Backstreets of Florence

Here is a favorite map, the one I used to navigate my way around Firenze when I was lucky enough to live there on and off over the course of a year and a half so long ago. I loved finding a little circle around Via D. Anguillara, where I shared an apartment just off of Piazza Santa Croce with a woman named Anna from Puglia.

Anna had a tiny red Fiat converted for hand controls to accommodate leg issues. She wore a cumbersome brace and preferred not to drive when possible. What fun I had buzzing around Florence in that car when we'd go out in the evening to meet friends. The steering wheel was the size of a dinner plate with extra rings around it for brakes and acceleration.

There was quite a community of Southern Italians and Siciliani in Florence, and they generously enveloped me into their lives for the time I was there. The old north/south tensions were alive and well then and I imagine there is still a lot of that snobbery and racism even now. It was particularly alarming to see how African Americans were treated in Italy. How could such loving people be so prejudiced over the color of skin?

I loved the apartment on Via D. Anguillara. I would sit and write at the kitchen table hour after hour and then go out and walk the city when construction workers came to work on the outside of the apartment. The building was under renovation, and the fascade was draped in heavy netting over the staging so that bits of plaster wouldn't fall on pedestrians below. It was like being inside a giant screened tent.

Piazza Santa Croce was just a stone's throw away and a perfect destination in the evening for people-watching. Grandfathers would bring children by the hand for games of soccer and feeding the pigeons while old women gathered to sit and talk about their days. At the end of the day the Piazza gave up its tourists and turned into a neighborhood meeting place.

Anna worked at the Uffizi and I was able to get in free through the staff entrance. I got to know some of the other guards as well, and this is how I came to find myself on behind-the-scenes tours not only of the Uffizi but the Palazzo Vecchio nearby. The network of old hallways and passageways was amazing, and I loved sneaking through these secret places.