The Florentine has been with you since 2005: 15 years of news, events, arts, culture and stories of international living in Florence. Now, in the spring of 2020, just before Easter, we are privileged to publish Healing Not Broken, a commemorative issue documenting the emergency we are all enduring, wherever we are in the world.
Propinquity is the word that keeps coming to mind, a poignant noun that made me fall in love with Florence a smidgen more on reading Michael Ondaatje’s novel The English Patient. Never before has humanity been so united in a shared cause. Never before has our magazine received so many messages from so many people, expressing their closeness to Florence and concern for our team. It was this feeling of nearness that drove us to make a new commitment to our readers around the globe during lockdown: TF Together, a weekly line-up of digital events to keep you company in the interim. This sense of camaraderie can be felt throughout Florence as schools have switched overnight to online learning, associations have changed their events to virtual platforms and museums accompany us on tours around their collections.
Humanism, of course, had its home in Renaissance Florence and, now more than ever, rational thinking, collectivity and experience inform a code for us to live by.
In this special edition of The Florentine, we witness an outpouring of a renewed humanism in Florence, of learning, words, thoughts and creativity, with articles, poems and short stories scribed by our international community, some a product of our literary competition launched to keep you company during quarantine, plus ideas and considerations for the future from Tuscany’s leaders and institutional figures, all interspersed with iconic photography of Florence at its most restful.
To our readers in Florence, please continue to document this unusual gift of time, albeit tragic, and to reach out to us with a view to publication. To our readers all over the world, please postpone, not cancel, your forthcoming trips to this magnificent city. The joy of Florence and Tuscany changes with the seasons and will amaze you just as much in the autumn, winter and beyond.
The city we love so deeply has endured the plague, conspiracies, floods and bombings. Florence will endure this challenge too and with time, perseverance and your support, our Fiorenza will flourish once more.
GET YOUR FREE DOWNLOAD OF HEALING NOT BROKEN, A SPECIAL ISSUE OF THE FLORENTINE.
