Coming to Italy, I think I (maybe naively) expected life to be very similar to life in the States, except with maybe more pasta, mozzarella, and wine. But what I’ve come to find is that Americans, and foreigners in general, tend to stereotype Italy in a lot of ways that might be true (you can’t escape the pasta, mozzarella, and wine in Florence) but that also don’t wholly encompass what Italy is all about and what makes its culture different from our own. What makes life here in Italy—or at least life in Florence—so different is not necessarily their fresh produce or their piazzas but their values. These differences may seem very slight, but I’ve been surprised by how much I’ve been able to notice them.
The Palazzo Pitti in Florence
Florence is a very strange and dichotomous city. On one hand, it’s an incredibly traditionally Italian city—probably the most stereotypically Italian city I’ve found in Italy so far—filled with an aging generation of Florentines whose lives revolve more around their families than their livelihoods. On the other hand, it is a huge center for study abroad students and tourists, with likely just as many Americans in the city at any given moment as there are Italians. This makes for a very interesting mix and clashing of cultures that doesn’t quite always work. Most of the people you see out at around at night are American students (young Italians in Florence are almost nonexistent), so there are a lot of “American”-themed restaurants and bars throughout the city center catering to this growing population. At the same time, a lot of the older Italians seem very resistant to this demographic shift; I’ve been shocked and even horrified by the ways some of my fellow American students have been treated by the locals.
The Ca’ d’Oro in Venice
Given its unwavering Tuscan tradition and recent influx of foreigners, this strange dichotomy seems to (thankfully) be unique to Florence. I’ve actually been (once again, naively) surprised to see just how different from each another the various cities and regions of Italy are. I knew before coming here that Italy has always been a very divided country, both before and since its relatively recent unification, but I guess I still expected to find the same pasta and yellow Italian buildings everywhere. Not so: each city has its own distinct cuisine and architecture. For example, Milan is famous for its risotto, Venice for its seafood, Naples for its pizza, and Bologna for its pasta.
The Galleria Vittorio Emanuele in Milan
As far as the cities themselves go, Florence is about as Italian as a city can get. Milan, in contrast, seemed very French to me. Venice, on the other hand, had a very Middle Eastern influence which combined with more traditionally Italian forms to create a very distinct, romantic, gothic style. The multicultural influences in Milan’s and Venice’s buildings were also present in their ways of life: both cities seemed much more open and accepting of new cultures than Florence presently is and not as tied down to their traditional Catholic values. Milan especially seemed incredibly modern; I didn’t feel like I was necessarily in Italy while I was there. I could have been anywhere in Europe, or even anywhere in the world.