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The dome raises upon all the city flanked by the white bell-tower, the perfect circular shapes glitter in the night, the red brick colour passed through the white of the marble is evidenced thanks to ingenious hot light tricks that create shadows and chromatism which exalt the architectonic
ideal of a marvellous and unique period, where arts shuffled with intellectual and aesthetical interlacings. Who sees the dome of Florences Cathedral by night will never forget this spectacle that arrives to us from a wonderful past which has made the city one of the most astonishing
historical and artistical world realities. |
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The symbol of the medieval city, the tower, the corporation emblems that made Florence an important commercial center and the cross-roads for commercial traffics all over Europe, during the night are wrapped up by light: an amazing show.
The Signoria palace lops up between the roofs of the ancient city lit by warm lights, and the square in front of it assumes an armony such as could be the extension of one of the most beautiful and charming rooms of the Council palace. Beside it, the loggia of Lanzi, with the slim figure of Perseo and Laoocontes group, wrapped up by a suffused light almost if that angle were a small museum showed up. The whitness of the marble, in which are locked up the plastic figures, enhances in the night and the stage opens up on the clear rock of the square. From where you can indistinctly see the lights of the Uffizi open-galery that, such as the effect of a magical lantern, announces the mistery of beauty that
will rise just infront of us. |
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It is not a foreshortening of some kind of theatrical scenography but it could be, that house on the roofs with the yellow wall, with dark archs that seem painted, reminds the description that has been
done in a memorial passage of the Recherche, by Marcel Proust about a work of the Flemish painter, Veermer..."that yellow wall wing", so perfect with the night as backround and the different light
that stands out on the backscene behind the other clear light that illuminates the front face of Santa
Croce and Dantes statue, guardian of the white marbles and polychromes of one of the most beautyful
churches in the world. In the illumination choice everything seems so perfect, every particular has
been analyzed with the eyes of who knows how to put in evidence a landscape so whealthy of culture and
atmospheres saturate of armony. |
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Even if it has been changed in its forms, during the centuries, the most ancient bridge of Florence, remains still now one of the symbols of the ancient glories of the city. Built for river
crossing it shows, in its architectonical ideal, the nature and various shapes of streets, markets,
squares, offering with an elevated aesthetical value, architectonical peculiarities. When the night
comes down the street-lamps along the river are turned on and near the bridge the external lights
combine perfectly with the hot and almost domestic illumination of the ancient goldsmith shops.Gold and
stones shine and from the arcades that lean out by the river, who peeps out can still dream to trace
signals of an ancient civilization still so present and tangible.
And in the deep night a warm light becomes witness, joined with the old stone of the bridge, of
dreams and tender love stories. |
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San Miniato is one of the most significant example of the Roman taste, exalted in its uncommon and
beautyful polichrome face. Its fashion has been extended from the place upon which it raises: above
piazzale Michelangelo on the hill that faces the historical city. In the night the gold and the marble
of the front face shine in the darkness and also to who looks towards the large square of the hill,
from that corner of Fiesole, can see the majestic shape of the church that stands out in the dark,
but lit from the whiteness of the marble, in a climate where beauty becomes the emboding of the
religious and artistical spirit of the past. |
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The square of Santa Maria Novella, realized around 1288 rises in the heart of the historical town,
near the central station. In the middle of the square are located two marble obelisks supported by
bronze turtles, created in the second half of the 14th century, by Giambologna. Above the square shows
up the church of Santa Maria Novella, where its front face, realized from Leon Battista Alberti, is
considered one of the master pieces of Renaissance architectural work. The evening lights turn on the
white marble of the face that rises like a scenographic backround on the square. The church, as the
protagonist of a theatrical opera, is illuminated by a rose of lights, located on the bulidings that
surround the square; resulting with a maximum valorization that enchants who stands in front of one of
the most marvellous squares of Florence.
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Like stars on the river, the lights of the Arno reflect and glitter on the water as we climb up on the
terrace of Michelangelo' s large square where the city with it roofs and its churches seem so close
that it could be almost grabbed with a hand.... Along the river, the lamps lead us lighting the course
of the river, where on the edges the polarding of the medieval bell-towers and the soft shapes of the
dome are surrounded by a hot halo. It seems almost that there is a tender sun light that shows the
profile of the churches that rise through the brickwork tile of the old buildings and between the trees
of the unforeseeable and secret gardens. |
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The Cascine are the symbol of the green area of Florence, place where the citizens have always gone to take some fresh air and relax, a place where, for long, generations grew up playing and
partecipating at the most folkristic and traditional feasts like the most famous one of the singing
cricket in the Ascension day. The Kings square and the wide avenues, surrounded by trees, green parks
and gardens, in the night assumes the magic of a place outside time. The illumination choice advices
the yellow tones such as small fire flames between secular trees; and the lantern lights open to an
illumination we should say almost royal in front of the agriculture faculty of the gardens with their
woodbox hedge situated in front of the big Kings Square, like if the sequence of lights would be
opened and ready to show an ideal thought that culminates in the generous illumination of the most
opened point of the Cascine' s garden area. |
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It is always a unique vision walking by the river and seeing the dome of Cestello' s church, the light laps the harmonic shapes and the building shows up in all its enchanting beauty; the cupola, the
bell-tower and the apse, all appear on the lower roofs, illuminated with the simplicity of natural
light, almost if the moon has comed a bit closer at the sacrality of the architectonical shapes of a
past time where art was expressed in the research of the holy idea. |
| © copyright |
archivio SILFI photographer Pierluigi Liccioli |
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