Tuscan Traveler

After three days, the reservation line reports all of the spots on the Percorso del Principe tours have been filled.  Tuscan Traveler suggests that such popularity calls for more tours on more days…

The Vasari Corridor, also known as the Percorso del Principe (Path of the Prince), is open to the general public until July 2010 on a limited schedule. A special part of the city’s historical heritage that has been under the control of few select guides and museum officials (often costing the visitor more than 100 euro for a short tour) has been declared open to all by the new mayor of Florence.

A Unique Opportunity

Visitors to Florence know that to miss the Uffizi, the Ponte Vecchio with its famous gold merchants, and the gaudy splendors of the Pitti Palace is to miss Florence’s best-known sites.

What many tourists do not know is that along this same sightseeing path they also have a unique opportunity to walk in the footsteps of Renaissance nobility. Here they can view a vast collection of paintings usually reserved for the pleasure of a select few. It is called the Vasari Corridor.

Vasari Corridor seen from the Uffizi Gallery

The Vasari Corridor is an aerial passageway that connects the Palazzo Vecchio on one side of the River Arno to the Palazzo Pitti on the other. It passes over roofs and bridge of the Ponte Vecchio, and through galleries, mansions and churches. At over 500 meters (.33 miles), it is the longest single passageway of paintings and portraits in the world.

In 2010, the Italian Cultural Ministry and the City of Florence, urged on by Mayor Renzi, created a special “Prince’s Itinerary”, Il Percorso del Principe, as a guided tour to introduce the public to the Vasari Corridor. Still relatively unknown, it is one of the most exceptional and, until recently, hidden treasures of Renaissance architecture and art.

Tour participants not only see a fabulous art collection, but also are shown a hidden route with unique views and unexpected secret glimpses of the classic Florentine cityscape while walking above the heads of tourists swarming the streets below.

History of the Corridor

In the 1540’s, Cosimo I, an enlightened despot who ruled Florence and all of Tuscany, lived with his Spanish wife Eleonora di Toledo and their children above the “shop” in the Palazzo Vecchio, the Florence City Hall. Eleonora was in charge of the family finances and disliked living in the Palazzo Vecchio. In 1549, she found a house she did want, and so purchased the Palazzo Pitti from the debt-encumbered Pitti family, rivals of the Medici clan. She had the palace remodeled and enlarged. The façade grew to over 670 feet in length, becoming the grandest of the Renaissance palaces and the seat of the Medici dynasty for the next 200 years.

View of the Corridor crossing atop the Ponte Vecchio

Eleonora moved her family out of the city hall, thus forcing Cosimo to commute almost half a mile through the city streets to the government offices. A man with many enemies and one who did not mix well with the general public, Cosimo had to travel with a contingent of bodyguards. Each day they had to traverse a narrow chaotic bridge, the Ponte Vecchio, which in the 1500’s was lined with malodorous tanneries and butcher shops.

Using the occasion of his son Francesco’s 1565 wedding to Joanna of Austria as an excuse, Cosimo commissioned his architect Giorgio Vasari to design an above-ground walkway from his home to the offices. Vasari, a true man of the Renaissance – architect, painter, author and art historian – took only six months to design and direct the building of the Corridor. Cosimo did not own all of the property between the Palazzo Vecchio and the Palazzo Pitti. Vasari thus had to get permission to build the Corridor through other people’s towers, mansions and businesses. When the Mannelli family refused permission for the corridor to pass through their tower, situated at the south end of the Ponte Vecchio, Vasari designed the passageway to be built around, but attached to, il torre dei Mannelli.

Spy windows allow the dukes to see out without being seen

Cosimo claimed that the architectural wonder was for the amazement of the wedding guests and to remind the citizens of Florence of his power and authority, but he also gained an escape route from either home or office and a way to spy on the Florentines from above many of the busiest thoroughfares. The Corridor was also eventually used as a nursery for many generations of Medici children; and the elderly, infirm and lazy could be wheeled through the corridor in basket chairs. Apparently, however, the stench of the Ponte Vecchio remained a problem because in 1594, Cosimo’s son Fernando decreed that the butchers and tanners would be ousted and replaced by gold- and silversmiths.

The Tour

The Percorso del Principe Tour begins in the courtyard of the Palazzo Vecchio. It always numbers less than 20 participants and lasts about two hours. The tour group meets in the courtyard of the Palazzo Vecchio, proceeds to the Hall of the Five Hundred, Il Salone dei Cinquecento, where an Italian-speaking guide presents a short history lesson regarding the Medici, the Palazzo Vecchio and the Vasari Corridor.

