Peter

Florence Reflections

First, I am grateful that AIFS encouraged us to think of ourselves as residents of this great city, not as tourists. We walked these streets, shopped in local stores, bargained with vendors, enjoyed gelato, and gradually began to feel like Florentines. Soon all the visitors began to look like tourists to us.

What I also noticed is the past here is all around us. As William Faulkner liked to say, history is never over; it is not even past. The Etruscans live on in their artistic talents, their love of living well, and in their aesthetic refinement. The Italians still display these attributes in their food, in their design language, and in their general gracious sophistication in everyday living.

But the Romans live on, too. They are here in their siting of the city along the Arno, in the Piazza de Repubblica, the original forum of the city, and in the outlines of its ancient walls. Rome lives on in the rediscovery and reclamation of Classical civilization in the Renaissance, and in the Roman arch used in so many buildings. It also lives on in the assertion of power and prestige displayed in Florence’s civic institutions.

Dante walked these streets, as well, before he was made an exile from this city he loved so much. He glowers down from us at the Santa Croce church, reminding us that we each will have to answer someday to God as our judge. But he also points us towards the hope of new life in us, if only we would work with God instead of against the Almighty’s purposes for us.

I wonder how all this vast amount of religious art, inspired by a fervent faith and the greatest need, and supported as a virtual civic duty by the city’s wealthy patrons, affects people, especially all the secular ones or those with another religious faith. Do they gaze on uncomprehending? Do they see something similar to their own religious beliefs? Do they just shrug? Do they only see it as art? Or perhaps does a seed of faith get planted, in secret, in everyone who looks upon some great altarpiece, fresco, or statue created by these immortal artists?

As I watched the fireworks on the festival of St. John the Baptist, patron saint of Florence, the civic pride of the Florentines impressed me. They are very aware of the great cultural patrimony of their city, yet they seem at ease with it and quietly proud of it, too. They know there is nothing like their city for the staggering amount of superlative art here. No wonder so many people come and never leave. In its own way, Florence is quietly seductive.

Travel is now the world’s biggest industry. With an expanding middle class across the world, particularly because of China and India, more people are traveling than ever. Why do we do this? Maybe it is our innate curiosity as a species. But travel can be exasperating at times, as everyone who has traveled some knows. So why keep at it? I think for the inner transformation it can bring us. Travel gets you out of yourself. You begin to look at things from another point of view and realize that there are many different ways for people to live, and more things to live for, than you realized. The complexity of the human experience, then, emerges. We lose our provincialism. (I believe we Americans also lose our defensive superiority.) Compassion, respect, understanding, and even wisdom start to grow in us, as we come to appreciate the achievements of our ancestors and other societies.