Product Description

Artist, Lisa McGarry has captured the essence of her adopted city Florence through an intimate exploration of twelve of her favourite piazzas. McGarry's evocative narrative weaves together history, art, architecture and the colourful cast of characters she meets during her daily excursions around the city. Original watercolour maps beautifully illustrate each piazza and the landmarks within.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #219292 in Books
• Published on: 2008-05-19
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 240 pages

About the Author
Author, Lisa McGarry is an artist and art teacher who runs a specialist travel service from her home in Florence.

Customer Reviews

Understanding & appreciating a city through a book....
I read about this book in a blog I follow, written by a woman who actually lives in Florence herself, loves her adopted city, and recommended it. It's a beautiful book on several levels. First as a physical object. It's beautifully made. You just want to hold it in your hands and enjoy doing so. Second, it's beautifully written--subjectivity with knowledge and thought. And then there's Florence. If you've read some history of Florence before, this will supply what history can't, or if you haven't, after this, you will want to. In either case, this will be a book to come back to. Because, after all the history, you just really want to understand what it's like.

Florence, here we come!
If this book doesn't inspire you to hop on the next flight to the Renaissance city of Florence, nothing will. Lisa McGarry is an American who has spent a good deal of her life living in faraway places - as a child in Brazil, as a student in Belgium, Singapore and Hong Kong. But she has found her true home in Florence where she lives with her daughter in the very center of this beautiful city. Her understanding and her love for this city are apparent in each chapter as she takes us around the city, from piazza to piazza offering her own insight into the aged paving stones and moss covered buildings that surround each special place.

Florence has literally dozens of piazzas, some monumental, some intimate, some exhibiting treasures of medieval and renaissance architecture, some a bit shabby. McGarry has given us a baker's dozen of her favourites and it is hard to argue with her selections. Of course she includes the standard stops on a tourist itinerary - Piazza del Duomo, Piazza della Republica, Piazza della Signoria. But she treats us to a couple of out-of-the way places, too. It seems that the piazza and church of Santo Spirito is one of her favourites, as is a wide spot in a nearby side street, the Piazza della Passera.

Of course, McGarry's insight and verbal vignettes are an integral part of this book, but possibly the most useful aspect are the beautiful hand-drawn plans of each piazza. It is here that her training as an architect is most apparent. Drawn in the rich terra cotta tones reminiscent of the roofs of the buildings surround each piazza, she points out the many attractions offered by each piazza, from the monumental buildings to the quiet cafes to the best place for an ice cold gelato.

If there are a couple of suggestions for an eventual future edition, I would have liked the maps to be a bit larger in format, and possibly a few more of the author's photos. The larger format book might not have fit so conveniently into the tourist's backpack, but this book is not a travel guide per se; it is really the author's personal story of her discovery and love affair with this most charming of Italian cities. It is not aimed at the "36 hour, two nights and three days" tourist; rather a traveler, armchair or otherwise, who truly searches for an insider's insight will find this charming little book a source to be treasured over the years.

If this indeed was the target, McGarry seems to have hit it right on the head.

A inspiring read, very enjoyable book
I bought this book to take with me on holidays, so glad I did, can't imagine anywhere else I would rather have read this book. It was really easy to read and found myself in all the places McGarry was describing, it's so nice to read a reveiw of a city from the eyes of someone who lives there, I especially liked the way she describes the smells, the people and the colours. After reading the book I feel as though I may have to go and sample Florence for myself and I should have to visit the cafe she describes so vividly to meet some of those people she talks about.
I could definately tell that McGarry has a distinct flair for this kind of writing, the book just simply flows from page to page making it impossible to set down. It was a very pleasing tale of history & geography all rolled into one. The maps are very descriptive & simple to follow.
I also enjoyed the cover, the book is a lovely size as well, very easy to hold, highly recommend this book to all.