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Article: They came for the art Ian Thomson on the lure of Florence for would-be artists and aesthetes
- Article from:
- The Sunday Telegraph London
- Article date:
- May 26, 2002
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 2002 The Sunday Telegraph London. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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Florence, A Delicate Case
by David Leavitt
Bloomsbury, pounds 9.99, 176 pp
pounds 9.99 ( pounds 1.99 p&p) 0870 155 7222
FLORENCE, THE glittering birthplace of the Renaissance, is dying,
according to David Leavitt in this short study of the city's
expatriate life and literature. The days when Victorian sightseers
toured the Uffizi with copies of Walter Pater and Ruskin are over.
Now chemicals seep noxiously into the River Arno, and Coke cans
litter the streets. In 1985 Sir Harold Acton, the self-styled
aesthete who lived outside Florence, deplored the "atmosphere of
weekend Surrey" that had descended on the Florentine countryside. It
is nicknamed Chiantishire.
The Tuscan capital has always ...