Florence: A Portrait

Nestled in the Apennines, cradle of the Renaissance, home of Dante, Michelangelo, and the Medici, Florence is unlike any other city in its extraordinary mingling of great art and literature, natural splendor, and remarkable history. Intimate and grand, learned and engaging, Michael Levey's Florence renders the city in all of its madness and magnificence.

While this book might be too hefty and too heady for the casual italophile, it should be in the library of every hard-core Italy lover.


Much More Than a Parlor Table Book   August 3, 2005
 14 out of 14 found this review helpful

This book is a wonderful, "behind-the-scenes" history of Art and Life in Florence during its Golden Period. Levey has synthesized historical and personal accounts of the period and it results in a Historical text which is very readable. He gives life to the great artists of the time and some of the 'dirt' too. Levey not only discusses the achievements of the Masters with authority, but also provides interesting background information, including motives, jealousies, intrigue and favoritism. Despite its weight, this is THE travelogue on Florence I will take with me.


A Fascinating Journey   November 3, 2006
 5 out of 5 found this review helpful

It is as though we are moving through the streets of Florence with Mr. Levey at our side telling us fascinating stories about the people and places of the city by the Arno. Anyone with an interest in Florence will find this volume a wonderful companion to the larger histories and art books. We are the beneficiaries of the author's lifetime of experience and understanding in the matters of the Renaissance and its center, Florence. Highly recommended.


Well written and challenging   July 19, 2006
 4 out of 4 found this review helpful

The book is wonderfully written, but reading it presents the same challenges as following a university lecture on the subject. Mr. Levey does not dumb down his subject or choose words he thinks most people will understand. You must keep up with him, and it would be helpful to keep handy a dictionary and a book on art history (or at least be near the internet).
This is a fascinating and insightful work, but not one you'll want to read a couple of pages of while your spouse watches Letterman before bed. You'll want to be paying strict attention as you read. If you do so, you'll find yourself well prepared for a visit to this amazing city. Rather than questioning your tour guide, you may well be able to teach her a thing or two on the subject.


Massive scholarship, fascinating insight   January 15, 2008
Having read Michael Levey's From Giotto to Cezanne and A History of Western Art, I approached Florence - A Portrait thinking I knew what to expect. I did find the attention to detail, the keen critical evaluation and aesthetics that I expected. I did not envisage the book would turn out also to be quite the gargantuan work of scholarship and erudition that it is. Florence - A Portrait is much more than a history of art in the city state. It is almost a biography of the place, replete with historical, economic and political detail. What is missing, of course, is a picture of Florentine life from the point of view of the ordinary citizen, but we cannot criticize Michael Levey for not including what probably does not exist.

I visited Florence thirty years ago and have never returned. At the time, memories of Kenneth Clark's Civilisation were very clear in my mind and I focused on renaissance Florence, almost to the derision of the rest. Even after such time I found my memories of the architecture, paintings and sculptures were still fresh, however, when I read Michael Levey's descriptions. But his descriptions do more than merely list a presence or critique a style. He offers context, critical evaluation, origins and influences when he considers these - and any - works of art. He identifies flattery or criticism, idolatry or satire where an untutored eye would see only colours and shapes.

The book is presented chronologically. It walks us through the early years of the renaissance and deals with the extent of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in minute detail. Then, as a more anonymous baroque era dawns, the account speeds up somewhat.

Michael Levey also makes crucial and important points about the nature of Florentine government in this later era, an era that is so often dismissed as decadent when compared to the golden age that preceded it. The account is comprehensive, detailed and illuminating, but is written in a lively style which is never dull. It's a book that would be more interesting after a visit than before and would not work as a guide book on grounds of size and weight! But it is a truly rewarding read.

It is noteworthy in its treatment of the baroque era. Most visitors to Florence are there for the renaissance, and this later work is often dismissed as over-ornate, opulence for opulence sake, over-stated, crass bad taste. Michael Levey corrects this view by evaluating this later period in the context of and as a development of its precursor. While reading his account, I was interested to learn just how much those who commissioned works simply wanted to make a grandiloquent statement about wealth and power. So Damien Hearst's skull is conceptually right within the tradition of Western art. Michael Level, incidentally, also pointed out that late medieval and early renaissance artists were often pressured into using greater quantities of gold leaf to endow as much value as possible to their work. There is, after all, very little that's new under this sun.