The Case for Florence (Context City of Literature 2011)
Continuing the search for Context City of Literature 2011, docent Kristin Stasiowski gives the arguments for Florence…
If it is true that you cannot have history until you have writing, than it is true that you cannot speak of writing without speaking of Florence.
In the 13th century, Florence welcomed the birth of her most erudite and inspired son: the poet Dante Alighieri. Written in the Tuscan vernacular, his Divina Commedia not only resurrected interest in great classical authors such as Virgil, it would serve as a model for generations of writers from Boccaccio, whose Decameron became the defining text of the Black Death, to T.S. Eliot, who would later say that: “Dante and Shakespeare divide the world between them, there is no third.”
Florence continued to inspire a veritable library of world-class writers including Francesco Petrarca whose Canzoniere, Secretum, and Triumphs earned him the title “Father of Humanism.” Renaissance humanism following Petrarca flourished as other artists, architects and thinkers committed their genius to vellum: Leon Battista Alberti instructed in his work De Pictura; Pico della Mirandola taught of human dignity with De hominis dignitate; poet Angelo Poliziano praised Lorenzo de’ Medici with his Le Stanze and poet Luigi Pulci entertained with his chivalric tale, Il Morgante. Benvenuto Cellini wrote an acclaimed autobiography, La Vita; Michelangelo wrote poetry. Amerigo Vespucci was in Florence when he wrote of the New World in his Mundus Novus.
And it was in Florence that the study of art as history began with Giorgio Vasari’s Le Vite, which chronicled the lives of all the artists. The study of math and science was born with Galileo Galilei, who wrote the Sidereus Nuncius. And the study of political science began with Niccolò Macchiavelli’s Il Principe. (Machiavelli also wrote La Mandragola, which inaugurated the beginning of writing for the theatre.)
Aspiring authors considered traveling through Florence’s hallowed and storied walls as a right of passage to joining the literary elite. Alessandro Manzoni knew that he would not be thought of as a serious writer unless he came to Florence to finish what became the first Italian novel, I Promessi Sposi. Mark Twain felt the same way when he came to write The Innocents Abroad. From James Fenimore Cooper to Ralph Waldo Emerson; Nathaniel Hawthorne to Henry James; Herman Melville to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Sinclair Lewis, writers across the globe sought inspiration and immortality from the fountain of Florence’s majestic literary history. Even Dostoevsky was smart enough come to Florence to write The Idiot.
Yet others found fame in Florence without the need for words. Filippo Tommaso Marinetti’s Futurist movement proclaimed independence from structured, repressive linguistic forms and conventions and welcomed speed, dynamism and freedom. His famous manifesto Parole in Liberta’ (words in freedom) became the war cry of a new generation of poets and artists filling Florentine literary cafes from 1909 until the First World War.
There are many cities that may boast of their literary pedigree, yet none can match the literary achievement of Florence; the depth and breadth of her contribution to the pantheon of world literature spans nearly every age and genre. For these, and many other reasons too many to list, Florence is the primus inter pares of all literary cities and the beginning and end of all creative journeys that culminate in a vision of the stars. — Kristin Stasiowski.
Posted by Rob
Rob Redman is the founder of publishing house The Fiction Desk, where he edits a quarterly series of short fiction anthologies. Rob is guest-editing the Context Blog throughout October, as we investigate the connections between travel and literature.
October 24th, 2011 under Books & Literature, Florence, Literary City Special.
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It’s obvious that Florence should win, and I find that Kristin’s essay is excellently explaining why.
Comment by Marcello Fantoni — October 24, 2011 @ 7:25 pm
Kristin’s essay really makes the case that Florence be selected as the Context City of Literature.
Comment by Joan Tomaceski — October 24, 2011 @ 7:58 pm
Kristin Stasiowski provides a great essay dealing with the fact that Florence should win. And plus, as Marcello put it, it’s Florence of course she should win.
Comment by Jacqueline Coblentz — October 25, 2011 @ 12:08 am
Kristin makes an excellent case that Florence should be selected. Florence is definitely the Context City of Literature!
Comment by Emily de Lacoste — October 25, 2011 @ 12:20 am
Kristin’s precise and inspiring essay is enough to make me want to get on a plane and start writing in Florence tomorrow.
Comment by Andy Bly — October 25, 2011 @ 1:16 am
Kristin has that rare gift of an ability to inspire others to learn more about their history and surroundings. She brings literature to life in the most approachable and charming of ways. Florence opens its rich and storied doors when Kristin speaks about Dante and his presence there. She then weaves in the many other esteemed authors from every discipline for your edification. You are left with an eagerness to learn more because of the glimpse she has given you. Florence has been a veritable hotbed of genius in every humanitarian realm, all preserved through world class writing and significant works of art and architecture.
Comment by Anita Elder — October 25, 2011 @ 1:33 pm
Of course it is Florence is the most literary city. All Kristin needed to write to illustrate this was, “Dante”. Still, her argument is more than persuasive through and through. Florence is the past, present and future of literature.