The itinerary includes parts of the Palazzo Vecchio Museum. Each group is escorted through a number of governmental chambers to Eleonora’s Green Room, La Camera Verde, in the former Medici family apartments on the second floor. From there the group crosses a short sky bridge, part of the original Corridor, over Via della Ninna, and enters the east wing of the Uffizi Gallery. Tour participants have a chance to examine only the east hallway of the Uffizi – the ticket does not allow for free re-entry into the Gallery that holds the largest collection of Italian medieval and Renaissance art in the world.

The main branch of the Vasari Corridor is entered via a doorway located at the beginning of the west corridor of the Uffizi. The passage drops down a long stairway flanked by paintings from the Medici collection and then traverses the top of the arcade on the north bank of the Arno, turns right over the shops on the Ponte Vecchio, and continues on through to the Boboli Gardens of the Palazzo Pitti. Visitors exit into the garden and can remain there for the rest of the day.

Arno River seen from Mussolini's windows

Small windows all along the Corridor provide excellent views of the river and the city. The best view is in the center of the Ponte Vecchio through two large sets of windows that look west down the Arno. These windows were not part on the original design, but were installed at the direction of Mussolini during World War II because Hitler and Mussolini wanted to look at the view while they held private meetings in the Corridor.

German dynamite damaged the Vasari Corridor

By some reports, Hitler’s fondness for the Corridor and the Ponte Vecchio spared both when the retreating Germans blew up all of the other bridges crossing the Arno as the Allies advanced on Florence in August 1944. The Corridor, however, was damaged by the dynamite set at the ends of the Ponte Vecchio to block passage over the Old Bridge.

Near the south bank of the river, the Corridor passes through the interior of the church of Santa Felicita. A Corridor window looks over the gray and white pietra serena interior of the chapel, and a door enters a high rear balcony, similar to an exclusive box at the opera, where the Medici family attended services in comfort and privacy.

The Medici's balcony inside Santa Felicita

Past the church, the tour ends in the Boboli Gardens, next to the elaborate grotto designed by Bountalenti in the 1580s. At the end of the tour, participants may remain in the massive Giordino di Boboli to explore its many acres of walkways and gardens. Laid out for Eleonora di Toledo by Niccolo Tribolo in 1550, it is one of the finest examples of an Italianate landscape design.

The Collection of Paintings and Portraits

The paintings in the Corridor are arranged in three major groups.

The first collection, which starts at the doorway from the Uffizi Gallery and ends as the Corridor turns on to the Ponte Vecchio, is a group of 17th and 18th century paintings by Italian and other European artists. Acquired by the Medici clan, Cardinal Leopoldo de’Medici at his death left a collection of 730 paintings, 318 sculptures, 1,245 drawings, 589 small portraits, and thousands of medals and other objet d’arte. A small portion of his collection is displayed in the Corridor, including a number of paintings from the school of Caravaggio. Notable among the first collection are pieces by Guido Reni, Gerrit van Honthorst, Empoli, and Guercino.

The Medici collection in the Vasari Coridor

Next, as the Corridor starts across the Ponte Vecchio, there is the world’s largest collection of self-portraits, arranged chronologically, of Italian and other European artists. Cardinal Leopoldo, inspired to start the series, collected over 80 portraits in the 17th century.  The set was then augmented by earlier pieces obtained by other members of the Medici family.  Still more were added throughout the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries by artist donation and acquisition by the Uffizi.

Only a portion of the total collection of self-portraits is hung on the Corridor walls at any one time. Those now on display include Giorgio Vasari, Titian, Correggio, Rubens, Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Velasquez, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Antonio Canova, Delacroix, John Singer Sargent, and Carlo Levi. The last displayed, but not the last to reach the Gallery, is a self-portrait donated by Marc Chagall in 1976. A fake Leonardo da Vinci is also displayed – it was part of the Medici collection, but was found by x-ray to be painted over a 17th century Magdalene.

A special gallery - rarely seen

The last group of paintings, displayed in the Corridor where it turns toward the Boboli Gardens, is a collection of Medici and Hapsburg/Lorraine family portraits, many of them of the children. These give valuable insight into the attire and mannerisms of wealthy seventeenth and eighteenth century nobility.

