F is for Florentine...not for Friendly.

Today was our first of two lectures on the history of Florence.  It is, of course, completely impossible to go through the history of this city in two hour and a half long lectures.  The idea is to provide us with some useful and necessary background information that will help put into context all of the other things we learn about Florence throughout our time here.  Our professor, Professore Franceschi, is a relaxed speaker.  I had no trouble at all following his Italian.  He is funny, easy going, and friendly.  He is not originally from Florence.  

From what I gather, there is a direct correlation between those last two sentences.

Professore Franceschi is originally from a very small town closer to the ocean (I don't remember the name).  He came to Florence for college, as many other Italians from smaller towns do.  He told us that it took him a year and a half to two years before he had any real Florentine friends.  He made friends easily with Italians from other parts of the country, and some international students, but the case was not the same with native Florentines.  This was the very first thing he said to us.

This was, coincidentally, shortly after two of my friends were telling me about a discussion they had recently over dinner with their host mother.  This woman, who has been hosting American students for almost twenty years, said that in all her time hosting people almost none of them successfully made friends outside of their classmates they arrived with.  She said that Florentines tend to be cold, exclusive.  She said that if you want to make friends with Italians, you  need to find people from down south because they are generally much warmer and a whole lot more friendly.

Clearly I need to go back to Naples.

From the way my professor put it, native Florentines tend to be very put off, or a little jaded, by the immense amount of tourists who come to the city every year.  Which I've been noticing.  There is a reason that so far in this blog I've spoken predominately about places and not people.  Because I've been waiting for the people to come around, to warm up.  They haven't.

So many of my attempts to speak Italian are rejected, and shopkeepers, waiters, whoever it may be, just respond in English.  They assume I am either a tourist or the stereotypical American student in Florence who simply comes here for four months with no knowledge of the language to take advantage of the younger drinking age.  I honestly expected my attempts to speak Italian to be welcomed and appreciated.  Refreshing, even!  So far this is not the case.    

Even the my host family is a lot different than the southern Italian families that I'm used to.  I have two  host brothers who I usually only see at dinner.  They don't talk much at the table except to (rudely) complain to their mother about what she made for dinner.  (Dinner, by the way, is eaten with the television on, and thus there is very little conversation).  The family doesn't seem to spend a lot of time together.  The living room is mostly unused because one of the host brothers (who is in med school) does all of his studying there, and the kitchen isn't really large enough to spend extended periods of time in.  My host dad is friendly, though he is out of the house a lot.  Luckily there is Lucrezia, my host mother.  She is a jewel.  Talkative, energetic, attentive and immensely friendly.  She is also from Calabria, so there you go.  

Fortunately, the professors that we have met during orientation have been exceptions.  I'm not surprised that Smith snatched them up, and I'm very thankful they did.  Today we went "in giro" with Costanza again, and she took us across the Arno to an area of the city that is much more authentic and has much fewer tourists.  Now that I know how to get there, I plan on going back to explore.  Hopefully the people there will be more willing to give me a chance.  I am staying optimistic as much as I can, though, and keeping an open mind.  

In other news, the Gucci and Ferragamo museums sadly did not permit photographs.  They were both exquisite, though, and I wish I could share it with you with more than just words.  If you've ever doubted that fashion can be and is art, then you need to take the time to visit these museums.  The exhibits were so thoughtful, so elegant, and very artistic.  The Gucci museum, or GucciMuseo, played with lights and sound.  In each room, the lights and sounds changed to match the mood of the pieces on display.  The Ferragamo museum is currently doing a tribute exhibit to Marilyn Monroe, who apparently was a faithful Ferragamo customer.  One room featured photographs she had posed for next to pieces of art from a variety of time periods (though all much before her time) that featured women in similar poses.  It was very interesting, and incredibly beautiful.  

On Sunday, I went for a walk, alone, without a real plan, just to see what I could see.  I ended up going to the Galleria degli Uffizi, or the Uffizi Gallery.  It is, simply put, an enormous art museum.  The building was begun by Giorgio Vasari for Cosimo de Medici.  Throughout the family's reign in Florence, they commissioned, bought and salvaged a lot of artwork.  Although the palace held offices of city magistrates, over time it became the location where the Medici family put much of this artwork on display.  In the will of the last reigning Medici family member, it was stated that all of the artwork the family had collected over the years stay in Florence, and be visible.  They kept true to their word, and hence today we have the Uffizi Gallery as we know it.  I must have been in there for nearly three hours, if not more, because there is just that much to see.  There are some incredibly important and famous pieces there, such as Botticelli's "La Primavera", Caravaggio's "Medusa", as well as works by Cimabue, Giotto, Da Vinci, Raphael and Michelangelo.  It was so beautiful, and very therapeutic, to just take my time in there.  I took as much time as I wanted for each and every thing that there was to see- something I couldn't have done had I gone with others.  It's something I definitely plan on doing again.

La Primavera

It is nearly impossible to pick a favorite piece, but I will say a little about one, which is "L'Incredulita` di San Tommaso" by Caravaggio.  Alfonso, my Italian professor at Smith, intellectual inspiration and all around favorite person on campus, showed us the painting in class, on slides.  But seeing it in person was a whole other story.  I love the painting because it grosses me out.  When I was standing there looking at Thomas touch the wound, I felt in my fingertips what I imagine the inside of a body would feel like: slimy and warm and alive, disgustingly intimate.  I was taken aback by it in class, but seeing the real thing in front of my face was an experience unlike one I've ever had before.   

    L'Incredulita` di San Tommaso

To close, I'd like to leave you with a quote I found on the back of an Italian novel I purchased this weekend called Va' dove ti porta il cuore (Go where the heart takes you).  I've been wanting to read a book in Italian, and as I was browsing through one of the bookstores I passed on my way to the Uffizi yesterday, this little passage caught my eye:

"Quando davanti a te si apriranno tante strade e non saprai quale prendere, non imboccarne una a caso, ma siediti e aspetta.  Stai ferma, in silenzio, e ascolta il tuo cuore.  Quando poi ti parla, alzati e va' dove lui ti porta."

Translation: When many roads appear before you and you don't know which one to take, don't head down just anyone, but sit and wait.  Stay still, in silence, and listen to your heart.  When your heart speaks to you, get up and go where he takes you.