The first street on the left from Piazza del Duomo (today via Ricasoli) was called “Via del Cocomero” until 1847. The strange name, which for the Florentines indicates what throughout Italy is called “Watermelon”, is due to the large crops of watermelon and pumpkins that were from the cathedral to the field where there is…
The 40 degrees of this warm June remind us that many cold dishes are part of the Italian tradition and of some near countries that have always suffered for the high temperatures during summer. The cold dishes are important in the diet especially if are made with vegetables and legumes because they are rich in…
Florence Cathedral’s gnomon, whose name derives from Greek and stands for “indicator,” worked smoothly until the beginning of the 1500s, when, following the concern of any collapse of the Brunelleschi Dome, it started being used to monitor the stability of the church. Three centuries later, in 1754 Leonardo Ximenes (Jesuit priest and mathematician at the…