REVIEW: Florence: A Map of Perceptions

Florence: A Map of Perceptions
by Andrea Ponsi
(University of Virginia Press, $22.95)

For anyone who loves architecture and Italy (and who doesn’t) this is the perfect small gift. Ponsi is an architect who works in Florence and engages it as an artist. His sketches and watercolors enrich a personal account that addresses the historic monuments but, still more, the topography and textures of the city, its labyrinthine streets and Platonic geometries. You could use this pocket book as a guide, walking from one piazza to the next, climbing to a high terrace for a view over the city, and savoring the text on the same stone bench that Ponsi has frequented over the years. Or you could stay home, play a CD of Francesco Landini’s Renaissance ballads, and weave yourself into the fabric that the author describes with such intimate attention to detail. It’s a candid account of a city that has been repeatedly assaulted--by the devastation of war and the destructive flood of 1966, a ceaseless tide of tourists and traffic, and the plague of graffiti. But Ponsi convinces you to return and view the city anew through his eyes.