ECONOMY + SOCIETY

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Economy + Society

Here today, gone tomorrow

by Sabine Eiche (issue no. 107/2009 / September 10, 2009)
If you've been living in (or returning to) Florence for a while, you may have noticed that stores here have a way of disappearing practically overnight. One day you go out to get your carton of eggs where you've always bought your eggs, and instead …
Il Fatto Bello

Una bella litigata

Il fatto bello della settimana. Moments from everyday Italy
by Linda Falcone (issue no. 107/2009 / September 10, 2009)
From the window of my front room, one can watch the whole world wander by, but you don't even have to get near the sill to know exactly what's being told in the piazza below. No shutter can shut out the hullabaloo of everyone …
Florentinisms

Gingilloni, Spiaccicare ragni, Tira via

Your in-progress dictionary of the florentine dialect
by Alexandra Lawrence,  Francesco Stefanelli (issue no. 107/2009 / September 10, 2009)
This week's Florentinisms come to us courtesy of Canadian Denise Tann, who contacted us via email after discovering our website. Thanks, Denise!   Dear TF, I just discovered Florentinisms. I had no idea some of those words were just Florentine and not Italian! Trombaio? What else do …
Be Green in Florence

The trash trail - Part One: George Clooney's rubbish

Be Green in Florence
by Melissa  Morozzo (issue no. 107/2009 / September 10, 2009)
Some couples go shopping together. Some go to the cinema or out for a romantic meal. Others (read: my other half and I) think it's great fun to spend a morning touring Case Passerini, a rubbish-processing plant on the outskirts of Florence.   Case Passerini processes …
Be Green in Florence

Fresh n' green

by Melissa  Morozzo (issue no. 106/2009 / July 16, 2009)
You know summer's here when travelling on the bus is like stepping into Dante's steaming Inferno and you get the urge to lie naked on your floor tiles at night with a couple of ice cubes tucked under your armpits. Fortunately, there are many environmentally …
Italian Sketches

Giovanni Spadolini

The politician scholar
by Deirdre Pirro (issue no. 105/2009 / July 2, 2009)
The Italian political cartoonist Giorgio Forattini always depicted Giovanni Spadolini, the first non-Christian Democrat prime minister in the history of the Italian Republic, as an impish, corpulent cupid, gradually making him more and more naked as his political powers increased. But …
Il Fatto Bello

Class acts

Il fatto bello della settimana. Moments from everyday Italy
by Linda Falcone (issue no. 105/2009 / July 2, 2009)
Italians fear inspections the same way naughty blackbirds fear a sentinel scarecrow. And from the way they nervously flit and hop while blatantly breaking the field's best rules, you'd think the whole country was in dire risk of being swiftly stuffed …
Florentinisms

Attacato, Arregola, Bada, Dianzi

Your in-progress dictionary of the florentine dialect
by Alexandra Lawrence,  Francesco Stefanelli (issue no. 105/2009 / July 2, 2009)
Attacato: heap or hair-splitting. Example: ‘Maremma! Unnà pagaho nemmeno i' caffè, l'è attaccato di nulla!' (‘Jeez! He didn't even pay for the coffee, he's cheap as all get out!')     Arrègola: t would seem/to all appearances/it's likely. Example: ‘Arregola un c'era posto per la macchina!' (‘It's likely he couldn't …
Italian Sketches

Guccio Gucci

A leather lineage
by Deirdre Pirro (issue no. 104/2009 / June 18, 2009)
Family, fame, feuding, passion, litigation and homicide. All the ingredients of a successful Hollywood soapie like are, instead, the backdrop to the story of one of Italy's best known luxury label clans: the Gucci family. The patriarch of this dynasty was …
Families + Kids

Brunelleschi and his dome

by Sabine Eiche (issue no. 104/2009 / June 18, 2009)
This poem is dedicated to my young Florentine friends Choppy and Giovanni.   Florentines had civic pride, Something that they didn't hide.Building churches was the rage,Even if it took an age.Dignitaries riding throughNoticed there was lots to do.There's Saint Mary of the Flower,Crouched …
Il Fatto Bello

Claiming the continent

Il fatto bello della settimana. Moments from everyday Italy
by Linda Falcone (issue no. 104/2009 / June 18, 2009)
Years ago, the Italian press published a controversial study that claimed one should enjoy ice cream only in wintertime, as June sorbets risked freezing summer-hot intestines. I remember that day vividly. It was soon after New Year's, so I far from …
Be Green in Florence

On yer bike

Be Green in Florence
by Melissa  Morozzo (issue no. 104/2009 / June 18, 2009)
I love my bicycle. I love it more than I love tea, spaghetti with aglio, olio and peperoncino and waking up on a Sunday morning, thinking it's Monday for a second and then realising that I can snuggle down for another …
Italian Sketches

Franco Basaglia

One flew east, one flew west
by Deirdre Pirro (issue no. 103/2009 / June 4, 2009)
Feigning madness in Milos Foreman’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest won Jack Nicholson an Academy Award for Best Actor in 1976.  Based on a novel of the same name written in 1962 by Ken Kesey, who had worked as an …
Il Fatto Bello

Facts of the matter

Il fatto bello della settimana. Moments from everyday Italy
by Linda Falcone (issue no. 103/2009 / June 4, 2009)
Pietro's soccer team is right-wing and his politics are left-wing, which, in Italy, makes him a rarity good enough to stuff and keep in the Natural History Museum, next to the anatomical wax models. He would fit in fine there in …
Insider Florence

All that jazz

Cool sounds abound
by Jennifer Sgro (issue no. 103/2009 / June 4, 2009)
Are your feet tired of the discoteca, the endless fight for survival amidst herds of sticky stiletto-wearing stumbellinas swaying to the beat of techno remixes, courtesy of last year's most overplayed rappers? Have you seen enough ambitious renditions of Rigoletto, not …

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