Vasco Pratolini was born in Florence, in via de’ Magazzini, on October 19, 1913. Via de’ Magazzini is a narrow and long street, like all those in medieval Florence. From the majestic Piazza della Signoria, via de’ Magazzini is a dark alley, where the dense tower houses create an urban fabric with tight meshes. Nothing awaits us on via de’ Magazzini. In fact, it is almost deserted compared to the crowd bustling at the feet of David, waiting for their turn for a photo with the beautiful and famous giant, rushing to avoid being late for the Uffizi entrance.
Yet, if you close your eyes and let your imagination work, that street, like the adjacent ones, speaks to us of Florence as it was in the last century, before becoming a sought-after destination for mass tourism and when Florentines still inhabited it.
At number 1 via de’ Magazzini, there is a plaque indicating Pratolini’s birthplace. In his novels, he recounts how his mother and grandmother entertained him by placing him by the window, and he spent hours observing the military in their daily routine. During the war, the building in front had been turned into a barracks.
From via de’ Magazzini, we head towards Piazza San Firenze to take via dei Leoni. However, instead of going towards the Arno, at that point dominated by the Castle of Altafronte, now the Galileo Museum, we turn into a narrow street where, as Vasco Pratolini says, “you go only if you have to run an errand or if you have to visit someone.”
Here we are on Via del Corno, where Pratolini sets the Chronicles of Poor Lovers. It’s the mid-1920s, and the short street, just about fifty meters long, is the stage where its inhabitants face their life paths. Paths that intertwine, knot at times, then separate, only to reconnect again.
It feels like you can still hear their voices: Nesi the charcoal burner, Maciste the blacksmith, and then the Guardian Angels, the girls Aurora, Liliana, Bianca, Clara. The street, extremely quiet even on a busy tourist day, still preserves traces of the past: just listen and observe. A tabernacle, at the corner with via dei Leoni, features a Madonna holding the Cathedral, as if to protect it; on the facade of a building, one of the so-called children’s windows opens lower, where children could lean out without the danger of falling, perhaps standing on a chair; the doors for the dead, smaller, next to the main ones, through which the deceased passed for burial, as it was considered inappropriate to pass through the main door.
So, it’s a street that seems insignificant but is actually full of traces of our past. Our journey continues towards via Vinegia, where there was an inn of the same name, Piazza San Remigio, Piazza Peruzzi, Via del Canto, Via dell’Isola delle Stinche, and Via dei Lavatoi. The toponymy reminds us that these areas were once rich in water, and right here, where laundry was washed, and there was a prison surrounded by a moat, opens the small square of San Simone, with the Church of San Simone and Giuda, which currently houses the Ukrainian religious community.
And further on, towards Via dei Pepi, and then Via della Rosa, Via dell’Ulivo, Via del Fico, Via della Salvia, and Via del Ramerino, reminding us that there were fields, plants, and crops of all kinds here.
The journey could go on for a long time, crossing Piazza Santa Croce, then the Arno from Ponte alle Grazie, to then climb up Via dei Bardi, to Costa San Giorgio, to Via San Leonardo, which Vasco Pratolini, as a child, walked hand in hand with his grandmother when visiting his brother, adopted out of mercy by the wealthy lords of Casa Rossa, in Via San Leonardo, precisely.
Vasco Pratolini’s relationship with his brother is one of the most intense, deep, and moving pages of the life of this great chronicler of 20th-century Florence. He talks about it in Family Chronicle, one of his most famous novels, and we will discuss it together during this tour, which ends here, with our eyes turned towards the Cemetery of Porte Sante, where Pratolini was buried in 1991 after his death.
