Goldsmith Tommaso Pestelli was evicted from his historic Florence workshop to make way for a luxury hotel, the umpteenth victim of a mass tourism critics say is ravaging the Italian city.
Calls for urgent action to protect the city center, a UNESCO site, intensified last month after a museum director said “hit-and-run” tourism had transformed Florence into a “prostitute.”
About 1.5 million tourists flocked to the city last summer, up 6.6 percent from the previous year, while an increasing number of independent shops and residential apartments are being transformed into fast-food outlets and holiday lets.
Photo: AFP
“We’ve been open since 1908. If you get rid of us, and many others like us, you take away part of the city’s spirit,” said Pestelli, whose father, grandfather and great-grandfather were goldsmiths before him.
Pestelli, 55, managed to find another little workshop nearby, but says many fellow artisans have not been so lucky.
The average cost of monthly residential rents leapt 42 percent from 2016 to last year, while the number of apartments listed on Airbnb jumped from about 6,000 to nearly 15,000, official figures showed.
Photo: AFP
Even this month, tourist lines snake around the block at the Duomo and throng around Michelangelo’s David.
With locals forced out and traditional shops disappearing, “Florence is becoming an empty box,” Pestelli said.
Elena Bellini, 47, who sells work by local artists, said the drop in the number of long-term residents was killing neighborhoods and had lead to more crime, like attempted break-ins.
“Florence is dying!” read a notice in the window of a jeweler saying the city had been “sold” to big business.
The Tuscan capital is not alone. Venice and other top destinations like the Cinque Terre in northwest Italy have also seen locals driven away by astronomical rents, overcrowded sites and endless souvenir shops.
While Venice is trialing a ticketing system, with day visitors to be charged an entry fee in high seasons, Florence’s center-left city council has launched a campaign to entice tourists away from the center.
“People are increasingly looking for ‘experience-based itineraries,’ so we have to promote ... other points of historical, artistic, naturalistic and gastronomic interest,” Florence Deputy Mayor Alessia Bettini said.
Visitors to surrounding villages, castles and abbeys rose 4.5 percent last month, while the number of hikers tackling the Path of the Gods across the Apennines to Bologna climbed 22 percent last year.
The council has also attempted to free up homes for local people and prevent rents spiraling further by banning new short-term private vacation rentals in the historic center. The measure, adopted in October, also includes tax breaks for landlords if they switch back to ordinary leases.
Despite the ban, a dozen or so artisans are being evicted from workshops in a building near the Ponte Vecchio, amid plans to transform it for tourism.
“The Florentine goldsmith tradition is rather quickly falling to pieces,” Pestelli said.
A few streets away, Gabriele Maselli, president of Florence’s Historical Businesses Association, paints a gold picture frame by hand, rows of brightly colored pots and powders lining the shelves behind him.
A large crucifix stands propped against one wall, while nearby a restorer repairs the surface of a damaged painting.
“People come to Florence for quality things, made painstakingly by hand,” 58-year-old Maselli said.
“If a business is forced to close though, it affects the whole production chain. A whole world closes, gone forever,” he said.
‘GREAT OPPRTUNITY’: The Paraguayan president made the remarks following Donald Trump’s tapping of several figures with deep Latin America expertise for his Cabinet Paraguay President Santiago Pena called US president-elect Donald Trump’s incoming foreign policy team a “dream come true” as his nation stands to become more relevant in the next US administration. “It’s a great opportunity for us to advance very, very fast in the bilateral agenda on trade, security, rule of law and make Paraguay a much closer ally” to the US, Pena said in an interview in Washington ahead of Trump’s inauguration today. “One of the biggest challenges for Paraguay was that image of an island surrounded by land, a country that was isolated and not many people know about it,”
DIALOGUE: US president-elect Donald Trump on his Truth Social platform confirmed that he had spoken with Xi, saying ‘the call was a very good one’ for the US and China US president-elect Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) discussed Taiwan, trade, fentanyl and TikTok in a phone call on Friday, just days before Trump heads back to the White House with vows to impose tariffs and other measures on the US’ biggest rival. Despite that, Xi congratulated Trump on his second term and pushed for improved ties, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. The call came the same day that the US Supreme Court backed a law banning TikTok unless it is sold by its China-based parent company. “We both attach great importance to interaction, hope for
‘FIGHT TO THE END’: Attacking a court is ‘unprecedented’ in South Korea and those involved would likely face jail time, a South Korean political pundit said Supporters of impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol yesterday stormed a Seoul court after a judge extended the impeached leader’s detention over his ill-fated attempt to impose martial law. Tens of thousands of people had gathered outside the Seoul Western District Court on Saturday in a show of support for Yoon, who became South Korea’s first sitting head of state to be arrested in a dawn raid last week. After the court extended his detention on Saturday, the president’s supporters smashed windows and doors as they rushed inside the building. Hundreds of police officers charged into the court, arresting dozens and denouncing an
‘DISCRIMINATION’: The US Office of Personnel Management ordered that public DEI-focused Web pages be taken down, while training and contracts were canceled US President Donald Trump’s administration on Tuesday moved to end affirmative action in federal contracting and directed that all federal diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) staff be put on paid leave and eventually be laid off. The moves follow an executive order Trump signed on his first day ordering a sweeping dismantling of the federal government’s diversity and inclusion programs. Trump has called the programs “discrimination” and called to restore “merit-based” hiring. The executive order on affirmative action revokes an order issued by former US president Lyndon Johnson, and curtails DEI programs by federal contractors and grant recipients. It is using one of the
RSS