Why don’t I love Florence anymore?

Because Florence is now like a young girl who was made to wear makeup too soon, exposed to the drooling stares of tourists who think culture means pissing in an alley, puking third-rate Chianti on the sidewalks, screaming through the streets at night, and scribbling bullshit signatures on statues that have witnessed wars, revolutions, and plagues—but now risk crumbling under the chemical attack of their mediocrity.

They arrive in packs, smartphones in hand, ready to turn the Renaissance into a vintage filter. Then they roam like zombies with cans in hand, stacking bottles on the steps of the Duomo, carving shitty little hearts on the banks of the Arno and calling it “living the experience.” The only thing they’re living is a global cultural blackout. No one runs this city anymore: it’s been outsourced, certified, and branded with the QR code of profit. Want to admire the David? Quick and easy: thirty-six euros and you’re good to go. Want to sit on a bench? Wait and see if they’ve installed a card reader under it. Florence sells emotions by the meter, offering you pre-cooked beauty in travel-size packages.

I don’t love Florence because Florentines have become like Bengal tigers: you only see them in nostalgic, faded documentaries. The streets are now a Babelic mess of languages that don’t communicate but scream wildly like panicked chickens. There’s no integration here—only a carefully managed disintegration designed to make everyone feel foreign, even those born here.

Florence doesn’t breathe—it gasps. It no longer rings its bells—it plays Spotify recordings of them, because even sound has to pay rent. Florence is a tableau vivant suffocating in the scent of its own past glory, reheated and sold as cultural street food at extortionate mark-up prices.

And that’s why I don’t love it anymore. Its beauty is still there, yes—but it’s locked behind a universal paywall, guarded by stewards in fluorescent vests. You can look, sure. But don’t touch, don’t live, don’t feel. Just pay, snap your photo, move along, and make room for the next consumer. Florence has become a credit card shaped like a city, and the bill always comes—even when you close your eyes.

All photos by Andrea Bigiarini - All right reserved

Don’t agree? Simple—you’ve never lived in the center.

Florence is no longer the city I loved. It’s become a grotesque shadow of itself, prostituted, poorly made-up, and offered up on an altar of selfies and shallowness.