Premium Featured Accommodation

Foreign Visitors in Florence in the early 20th Century

Foreign visitors were ever more numerous from halfway through the 19th century onwards. “About midway through the last century, ever more eroding the position of absolute privilege enjoyed by Rome [ideal of a Winckelmann-style academic Hellenism], scholars and collectors of books, codices and documents, those with an interest in aesthetics, antiquarians of the new school and followers of a vague discipline which had its first stirrings in Florence and which would later become History of Art all flocked, along with the merchants in retreat and honeymoon couples, to Florence.” (E. Cecchi, 1969).

Various factors and impulses were behind the 19th century European enthusiasm for Florence: revaluation of the traditions of the commune and republic by the culture of the Risorgimento; recognition of the tradition of economic liberalism, reaching back a very long way in Tuscany; the search for a prototype of ideal beauty in the “primitive” and the start of a new critical assessment of the “Renaissance”.

In the 1900s, foreigners were already a far from secondary component in the soul of the city: “On Ponte Vecchio, in the labyrinth of streets and alleyways of the Oltrarno, along Lungarno Acciaioli and under the loggias of the Archibusieri, in Por Santa Maria as far as Porcellino; running clutching a pitcher, a candlestick, a jug, an oil lamp or a picture-frame, jealously defending the gilded wing of a heralding angel; standing under an arch or near a small, humble but awe-inspiring doorway; sitting on the step of a church or staring at the unexpected harmonies offered at every turn by the buildings which rise and fall, standing out against the background of a sky lit by the last glimmer of sunset.

"Old English women. Old in the sense that they are bound by time and love to old things, those objects which link us to a small piece of this earth and old even more so for that attitude of spirit which places your frail body above time and age. [...] They lived a rural life within the walls of the city, their habits simple and noble, their homes decorated soberly with beautiful and authentic Tuscan objects, chosen and unearthed with loving care when we did not yet appreciate them” (A. Palazzeschi, 1932).

Later, in the 1930s, the foreign women changed. “Today, alone, in groups or in swarms, the young American women reign supreme, with their short skirts revealing solid calves, girlish pale blue eyes, blond hair cut short and agile sturdy arms. They move with a sure and certain swaying of the hips under the greedy gaze of the young men and smile at the narrowness of the streets and the ingenious eccentricity of the architecture. They smoke with naturalness and slight insolence" (A. Palazzeschi, 1932)

Articles