Comment by Ashley — October 25, 2011 @ 11:53 pm
Kristin’s essay perfectly explains why Florence should be selected as the Context City of Literature.
Comment by Elicia Carter — October 26, 2011 @ 4:10 am
Florence is the city of art, not literature! Arguably, Florence was not a safe place for writers at all. Even though great writers may have been born in or associated with Florence, Dante, Petrarca, Machiavelli etc., they didn’t always write there. It’s almost the opposite of London, where great writers took refuge to produce some of the world’s greatest books. Perhaps this tension between London and Florence shows the difference between the power of the written word and the beauty of painting and the visual arts in general.
Comment by Jonathan Cooper — October 26, 2011 @ 1:08 pm
As Kristin has so articulately stated, Florence is the fons et origo of great literature and has been a source of inspiration for writers throughout history. We simply would not have had the revival of the ancient classics or the continued interest in expert writing without this wondrous city. Kristin has presented a very sound argument, and I could not agree more that Florence is indisputably the most literary city.
Comment by Rachael Mundie — October 26, 2011 @ 1:27 pm
I wholeheartedly agree with Jonathan.
Both Florence and London are wonderfully creative cities who should be very proud of what they’ve given the world. Relatively speaking, Florence’s contribution to art and architecture far dwarfs that of its literature. The opposite is true for London. Therefore, when the two perennial cities are compared on who burns brighter in the literary department, I must say London emerges as the clear winner.
Comment by Ismail Elshareef — October 26, 2011 @ 2:44 pm
Ok, so the London argument may be longer and may identify more authors. However, I was unaware that this was a lightning round of name dropping. I thought this debate went deeper, to the quality of literature and its foundation. Yes, London puts forth a great argument, but where would London be without Florence?
As evidenced through Kristin’s compelling, clear, and concise dissertation, Florence founded literature and provided the very building blocks on which London claims its excellence. Further, as native English speakers, we are obviously biased to an English city because that is within our comfort zone and within our immediate access. To truly articulate what city should claim the crown of the most literary, we must set aside our biases and examine the claims as set forth here. Florence is clearly the winner.
Comment by plato — October 26, 2011 @ 7:56 pm
Kristin has made a beautiful and compelling argument as to why Florence should be selected as the Context City of Literature.
Comment by Renee Laegreid — October 26, 2011 @ 8:12 pm
While I am a firm believer that, in relation to the other arts—literature, theatre, music–the visual arts obey their own rules of form and follow their own developments, that is, have their own history of growth and change, it seems to be an inescapable conclusion to me that the history of much of the art produced in Florence is tied in with scholarly developments there. And the scholarly developments in Florence are chiefly literary. Literature and scholarship go hand in hand. As much as Dante was a great poet, he was a brilliant theologian. As much as Petrarch and Boccaccio were great poets and writers, they were keen students of antiquity. The very notion of a Rinascimento, of a Renaissance, is premised on the reconquest of antique learning. And the learned scholars who recovered antique knowledge were also great writers. Florence is a center of Renaissance learning; their intense inquiry into and revival of Greek philosophy and literature in the 15th century went on to change the whole course of European culture. The visual arts were a happy benefactor of this scholarly, literary endeavor. It is impossible to not think of Florence as a major literary center. Kristin’s essay mentions the most eminent luminaries of literature in Florence, to which could be added a host of others, such as Leonardo Bruni, Matteo Palmieri, Gianozzo Manetti.
Comment by Gustav Medicus — October 26, 2011 @ 8:28 pm
Florence is the cradle of the Italian language, which as the gateway into the realms of art, design, music, manners, cuisine, film, and fashion. Unlike other languages, Italian was created, not born–with words carefully chosen by the Renaissance wordsmiths who called themselves “Crusconi” and chose the most beautiful words of Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio as the basis for modern Italian. “La bella lingua” could only have been created in Florence, and Context Travel’s city of literature can only be Florence.
Comment by Dianne Hales — October 27, 2011 @ 5:28 am
Plato puts the analytical framework for why, ultimately, London is the literary capital of the world. It is disingenuous to suggest that literature, as we understand it, emerged from Florence. Whilst a handful of Florentine writers have produced world-class literary works, the idea that, because those authors somehow rediscovered the great Classical writings and reinvented them for the Renaissance world, the city of Florence deserves the literary mantle cannot be right. In fact this is an argument for Rome or Athens as the true inventors of literature, even the great Arab cities where Aristotle et al were first rediscovered, not Florence. London has consistently reinvented literary genres since, at the very least, the 14th century, and it continues to do so. Its literary output has ultimately informed the entire world. Florentine writing peaked around the early Renaissance, but in all honesty has produced little of note since. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m struggling to think of a great Italian writer of the 20th century, for example, who was Florentine, even if the language they used (Italian) is derived from Tuscan.
Comment by Jonathan Cooper — October 27, 2011 @ 9:41 am
Florence may soon boast of another great writer – Kristin! What more could possibly be added to her argument that Florence is deserving of the honor of literary capital of the world? Florence continues to inspire the most creative among us, as it has for countless centuries…
Comment by Gene Finn — November 9, 2011 @ 2:05 pm