It's late summer, unseasonably hot, and I'm amidst the clamoring crowds walking toward Ponte Vecchio on via Por Santa Maria. It's dusk, and for some reason the sun seems to strike harder upon going down. I need a refuge. Instead of following the map-wielding, chatty crowds,
It is just before noon on a bright and clear Wednesday afternoon, and I am on the hunt for a new street. Crossing Piazza della Repubblica with five potentials scrawled on an index card, I suddenly realize I need lunch-and fast. I have only so much time, so I
It has become a habit for me, but one that always comes as a surprise: when walking toward Piazza della Repubblica from via del Corso, I sense something extraordinary ...
It is a very ordinary street in Florence, via Sant'Agostino. Some may say it's dirty, or even unpleasant. Graffiti is scrawled on nearly every wall, outdated posters look like they've been scratched at, and the stones on the street could use some repair. Cars and bikes roar
It's one of the most dramatic stories from fifteenth-century Florence. In 1478, the Pazzi, a well-established Florentine banking family, with support from Pope Sixtus IV, the king of Naples, and the archbishop of Pisa, and others, hatched a plot so daring as to almost appear ridiculous: to