Uncertain Future

Few tourists get to see the inside of the Vasari Corridor. The facility is frequently closed for months at a time, and the unique construction and length of the Corridor requires that tours must be undertaken in small groups guided by Uffizi personnel. There are ongoing discussions about whether the collection in the Corridor should be taken down and tours discontinued due to security and preservation concerns. Now there are rumors of a possible years-long restoration project planned for the corridor.

Details for the 2010 Tours

In 2010 until July 7, tours are available four times on Wednesdays (9:30, 11:30, 2, & 4), two times in the morning on Thurday (9:30 & 11:30) and two times in the afternoon on Fridays (2 & 4).

Tickets to the Percorso del Principe cost 19 euro and allow you to stay in the Boboli Garden at the end of the tour.

Tours are given only in Italian, but the viewing of the Palazzo Vecchio, Uffizi hallways and the Vasari Corridor is so interesting it’s worth the wait as explanations are made to Italian-speaking visitors.

Reservations should be made well in advance by calling +39 055.294.883 or through the Florence museum web site www.polomuseale.firenze.it.  (The title of the tour is Percorso del Principe and the person taking your reservation will likely not understand if you say “Vasari Corridor”.)

If you are in Florence, tickets can be bought without reservation (if available) at the ticket office on the back of Orasanmichele on Via Calzaiouli or the ticket office at the Pitti Palace.  If you make a reservation in advance, you redeem it and purchase your tickets at Door # 2 at the Uffizi Gallery.

The tour group is requested to meet 15 minutes before the tour time at the “Percorso del Principe” sign in the courtyard of the Palazzo Vecchio

Museo di Palazzo Davanzati

The Davanzati Palace Museum is finally – after over 15 years of restoration – open to the public and is well worth a visit. An added benefit is that the madding crowds of Florence haven’t found it  - yet.

The Palace, built by the Davizzi family around mid-14th century, was purchased in 1578 by the Davanzati family and remained in their possession until 1838, when it was divided into several separate apartments, causing severe damage to the mix of Medieval and Renaissance interior design.

In 1904, it was purchased, restored to its 14th century structure, and filled with 14th to 16th century furnishings by the antique dealer Elia Volpi, who opened it to the public in 1910 as Museum of the Old Florentine House. The contents of the museum kept changing because Volpi kept selling pieces of the collection, including virtually all of the contents in a controversial auction held in New York in 1916. (Volpi was sued, thereafter, for allegedly selling a fake Rubens and a fake Van Dyck – see the 1919 NY Times article.)

Main Staircase (C. Keene)

Volpi sold the palazzo in the 1920s to two Egyptian brothers. In 1951, the Italian State purchased the empty building, restored and refurnished it and opened it once more to the public in 1956.

The Palace’s most important feature is its architectural structure, which represents a rare example of 13th century noble home, showing the transition stage from the medieval tower house to a grand Renaissance building. The original façade opened into a ground floor three-arch loggia (porch – now closed) and was used as a cantina and mercantile space. A 16th century loggia replaced the medieval battlements at the top of the building.

Courtyard Light

The interior courtyard gives access to the stone and wood staircase with rampant arches leading up to the four upper floors. There are large audience halls, dining rooms, bedrooms and agiamenti (toilets – a rarity in elegant houses of the period). All the rooms have floors in cotto and ceilings in wood. The walls of many of the rooms are decorated with frescoes and decorations that are quite popular in Florentine 13th century homes, representing curtains and coat of arms. The most beautiful rooms are the Sala dei Pappagalli (the Parrot Room) and the bedroom with scenes of the tale of the Lady of Vergi and her knight.

The present arrangement of the Museum reconstructs the setting of an old Florentine home, with furniture and household tools from the 14th to the 19th centuries. Bedrooms display ornate beds and linen chests, while the audience hall on the first floor exhibits a rare 16th century Sienese painted cabinet, a 15th centry painting showing the Game of Civettino and a marble bust of a child by Antonio Rossellino.

16th Century Cradle (C.Keene)

The kitchen on the third floor exhibits furniture and ordinary daily household items, together with working tools, like looms, warping machines and spinning wheels.

Included in a separate display is a very fine collection of lacework and samplers, ranging from the 16th to the 20th centuries.

The only disconcerting thing about a visit to this unique museum is that you cannot count of all four floors being open on any particular day at any specific time. Your four euro ticket may give you access to all four floors (a bargain) or it may only provide you a glimpse of the ground and first floor (interesting, but perhaps not worth the price).  It may help to ask before you buy your ticket. It may not.

