Florence, the city of the lily, is a 90-minute train ride from Rome; but proximity doesn’t make for similarity. Italy’s unification happened only a century-and-a-half ago; before that, Rome and Florence were separate states – and they remain very different.
Where Rome is frenetic, Florence is calm; where Rome is chaotic, Florence is organised; where Rome is rubbish-filled, with streets teeming with handbag touts, Florence’s roads are pristine, and the smaller number of beggars tend to be the traditional church-door types.
And the Catholic Church, as I am finding from a life increasingly spent in these two wonderful Italian cities, is a quite different organisation in my northern base than it is in the capital. First up is visibility, at least in terms of ecclesiastical personnel.
04 March 2020, The Tablet
Where Rome is frenetic, Florence is calm; where Rome is chaotic, Florence is organised
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