Victim of its own mythology, for Florence modernization was traumatic. Cresti reconstructs this story, all the way to more recent events.
[Florence, that capital that wasn’t. Architecture and city from the Poggi Plan to today] Carlo Cresti, the author, defines the situation of the transfer of the capital of Italy to Florence as a “non-luminous meteor”; many of the causes that contributed to form the destiny of this unique city, in the 1800s and 1900s, can be traced back to these events. Victim of its own cherished mythology, for Florence the process of modernization was traumatic. Cresti reconstructs this story, all the way to recent events. He identifies the main features of the process, drawing a map around it with an intricate connective tissue. A tale that rejects schematic methods, grasping the overlapping perspectives of urban history. The modernization of Florence is marked by insuperable uncertainty, reflecting the city’s suspicion and reticence regarding the contemporary world. A pendulum movement that paces its history. Wavering between opposing extremes of innovation and conservation, the pendulum seems to move on shifted planes, never making a connection between the two poles. Austere, protected by its glorious past, but one that casts a long shadow, Florence has ingested the poison of modernization without finding any effective antidote.