The Parrot Room

Palazzo Davanzati

Address:  Via Porta Rossa 13 – Firenze – Tel. 055 2388610

Hours: Weekdays: 8.15 am – 1.50 pm; open second and fourth Monday of the month.

Holidays: 8.15 – 1.50 pm – open first, third and fifth Sunday of the month.

Closed on: the second and fourth Sunday of the month; the first, third and fifth Monday of every month. December 25, January 1, May 1

Entrance: 3 euro

Tuscan Traveler took a brief sojourn in Venice with a very short wish list. The first priority was to eat as much great seafood as possible. That done, the search was on for the glass menagerie that includes tiny hand-made mosquitoes.

Tiger Mosquitoes by Bruno Amadi

Bruno Amadi presides over a zoological garden of fragile plants, animals, fish, birds and frogs in a narrow back ally near the San Polo church. But the bugs are the best – a house fly so life-like you will want to swat it, mosquitoes balancing on spindly legs thinner than a human hair, and beetles in iridescent colors.

Mr. Amadi works with glass rods (lumi) and a flame to create his masterpieces. He first consults reference books and the National Geographic Magazine to assure that his creations are true to life. He will spend hours getting the spots on a Poison Dart Frog just right.

A Grasshopper Eyes a Sweet Pea Lunch

Venice is full of glass, but after you see the work of Bruno Amadi and almost pick up one of his pea pods to savor the spring sweetness, you will never be satisfied with fake ladybugs and seahorses seen in windows around every other corner.

Lume di Amadi

Address:  San Polo 2747, 30100 Venezia (Vaporetto Stop: San Sivestro)

Telephone:  +39 041.38.089

Hours: Mon. – Sat. 9am – 12:30pm, 3pm – 6pm (wise to call ahead)

One thing that continues to fascinate me about Florence, despite all of its many frustrating aspects, is how nuggets of historical gold can be found once you learn one little fact – kind of a Medieval/Renaissance version of “Six Degrees of Separation.”

For example:  I visited the Chapter Library in Piazza del Capitolo. Across the piazza was a tabernacle on the wall. I took an arty reflective photo of it because the glass was too dirty to get a good shot of the fresco inside.

Duomo reflected in tabernacle in Piazza del Capitolo

As I was researching the history of the Biblioteca Capitolare, the ancient library, I ran across a reference to the tabernacle, which led to the following story and more places to visit (just click on the embedded links):

On a hot summer night in 1501, a young man named Antonio Rinaldeschi, drunk and angry at losing his money and some of his clothes while gambling at the Osteria del Fico in what is now Via del Giglio staggered through the streets around the Cathedral cursing the name of the Virgin.  He entered the tiny piazza in front of the small church, which is now the Chapter Library. There on a wall he noticed a tabernacle with an Annunciation known as the Madonna or Santa Maria de’Ricci (probably commissioned by the Ricci family who lived in the area). He stooped, gathered up a handful of horse manure and threw it at the face of the Virgin before running away.  Unfortunately for Antonio, the dung did not dry and fall off (a clump stuck to her halo) and his act was witnessed by a boy, who was able to describe the defiler.  The Archbishop came to view the outrage and the devoted came to pray and leave votive candles.

Tabernacle with Annunciation to the Virgin fresco

The Otto di Guardia, eight men charged with keeping the peace, were commissioned to find the culprit. Rinaldeschi was soon identified as a likely suspect. He was taken into custody in the garden of the convent of S. Francesco al Monte alle Croci (behind the Church of San Salvatore), outside the city walls. Fearing the mob, he tried to commit suicide by stabbing himself in the chest, but was saved by hitting a rib.  He was imprisoned in the Bargello, charged with gambling, blasphemy and attempted suicide. Although these were not usually offenses that called for the death penalty, Antonio reportedly asked to be executed for fear of worse treatment by a lynch mob, which had been fired up by the radical monk Savonarola. Rinaldeschi was hanged from the wall of the Bargello.

Altar of the church of Santa Maria de'Ricci

Today the shrine is replaced by a copy. The original was placed on the altar of the church of Santa Maria de’Ricci. The whole story of Antonio Renaldeschi appears painted in tempera on a board divided into nine squares, which show the true sequence of events. The board is now in the Stibbert Museum.

