Florence: A Portrait

by Michael Levey

http://amazon.com/dp/0712673105

The usual tourist group’s stay in Florence begins with the Duomo, runs through the paintings in the Uffizi, includes a visit to Michaelangelo’s “David” and ends with a parade through a handful of churches. But the visitor who first reads Sir Michael Levey’s portrait of the city will find rewards off that well-worn track. The city, a self-styled “new Athens” supported a wealth of artists, sculptors, humanists, and scholars, not to mention more than its share of wealthy individuals, who taken together, helped turn Florence into one of the world’s great provincial outposts. Layering telling details, little-known facts and carefully explained social and intellectual history, Levey weaves a dense tale of this charming city, from the Middle Ages to the Quattrocento, through the Renaissance and on up to the early years of this century.