This is Florence

104 Pages·1954·10.073 MB·English

by  Benno Premsela, Cas Oorthuys

OF THE WORLD
HARRY N. ABRAMS, INC. • NEW YORK

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CONTACT PHOTO BOOKS OF THE WORLD
FLORENCE
Already published:
AUSTRIA
BELGIUM
THE FRENCH RIVIERA
HOLLAND
LONDON
PARIS
ROME
SPAIN
In preparation
JUGOSLAVIA
English translation by Cleves Marett
World copyright by Contact - Amsterdam
Printed in The Netherlands
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CONTACT PHOTO BOOKS
OF THE WORLD
This
is
FLORENCE
Photographs by Cas Oorthuys
Text by Be?7no Premsela
HARRY N. ABRAMS, INC.
NEW YORK
\ • . \
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IN TUSCANY, SO APTLY CALLED THE GARDEN OF
Italy, under the blazing sun, a city lies within a circle of green
hills. To the unprepared traveller, discovering it unexpectedly,
this city seems at first no different from any other Italian town.
In its narrow streets, hemmed in by tall buildings, children play
among the rubbish, workmen busily raise scaffolding around a
half-ruined statue, and a peasant drinks his wine in a little cafe,
a trattoria on the street corner, where the crumbling weather-
beaten walls show how the cityhas grown. A little further on, in
a wide square, the sun lights up the marble front of an old
house; well dressed young men lounge on the cafe terraces or
lean over the parapet of the bridge spanning the temporarily
dried up river bed. A car roars past a donkey cart whose driver
has fallen asleep. In the main street smart young girls are
shopping, duly accompanied by their mothers, and tourists hunt
for picture postcards and souvenirs.
Against the picturesque stone walls of a palace facade a flower
seller spreads his fragrant wares: roses, gardenias, Parma
violets Are these the same flowers, perhaps, that adorned a
. . .
chance discovered cloister or bloomed on some altar in the
twilight of a forgotten chapel?
Behind this commonplace appearance Florence reveals itself to
be a wonderful town, full of surprises and unexpected possibili-
ties. It is a town where one can feel both—free and yet carried
away by the current of daily happenings a town to be left
only with the firm determination to return.
For many travellers, however, the first sight of Florence and a
walk through its streets is no unexpected discovery but rather
a joyful recognition. Florence had existed for them long before
they ever caught sight of the cathedral dome silhouetted against
the deep blue sky, before ever they stood on the banks of the
Arno. To them it seems quite natural to find the right churches
in the right place, the statues in their rightful niches, and the
paintings in the museums hanging where they belong. Yet the
town is a new experience even for these already initiated
wanderers: so many of its aspects differ from what has been
anticipated. It is necessary to stand in the Medici Chapel in
order to understand it, to contemplate Fra Angelico's paintings
before loving them and to see the Battistero in order to admire
it. By such a process we are conquered a second time, and this
time forever.
The city forms a natural background to the daily life of its
inhabitants, who have grown up in the midst of these beloved,
admirable things, and it even plays an important part in their
lives. It is obvious to every Florentine that their city is the
loveliest spot on earth because so many foreigners come to see
it. Once assured of an appreciative audience, why should a
citizen of Florence not go on talking about his town, spinning
wondrous tales about Ginevra, who rose from the dead, about
Dante and his banishment, and about Ghiberti's golden
Paradise doors?
All those who have once visited Florence and had to leave it
long to return to the life and beauty so closely interwoven with
the pattern of this small town.