Story of Antonio Rinaldeschi (tempera on wood)

Doomed Antonio’s story is described and discussed at length in Sacrilege and Redemption in Renaissance Florence. The slender book by W.J. Connell and G. Constable unveils a series of newly discovered sources concerning this striking episode. The authors show how the political and religious context of Renaissance Florence resulted both in Rinaldeschi’s death sentence and in the creation by Savonarola’s followers of a new religious devotion in the heart of the city commemorating the event.

Another historical thread led out of the Piazza del Capitolo, but that will be the subject of a future post.

Through a small ally the grand Piazza del Duomo, about half way along the south side of the cathedral, there  is a little square, Piazza del Capitolo, at one time known as Corte dei Visdomini for the noble family whose tower still stands near by. The Capitolo was (and is today) the Chapter of the Florence Duomo and has governed the actions of the priests, canons, provosts and other dignitaries of the cathedral and its predecessor church, Santa Reparata, since the before the 8th century.  Some say the Chapter goes back to Bishop Saint Zanobius in the 5th century.

Façade of San Piero Ciel D'oro - Inside the Capitolo Library

In the tiny square there was an ancient parish church called San Piero Ciel D’oro, dating from the 8th century – long before the cathedral was conceived. After the building of the Duomo, the parish church was turned into a place of study. It was by decree of Pope Nicholas V (15th century) that Archbishop Saint Antonius Pierozzi created one of the first “public” libraries in Florence and placed it under the control of the Cathedral Chapter.

Illuminated manuscript from the 14th century

“This house of wisdom” as it is called in a Latin inscription over the doorway was used for meetings of the Cathedral Chapter and served as the Chapter’s archive. Documents show that the Chapter was very active in city government and in the powerful artistic and business guilds that virtually controlled Florence throughout the Renaissance.

Over 300 years old - archival books wait on open shelves

The hegemony exercised by the Florentine upper classes on canonical appointments is clear in the frequent recurrence of noble family names such as Medici, Strozzi, Corsini and Albizi. Giovanni de’Medici (later Pope Leo X), was a member of the Cathedral Chapter.

A plaque in Latin, higher on the façade, recalls the visit to the Cathedral Chapter of Pope Pius VII, on June 1st 1815, on his way to Genoa to negotiate peace in Italy.

Today, the library contains 5, 500 books printed after 1500 and 85 manuscripts from earlier centuries. Most of the original books and documents have since been relocated. The library books first went to the Opera del Duomo and then, in 1778, the collection of many of the early manuscripts were transferred to the Laurentian Library and the printed volumes (post 1500) went to the Magliabechiana Library (now the National Library).

Dramatic sky fresco arches over the library reading room

The library is used for research on religious and historical subjects. Letters of request and reference must be presented to use the facility.

Eye of Providence at the center of the ceiling fresco

But for the lucky few who are granted access, they will sit under a frescoed sky, watched by the all-seeing Eye of Providence.

The Year of Astronomy was celebrated in 2009 to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Galileo’s invention of the telescope. It was also a special opportunity to see the Florence Biomedical Library and its collection of first edition books published by the scientist, including the volume that brought him before the Inquisition.

Exhibition of Galileo First Editions at Florence's Biomedical Library

The Biblioteca Biomedica is located in the Careggi Hospital complex. Galileo’s books came to the library from the collection stored at the ancient (built in 1288, but still in use) Santa Maria Nuova Hospital, located near the Duomo. It was a bit disconcerting to realize that over a million dollars worth of books and manuscripts were on such casual (though securely locked) display.

Galileo writes the handbook for his calculating compass

The oldest book I saw was the Operazioni del compasso. Written in Galileo’s workshop in Padua and printed in Bologna in 1609. Only 60 copies were printed. (One was just sold at auction for over $500,000.) Galileo may have issued the Operazioni del compasso in order to establish his sole priority as the inventor of the “geometrical and military compass,” a calculating and observation device that he had begun manufacturing in 1597. It was a mathematical device – a sort of calculating ruler based on the principle of proportional magnitudes – that brought speed and accuracy to computations about armaments and their trajectories. Galileo’s compass remained unsurpassed until the advent of the slide rule in the mid-nineteenth century. His pamphlet is the first published work on an analogue calculator. The success and popularity of Galileo’s instrument naturally made it attractive to imitators, and Galileo deliberately omitted any illustration of the compass in his treatise as a deterrent to unauthorized copying.

