Florence Extra: 700 Years of Dante

Florence - Photo by Nicola Pavan on Unsplash

Last Updated on February 15, 2023 by Hannah Henderson

Feel Florence – Interview Part 1

The first of a two-part interview with Andrea Giordani from Feel Florence, the city’s official tourism website. The 14th of this month is the central day in a year-long series of events to mark the 700th anniversary of the death of Dante Alighieri, Florence’s world-famous poet, author and philosopher (1265-1321). Andrea tell us a little about Dante himself and the Florence he knew, introduces us to his best known work, the Divine Comedy and outlines some of the many events happening in Florence this year to mark the anniversary.

Listen to the POdcast

Links & Reading

3 useful websites for tourists
Feel Florence
Visit Florence 
Destination Florence

4 guidebooks on Florence
Pocket Rough Guide to Florence 
Time Out Florence City Guide
Blue Guide Florence by Alta Macadam
Strolling through Florence by Mario Erasmo

2 more guidebooks on Florence and Tuscany
Lonely Planet Guide to Florence and Tuscany 
Eyewitness Travel Guide to Florence and Tuscany by Christopher Catling

3 history books and a guide to art and architecture
Florence, the Biography of a City by Christopher Hibbert
The Medici by Paul Strathern
The Medici by Mary Hollingsworth
Art and Architecture in Florence by Rolf C Wirtz

3 anthologies
Florence: A Traveller’s Reader by Edward Cheney
Florence Stories Everyman’s Library Pocket Classics
A Literary Companion to Florence by Frances King

2 memoirs of Florence
Florence: A Delicate Case by David Leavitt
A Florence Diary by Diana Athill

4 novels set in Florence
The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant
The Agony and the Ecstasy by Irving Stone (Biographical novel about Michelangelo)
A Room with a View by E M Forster
Galileo’s Daughter by Dava Sobel