Franco Cardini

“Meanwhile, Florence was increasingly becoming, for different reasons that not were not foreign to one another nor opposed – artistic and cultural on the one hand and political on the other – the Mecca of travelers and foreign residents.”

“Florence had the Alberti fighting for freedom, but never had real Jacobins. It experienced the Viva Maria insurrections, but never really witnessed strong extremist passions. Using the comparison of the colours universally celebrated by Stendhal, we can say that the Florentine red rather resembled a pink and that the black looked more like a grey.”