Discoursing with the Pisans over water displacement and other ideas

Galileo’s important (and unendingly titled) treatise on hydrostatics, Discorso al serenissimo Don Cosimo Il Gran Duca di Toscana intorno alle cose, che stanno in su l’acqua, o che in quella si muovono (“Discourse to the Serene Don Cosimo II, Grand Duke of Tuscany, Concerning the Natation of Bodies Upon, Submersion in, the Water”). Written in 1612, the “Discourse” constituted Galileo’s first direct attack on Aristotelian science. Written in the context of an ongoing dispute on the nature of buoyancy between Galileo and a group of pro-Aristotelian Pisan professors, the Discourse on Bodies in Water represented an attempt by Galileo to transfer the dispute from a narrowly focused to a more general and systematic approach. In it Galileo refuted the Aristotelian view that a solid body’s ability to float is a function of its shape, demonstrating instead the truth of the Archimedean principle that flotation depends on the relative densities of the floating body and the fluid.

Galileo in dialogue with Copernicus and Ptolemy

“DIALOGO”, now known as the Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo), written by Galileo in 1632, compared the Copernican system with the traditional Ptolemaic system. In the Copernican system the Earth and other planets orbit the Sun, while in the Ptolemaic system everything in the Universe circles around the Earth. The first edition at the Biomedical Library has a beautiful woodcut frontispiece of Galileo, Copernicus and Ptolomy discussing the universe. This was the book that, in part, led to Galileo’s Inquisition trial and subsequent excommunication by the Pope.

Galileo’s formal use of the term and title Dialogo allowed him to explore his Copernican theories fully within the rubric of the “equal and impartial discussion” required by Pope Urban VIII, thus getting around the initial scrutiny of the Inquisition, which, in fact, granted it a formal license to be printed, believing it to be a book discussing tides, not knowing that the subtitle would reference “two chief world systems”. (The name by which the work is now known is extracted from the subtitle.) The book was dedicated to Galileo’s patron, Ferdinando II de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and was a bestseller.  The fact that so many copies went into circulation throughout Europe was its salvation because within a year Galileo was convicted of “grave suspicion of heresy”, and the Dialogo was then placed on the Vatican’s Index of Forbidden Books, from which it was not removed until 1835.

Biblioteca Biomedica

Viale Morgagni, 85 · 50124 Florence
Tel. 055.4598055, Fax 055.4221649

Director: Dr. Laura Vannucci

In these hard economic times, the best business to have is the guy selling padlocks at the little cart on the Ponte Vecchio. It’s a return business that beats all others in Florence.

Locks of Love circle Benvenuto Cellini on the Ponte Vecchio

Locks of love, or lucchetti dell’amore, are the padlocks fixed by loving couples on to part of the Ponte Vecchio, usually to the fence around the statue of Cellini located in the center of the bridge, to symbolize their eternal love. The symbol is further enhanced by the fact that the bridge unites two sides of the city (unites/joins/attaches/holds together – get it?). The enamored twosome locks the padlock after inscribing their names or initials and/or the date on it and throws the key into the Arno so that their love is locked forever.

Lovers' Locks along the Great Wall of China

Some say the practice started in China where the Juyongguan, Sanbu and Badaling sections of the Great Wall (those closest to Beijing) are the most popular sections with thousands of locks of various sizes attached to the rows and rows of steel chains along the wall. (I’m not sure where they throw the key – an important part of the ritual.)

The lamp poles on Ponte Milvio in Rome can't take much more love

Reportedly the practice in Italy was born in Rome, when in 2006, a romantic movie based upon the novel “Ho Voglia di Te” was released. In the book a young man tries to win the heart of his true love by telling her that their love will last forever, preserved by the lock attached to Ponte Milvio and the key lost forever in the Tiber. Supposedly, the movie – not the book- started a wildly popular ritual among young Romans.

The Italian story I like the best about the lucchetti dell’amore also relates to attaching padlocks to bridges. It is said that the tradition began when young men had to leave their hometowns to do military service. They attached a lock to one of the local bridges before their departure as a promise to return home, essentially a promise to survive their enlistment.

Signed and date with hope of forever love

But back to the mess of locks closing in around the venerable Benvenuto Cellini. About once every four months, a city worker with huge lock cutter arrives to denude the fence. One wonders what happens to the love of those now not so immortalized there. Do they feel a instantaneous heart pang when their lock is snipped? Do they suddenly look at each other for some unexplicable reason, realizing that their love is over/false/fading/mistaken/doomed?

