{"id":3373,"date":"2014-07-24T15:17:52","date_gmt":"2014-07-24T13:17:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rickzullo.com\/?p=3373"},"modified":"2020-10-03T02:53:20","modified_gmt":"2020-10-03T00:53:20","slug":"italian-literature-discovering-gold-florence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/italian-literature-discovering-gold-florence\/","title":{"rendered":"Italian Literature and Discovering Gold in Florence"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Italian<\/a>In the spring of 1348, ten young Florentines gathered in the Piazza of Santa Maria Novella to plan their escape from the city.\u00a0 Florence was caught in the grip of The Black Death, and so they thought ten days\u00a0spent in the verdant hills outside of town would be a good way to pass the time while the plague had its way with their fellow citizens.\u00a0 There would be tales of tragedy, trickery, and eroticism, along with plenty of teasing and flirting.\u00a0 The little stories that these fictional characters told each other became the collection known as \u201cDecameron,\u201d by Giovanni Boccaccio, a classic of Italian literature.<\/p>\n

Fast forward to the spring of 2014 and I\u2019m sitting in the very same square, waiting to meet my friend and tour guide, Elena.\u00a0 She is going to lead me on a walking tour of her native city and show me some of the highlights, including those connected to classic Italian literature, of which I have a particular interest.\u00a0 Back in Florida, I have a degree in Italian Studies awaiting just two more courses to complete my diploma.\u00a0 The class in Medieval and Renaissance literature was my favorite to date, and so I was anxious to visit the actual sites where literary history took place in Florence.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

On her website, Florence with a Flair<\/a>, Elena offers many specialized tours, including a visit to Dante\u2019s neighborhood.\u00a0 If you\u2019re not into Dante the way I am, she also offers artisan tours, garden tours, food tours, wine tours, and of course the more standard itineraries which include the top sites and museums.\u00a0 Florence is compact, but there\u2019s A LOT to see, so a good tour guide is essential to make the most of your visit to la culla del Rinascimento,<\/em> the Cradle of the Renaissance.<\/p>\n

Italian Literature in Florence<\/h2>\n

Our first stop in Dante\u2019s neighborhood was the Chiesa di Santa Margherita de\u2019 Cerchi<\/em> where Dante first encountered Beatrice, the woman who would become his life-long muse.\u00a0 The church is remarkable for its small size and historical significance, but otherwise there isn\u2019t much to see or do here except channel your inner Poet and find inspiration from the walls themselves.<\/p>\n

Dante is, of course, the best known figure in classic Italian literature, but he wasn\u2019t its creator.\u00a0 In fact, Italian literature didn\u2019t even start in Tuscany\u2014it started in Sicily during the reign of Federico II during the first half of the 1200\u2019s.\u00a0 Federico himself was quite a poet, speaking six languages (Latin, Sicilian, German, French, Greek and Arabic) and promoting the popular style of literature among his noble class, which was a Sicilian take on the proven\u00e7al style.\u00a0 They wrote for pleasure, to entertain themselv\"Italianes, engaging in competitions to see who could pen the most obscure, artistic love poems.<\/p>\n

It was a\u00a0Tuscan merchant from Lucca, Bonagiunta Orbicciani, who brought some manuscripts from Sicily to Tuscany, which marks the beginning of the Tuscan School of Italian literature in the second half of the 1200\u2019s.\u00a0 These new literary works were still love poems, like the Sicilian School, but were more direct and literal, and of course incorporated the Tuscan language of the day.<\/p>\n

The final evolution, where we at last meet up our friend Dante, was called \u201cIl Dolce Stil Novo,\u201d<\/em> or The Sweet New Style of writing.\u00a0 This group of writers held fast to their beliefs that love and a gentle heart is what brings a man closer to the Divine.\u00a0 It does NOT depend on noble lineage.\u00a0 This was key, because it was Dante who brought literature to the masses by writing his masterpiece, The Divine Comedy, in the vulgar dialect of the people instead of Latin.<\/p>\n

Just around the corner from Beatrice\u2019s Church is the Museum of Dante\u2019s House<\/a>.\u00a0 Well, sort of.\u00a0 According to the best documents, this is the street address where Dante was born.\u00a0 However the current building is only 100 years old.\u00a0 Still, for only 4\u20ac it\u2019s worth an hour\u2019s visit for anyone interested in Dante and the history of Italian literature.<\/p>\n

Gold artisans<\/h2>\n

The last stop on our tour<\/a> was the workshop of a traditional goldsmith, who, unlike those high-priced hucksters on the Ponte Vecchio, is still more interested in his art than his \u201cbusiness.\u201d\u00a0 Elena introduced me to Paolo, who is technically retired, but loves his craft so much that he still works a few days a week at Nerdi Orafi on the ground floor of\u00a0<\/span>Casa Artigiana dell Orafo<\/span>. \u00a0He’s an artisan in the truest sense of the word.\u00a0 I\u2019m not sure exactly how old he is, but he shows you his studio and his tools with the enthusiasm of a child showing you their Christmas toys.\u00a0 He demonstrated some of his techniques for me, such as carving a mold out of a squid bone and creating wax models of intricate pieces of jewelry.<\/p>\n

\"goldsmiths<\/a><\/p>\n

The experience evoked my days as a young dental student in Chicago when we used our own hands to sculpt tiny objects out of wax, and then cast them in gold the very same way as my new friend in Florence.\u00a0 In fact, I once made a gold ring for my mother using the exact\u00a0technique as Paolo uses.\u00a0 He then introduced me to an even older method when the spring-loaded casting arm was preceded by a device similar to a sling, where the molten metal was spun around by a cord, using the centrifugal force to shoot the liquid gold into the void left by the melted wax.<\/p>\n

\"Florence<\/a>
High water line from flood of 1966<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The studio isn\u2019t so easy to find, tucked into an alley near the river and within shouting distance from the tourists on Ponte Vecchio who are overpaying for their gold souvenirs.\u00a0 This location was ground zero for the 1966 flood that buried Florence<\/a> in mud and destroyed many of its artistic treasures.\u00a0 On the wall of their shop, there is a mark to represent the high water line from that dreadful day.\u00a0 The goldsmiths, however, are still there.\u00a0 Go see them at work if you\u2019re in the area.<\/p>\n

When visiting Florence it can be tempting to just head to the main sites, especially when buzzing through town on a tour de force.\u00a0 Incredibly, some people nowadays even consider Florence as a day trip from Rome.\u00a0 What a shame. \u00a0 There\u2019s so much to see in this Renaissance city beyond the Uffizi and David.\u00a0 Michelangelo has been dead for over 450 years, but there are many talented artists still at work in Florence, keeping the spirit of the Renaissance alive today. \u00a0The museums are incredible, but this is the real experience. \u00a0Slow down and check it out for yourself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Italian Literature started in Sicily, but found it’s highest expression in the Renassaince city of Florence with Dante, Petrarca, and Boccaccio. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3376,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[263,42],"tags":[267,268,265,264,266,269,385,270],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3373"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3373\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}