Florence and its American students

Florence, as we know is one of the most famous cities, renowned for its great beauty, culture and art. Pass through the city and you discover a unique environment, the tourists eyes wide open and full of the one-of-a-kind awe that only Florence can convey. Every corner is a marker which remembers centuries past, every glimpse merits your attention and every thought lets fly the imagination; Dante Alighieri walking along the Arno River to observe and to reprimand the Florentines.
Florence is full of art, history, beauty, culture and curiosities ripe for discovery; it is also full of international universities including over 40 US University campuses, creating an artificial bubble of detachment between the city, its inhabitants and many of the students that live there. Harvard, the oldest university in the USA, has a beautiful campus at Villa I Tatti with the most important Department of Renaissance Studies in the world. The stunning villa, located in the hills between Fiesole and Florence, by the end of the 1800s and early 1900s was becoming one of the most important centers for the English speaking community in Florence, and as a hub for its continuous cultural expansion.
The cream of society and foreign visitors passed through this villa and its magnificent gardens, forming an elite rank shared with John Temple Leader’s (tycoon and patron of the arts), two distinguished properties Villa di Maiano and Vincigliata Castle, both near Florence, the famous Villa Salviatino, once owned by great writer and journalist Ugo Ojetti and Villa Montalto di Tammaro de Marinis.
In 1936 Bernard Berenson bequeathed the villa, along with the library and an important collection of 14th, 15th, and 16th century art Harvard University, who made it the Center for Italian Renaissance History.
Other major universities such as Stanford University, Syracuse University and Yale have their headquarters in Renaissance palaces that look directly the Arno, but we will have the opportunity to discover them later as we take you around the city to discover Florence’s little known corners.

This post is also available in: Italian French Spanish German Portuguese (Portugal) Russian