The City of Florence battles lovers

The powers-that-be in Florence have called for more policing on the bridge to stop the locks, which some find unsightly and others claim are damaging historic artifacts. They hung a sign in front of poor Cellini that states in both Italian and English (why not also in Japanese, Russian, French and Spanish?) that the fine for attaching locks to the railing is 50 euros. The threat seemed to work for awhile, but love will not be denied. Also, they failed to stop the vendor on the Ponte Vecchio from selling cheap padlocks and felt-tipped pens.

Is Love recycled still Love?

I have a suggestion for that enterprising fellow: sell locks that come with two keys, but keep one key. With a little soapy water or, at most, a dab of benzine, and the shiny second key, you will be able to lure two sets of lovers to the fantasy of love everlasting, pocketing twice the price.

The Romans are working on a more high tech solution – Lucchetti dell’Amore Ponte Milvio Virtuale – virtual locks of love suitable for FaceBook – never in danger of the lock cutter.

The tourists and the Florentines always hope that the New Year will come in with a bang. For 2010 it came in with a wet whimper.

Fireworks in drier years

The 2010 fireworks were rained out.

To celebrate the end of 2009, the new mayor, who made a splash with the grand pedestrian zone around the Duomo (wrecking havoc with the bus system), wanted to have four concerts at various venues, including one that started at the train station in Bologna and then taking the 37 minute trip on the new Frecciarossa (Red Arrow) high speed train to Florence for the second half of the concert at the train station. Note: this train unfortunately spent 90 minutes in a tunnel the week before. On New Year’s Eve the train made a successful run, but the Florence concert was soggy.

It has been raining for a week. From 9am on the the 31st to 11am on the 1st the rain was non-stop. Thus, the river is rising…

Highest Arno in ten years

The Arno, which flooded in 1966, was never adequately dredged or walled. Therefore, the Florentines are spending the first day of 2010 watching the bridges.

Ponte Vespucci can hardly span the roiling river

This is not a new pastime. Acqua Alta in Arno happens almost every winter. Books have been written about it.

The Arno frozen - January 10, 1986

Another 24 hours of rain is expected and then the temperature is to drop below zero.  Maybe Florence will get the same ice rink it enjoyed in the Winter of ‘85 -’86.

Ice on the Arno in 1985

I had been looking for Dante’s Stone for years. Not every day mind you, but off and on … for years. The story of the Sasso di Dante has been talked about for centuries. Seven centuries to be exact, because the last time Dante could have sat on his rock was 1302; that year he was banished from Florence, never to return.

Dante Alighieri

Guidebooks told me that the stone was gone. No big surprise. But it was repeatedly reported that a plaque had been placed on a wall where the rock sat and where Dante sat on the rock. It was supposed to be on the wall in Piazza delle Pallottole. I looked on every wall in the tiny piazza. I couldn’t find the plaque.

From the stories that have filtered down through the ages, you would think that Dante never did anything, but jot poems. The Sasso di Dante supports this idea. Dante reportedly relaxed on this stone a lot, either (depending on the source you are reading): 1) watching the cathedral walls go up (the Duomo’s dome wouldn’t go on for another 150 years), 2) catching the cooling wind on summer days (it’s true, it’s one of the few places in town where the air moves in the summertime); 3) writing love poems (first poem at age 18 (1283); then between 1290 and 1293, he wrote Vita Nuova, a book of prose and poetry about his love for Beatrice), or 4) talking politics (Dante entered city government in 1295). But Dante was not always hanging out in Piazza delle Pallottole. He rode a horse into two, maybe three, major battles, managed the family estates, and as mentioned before, served as a political appointee.

No reference book says Dante was watching games of bocce ball from his sasso, but Piazza delle Pallottole is so named because it was a piazza where the game of pallottole, a type of bocce ball game, was permitted to be played.

Today, there is an old trattoria called, not surprisingly, Sasso di Dante, that takes up most of the piazza.

Modern version of Dante's stone

But back to the search for the plaque… One day, about two years ago I was taking a shortcut through the alley alongside the trattoria in Piazza delle Pallottole and there against the opposite wall, blocking a narrow sidewalk, was a huge stone with a metal tag that read “I Vero Sasso di Dante” (incorrect Italian (missing an apostrophe) for The True Stone of Dante). I swear on all three parts of the Divine Comedy it had not been there the month before.

