Quotes About Florence

The only place I've ever been where people were as proud about their city as people are in Chicago is Florence, Italy, where I lived for three years.

I was brought up in Florence, a beautiful medieval town whose rhythm is completely in antiquity.

Imagine a pair of woman's lips," Mogor whispered, "puckering for a kiss. That is the city of Florence, narrow at the edges, swelling at the center, with the Arno flowing through between, parting the two lips, the upper and the lower. The city is an enchantress. When it kisses you, you are lost, whether you be commoner or king.

As her time in Florence drew to a close she was only at ease amongst those to whom she felt indifferent.

Now it is all dark. Now Beauty and Passion seem never to have existed. I know. But remember the mountains over Florence and the view...

M]en were not gods after all, but as human and clumsy as girls; even men might suffer from unexplained desires, and need help... the weakness of men was a truth unfamiliar, but she had surmised it at Florence.

In Florence, classical buildings sit against medieval buildings. It's that contrast we like.

It was weird at Fiorentina, because I wouldn't sign a contract and commit, so they played somebody else. But I definitely think it was still a good move and living in Florence was probably one of the best times of my life.

I love Manchester, but I would like to have a getaway place in Florence.

Florence Nightingale. She is one of the most dynamic social entrepreneurs in history.

At 18 I wanted to study art history in Florence. I think I just fancied myself as Sophia Loren, wearing a foxy dress and walking through a market with a basket bursting full of figs.

My family grew up in Florence. There I became what I am now, and those are things that cannot be forgotten.

Before about 1800, only two important attempts were made to establish income taxes—one in Florence during the fifteenth century, and the other in France during the eighteenth. Generally speaking, both represented efforts by grasping rulers to mulct their subjects.

I've always considered Florence as my girlfriend. I don't have to explain my love for this city.

In Paris, you learn wit, in London you learn to crush your social rivals, and in Florence you learn poise.

I got married in Florence, Italy. My husband and I were in love but totally broke, so we eloped and got married in Italy, where he was going on a business trip. We had to pull a guy off the street to be our witness. It was incredibly romantic. Florence is still one of my favorite cities in the world.

The Nile has long nourished women and men alike. On the Nile and the magical, river-island Temple of Philae, Florence Nightingale was so inspired that she resolved to follow her calling in nursing.

Florence's scribes, scholars, and booksellers were at the forefront of a revolution in knowledge.

The Street of Booksellers, Via dei Librai, ran through the heart of Florence, midway between the town hall to the south and the cathedral to the north.

At the end of 1445, as winter gripped the Tuscan hills, Vespasiano departed for Lucca, forty-five miles to the west of Florence. His bona fides declared him the procuratore, or agent, of Cosimo de' Medici.34 This position was bound to open doors, and he was welcomed into the finest home in Lucca, that of Michele Guinigi.

One day during Holy Week around the year 1400 Niccoli had gathered with some friends at his elegant home. One of his guests was Leonardo Bruni, a literary scholar and translator who would later write up the conversation of that day. Bruni was destined to become one of the most celebrated and influential of all of Florence's lovers of wisdom. He had been born about 1370 in Arezzo, the birthplace of Petrarch

In Florence, more than anywhere else, large numbers of people could read and write, as many as seven in every ten adults. The literacy levels of other European cities, by contrast, languished at less than 25 percent.

The Black Death was a faithful visitor to Florence. It arrived, on average, once every ten years, always in the summer.

Finally, then, I conclude with an iconic image of that foundational reconciliation from the later fourth century. It is a bronze hanging lamp from the villa of the aristocratic Valerii on the Celian Hill in Rome, now preserved in the National Archaeological Museum in Florence. The lamp is shaped like a boat. Peter is seated in the stern at the tiller. Paul is standing in the prow looking forward. Peter steers. Paul guides. And the boat sails full before the wind.