Inspiration Behind Fioravante

The inspiration for my poem, Fioravante, came from two everyday experiences:

The first took place one morning in July, outside of my apartment in Florence … the street was slowly waking up – cars, bikes, scooters all travelled to the right, to the city centre, except for one man - as you’ll see at the end of this video - who pedalled to the left. Calm. Steady. Against the flow. In his own little world…

The second experience occurred on a Thursday at the flower market in Piazza della Repubblica. Normally, local vendors sell flowers, and herbs and even potted olive trees. This one day in March, to my great delight, someone was selling peach blossoms!

From these two everyday experiences – one urban 🚲, the other from nature 🌸 – Fioravante came to life!

There’s also a third source of inspiration – not from the street or the market, but from literature. I’ll tell you about it in the next post, “Poetic Definition of Aggiornare in Renaissance and Early Modern Italian”…