Now I could bring my touring clients to the spot and tell them the most famous story about the Sasso di Dante. It goes like this:

“Tradition says that an unknown person once accosted Dante seated in his favorite place and asked:  ‘What do you like best to eat?’  Dante answered “A hard-boiled egg.”  A year after the same man, whom Dante had not seen in the meantime, approached and simply asked: “With what?”  Dante immediately replied:  “With salt.”

"I Vero Sasso di Dante" The True Stone of Dante

In the late 1800s, the poet Carlo Gabrielli, set Dante’s egg story in rhyme (ottava rima) and ended with the moral:  L’acuto ingegno apporta gloria; / Maggior, se v’é congiunta alta memoria.

I’m not sure this is a tale of great memory or a savant’s selective focus. Dante was reportedly a peculiar guy.

And by the way, I found the plaque. It’s very large, made of marble, and not in Piazza delle Palottole. It’s around the corner, in Piazza del Duomo, low on the side of a store that sells all things sacred (during this season – many crèches) and Catholic. I went in to ask when the marble sign was placed. “Twenty years ago or more.” I had been walking past for more than ten years without noticing – easy to do in Florence where the past comes to greet even the longtime visitor every day.

The "missing" plaque in Piazza del Duomo

On the trendy Via de’ Tornabuoni, nestled in the courtyard of the luxe Palazzo Tornabuoni, is a new restaurant, Obikà, the latest location in a chain of mozzarella bars that has its birthplace in Rome, and now has siblings in London, New York, Kuwait City,Tokyo, Turin and Milan.

Smoked mozzarella with tomatoes, basil and pesto

Obikà has the look of a stylish bar where one can stop in for a snack and a glass of wine.  But it is more.  You can get a full meal – antipasto, primo, secondo and dolce – or you can simply have a hand-pinched ball of the freshest mozzarella di bufala with a side of prosciutto or salame or tomatoes and basil, paired with a glass of Tuscan wine.

Bringing an Italian favorite into the 21st cenury

The minimalism of the counter at one end with its clear containers, which hold balls of the mozzarella and colorful vegetables, and even the brushstrokes of its logo suggest a Japanese, more than Mediterranean, sushi bar, not for fish, but for the freshest of cheeses. At the other end of the vast room is a cocktail bar of identical design, serving a full range of drinks.

Obikà focuses on the most prized mozzarella in Italy, small and large balls of mozzarella di bufala, made from water buffalo milk. For some, the smoked affumicata is the best choice, especially paired with a Sicilian eggplant caponata. For others the favorite styling is stracciatella di burrata.

Burrata starts out much like mozzarella and many other cheeses, with rennet used to curdle the warm milk. But then, unlike other cheeses, fresh mozzarella curds are plunged into hot whey or lightly salted water, kneaded and pulled to develop stretchy strings, then shaped in whatever form is desired. When making burrata, the still-hot cheese is formed into a pouch, which is then filled with scraps of leftover mozzarella and topped off with fresh cream before closing. Obikà serves a small glass bowl with only the buttery “scraps” swimming in cream.

Buffalo mozzarella with sun-dried tomatoes and anchovies

Obikà’s mozzarella is served with accompaniments such as Sardinian bottarga, mortadella with pistachios, Tuscan porchetta, Ligurian pesto and seasonal fresh figs. Large salads, tasty pastas, desserts, coffees and a large selection of Italian wines from small Italian producers are also available.

Each evening the large raised communal table is decked with small plates of the freshest snacks, salty and sweet, some with mozzarella and some without.  For 9 euro, guests are invited to eat all that they wish, accompanied by a cocktail or glass of wine to drink.

The communal table and mozzarella bar

The only drawback to Florence’s Obikà is the service. The staff is either uncaring or poorly trained. Dropped and sloshed drinks, delivery of the wrong order, ignored requests for the bill, staff surfing the music sound track or congregating at the bar to chat, and a bartender who loves the crash the empties into the trash, may be part of any meal. (See 100 Things Restaurant Staffers Should Never Do, Part 1 and Part 2) Also, there was a disconcerting architectural design flaw (perhaps, by now, it has been solved) that resulted in all of the collected dirty dishes being periodically wheeled through the tables to a washing facility located somewhere not connected to the restaurant. Neither this nor the service failings should be sufficient to discourage the visitor from enjoying the impressive décor or the superlative cuisine.

Address:  Via de’ Tornabuoni, 16

Phone:  +39 055 277 3526

Hours:  Daily 10am – 11pm