dedicated to craftsmanship: goldsmiths, paper makers, framers, ceramists, designers and tailors of quality. From the San Miniato al Monte courtyard you can see the whole city, with the Arno and its bridges forming the blueprint for the city’s design. To the west the gaze alights upon the sharp edges of the new courthouse, in the suburban district of Novoli, while to the east the bricks of the Santa Croce Basilica warm the gaze before it stops on the Great Synagogue’s bright green dome.