The story flows through the present and past. First, a recounting of the wealthy English that chose to take refuge in Florence in the late 19th century, some of them running away from the Labouchere Amendment, a law put in place to prosecute homosexuals easily. Florence stayed a refuge for expatriates until World War II, with the English recreating England in Italy. A chapter on the moving of the statue of David and one on the fate of the bridges over the Arno during the same war. Interesting facts, all very well documented. A reading that opens on others.
“One of the girls, whose parents had a house in Chianti, complained that when she tried to speak Italian to “the peasants”, she could not understand their replies “because they haven’t got any teeth”. What she might actually have been hearing was the famous aspirated ‘C’ of Florence, which turns the word casa (house), for example, into “has”. A drollery in the rest of Italy is to go up to a Florentine in a bar and ask him to order “a Coca-Cola with a short straw”. (Una Hoha-Hola hon un hannuccia horta.)”