First Published in 1968, People of Florence raises the question what makes a city? This is neither a guidebook nor a typical sociological treatise, but the portrait of a people. Trinkets of history are lightly painted in to give background to what the author calls ‘locality’: Florence of today as formed by her past and by the physical conditions of Tuscany. Two principal chapters are intimately concerned with the flood of 1966. The author also takes us through the relation between the individual liberties in Florence and the bureaucratic controls of the Government in Rome, along with the architecture, art, music, theatre, song birds, flowers, trees, food and drink, public ceremonies, games, ancient rites, and human stories. This book will be an interesting read for scholars and researchers of sociology, urban history, social anthropology, cultural studies and for general readers interested to know about Florence.
Author’s Preface 1. Illustrious but Dead 2. ‘O Sole Splendido!’ 3. View from a Hill 4. The Fireflies 5. Abundance 6. How to Drive a Car in This Country 7. Spirit and Locality 8. Florentines on Florentines 9. To Touch a Donatello 10. L’ Impruneta 11. Going to School 12. Concerning Forest Fires 13. Tale of a Tuscan Garden 14. Florentine Food and Drink 15. An Egg and a Leg 16. Spring 17. A Chapter on Games 18. The Alpini Invasion 19. The Small Streets 20. Houses Under the Soil 21. High Summer 22. Panache of a Beggar 23. A Very Brief History of the Florentine Theatre 24. The Car of Thespis 25. Eyewitness of the Pact of Twinship 26. British Week 27. Rome 28. A Sackful of Sand 29. The Coming of the Mud 30. City to City 31. The New Generation Envoy Booklist Appendix: The Italian Police System Index
Biography
Joseph Macleod
