Anne Schiller’s book about the changes to Il Mercato di San Lorenzo is very timely. In its search for authentic fiorentinità—Florentine-ness—which probably no longer exists, this Tuscan city represents contemporary Italy writ large. Its neighborhood market, an outdoor sprawl built in 1860 when Florence was briefly the capital of Italy, is the site of the author’s ten years of participant observation.
Schiller’s acknowledgements set an appropriate tone. She recognizes those who assisted her in learning Italian and in securing her market apprenticeship as well as the students who helped with field research. She expresses love for the Italian lifestyle and gratitude for Florentine hospitality. Her use of Dante’s description of his Divine Comedy— “That which I saw is greater than my capacity to explain it because both words and memory are inferior to the task”(xii)—implies that she shares his predicament.
In chapter 1, “San Lorenzo Neighborhood and Its Globalized Market,” Schiller describes the major parameters of her study. Florence, she says, is a city beloved by millions. It is the capital of Tuscany, birthplace of the Italian Renaissance, both a World Heritage and a UNESCO site. The colorful San Lorenzo market represents “an opportune setting in which to investigate some of the ways in which globalization, in particular transnational migration, has affected a population known for its mercantile skill” (3). Schiller maintains that this particular Florentine population—known as sanlorenzini, those from San Lorenzo—is suffering from culture shock as they watch their neighborhood change. Abusivi, infringers—sometimes undocumented immigrants, sometimes legal non-florentines—have altered the ground rules of marketplace contact. Local dialect no longer prevails; appropriate comportment is no longer routine; and a fundamental difference between sanlorenzini and “others” seems almost epidemic in this time of rapid social transformation.
In chapter 2, “A Mercantile Neighborhood Across Time,” Schiller focuses on the market’s many changes leading to its currently perceived lack of congeniality. She accurately describes Florence as a “city of merchant princes” (41)—the Rucellais, the Medicis—as well as a city of constant alterations in housing, piazzas, and market buildings, particularly salient for San Lorenzo where buying and selling have gone on for 800 years. Then it changed. Traveling peddlers became stationary, gradually needing licenses to sell their goods. When they began to offer turistica (52), items designed to appeal to visitors, they had to package them with English translations. Suddenly banchi (53) became rolling crates, not horse-drawn wagons. Non-Florentines appeared: first, southern Italians, and later, North Africans, Asians, Eastern Europeans, Senegalese, moving into the city to pursue what is now a lucrative trade.
But the mystique of the true Florentine vendor has remained. Schiller reports that a Toronto visitor told her, “Italian vendors are lovely. This is part of the whole experience of being in Florence.” A Californian said, “Italians want to relate to you, not just to sell you something” (58). These opposing viewpoints present a conundrum rooted in globalization and its effects on identity; in short, on the presence or absence of fiorentinità.
In chapter 3, “Lives and Livelihoods on Silver Street,” Schiller discusses the satisfactions of peddling. She calls an “exemplary” (65) vendor one who has long-term presence, good relations with fellow vendors, and merchandise admired for its quality. Many of these vendors pass on their licenses and banchi to their children or rent their businesses to other entrepreneurs. So one satisfaction of peddling can be the longevity of its lifestyle.
Others cite being their own boss as “the most important thing” (80) as well as developing friendships with long-time clients. Setting a fair price plays an important part in the durability of these relationships, and many vendors resent being lumped in with all outdoor markets, especially the garage-sale American kind. Unpleasant interactions with shoppers who “disrespect” the vendors by harassing them for discounts are frequently thought of as a “decline in fiorentinità” (91).
In chapter 4, “Into the Heart of Florence,” Schiller recounts the difficulty outsiders have in learning the rules of this market. She herself incurred the anger of one banco holder by not personally saying good-bye when she left her field site at the end of summer, never imagining that her personal salutation to him was an important rule of comportment. More recent newcomers often do not understand proper subtleties for giving discounts, and so anger the original sanlorenzini, who consider this recently arrived behavior appropriate for a “souk” (102), not for San Lorenzo. Illegal vendors, much derided and resented, have a “fundamental difference in perspective” (108), says Schiller, because they see selling only as a “short-term situational opportunity” (108).
In chapter 5, “Saving San Lorenzo,” Schiller discusses the ways in which an important sense of belonging seems to have left this market. Many are the reasons. One is the premise that it is simply too crowded, too noisy, its sellers and buyers both un-fiorentino. But, as Schiller explains, fiorentinità can also “belong” to banco holders who are not real Florentines. The neighborhood association, Together for San Lorenzo, established in 2004, works under this new premise. It has been successful in “creating a more explicitly multicultural identity for the neighborhood” (118) through public meetings, community clean-up days, promotional banners, etc. It has also made controversial changes in the “configuration of outdoor vending” (121) by removing banchi from in front of the San Lorenzo Church. But, despite the “discontents”(126) of many, the market still sprawls pretty much as before.
In chapter 6, “Fiorentinità in a Post-Florentine Market,” she explains that consensus has not been reached on what exactly restoration of fiorentinità would look like (130). Uncertainty, she comments ruefully, continues to reign “in the heart of one of the most beautiful cities in the world” (139).
Like Schiller, I, too, love Florence and have visited it many times, and taught there as well. So I feel very confident in saying that hers is a well-done book, her portrait of the San Lorenzo Market exactly the one I know, too. She cites all the relevant experts: Barth, Bourdieu, Geertz, Goffman, Herzfeld, Kertzer, Turner, as well as many more recent Italian articles and books on Florence. Her knowledge of spoken Italian, particularly its proverbs, appears extensive. I would have liked her to include the original Italian phrase, such as tutto fa brodo for “it all makes broth” and una mano lava l’altra for “one hand washes the other” simply for their flavor.
I must make a final comment. Often at the heart of participant observation lie issues of identity. “Knowing how to behave appropriately, like a ‘Florentine’…is part of the body of skills and traditions that make up cultural knowledge,” what Bourdieu calls “cultural capital” (33). Apropos of this, I would add that to be aware of the Italian code of fare bella figura, “to cut a good figure,” is extremely significant in understanding both the subtlety and the depth of Schiller’s wonderful book. Che Bella Figura! The Power of Performance in an Italian Ladies’ Club in Chicago (SUNY Press, 1999) includes meaningful Chicago/Italian examples of what propels—and continues to maintain—the fiorentinità Schiller explores, even in its new iterations. Reading it would help readers toward a clearer understanding and interpretation of some of the behavior Schiller describes so thoroughly and well.
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[Review length: 1198 words • Review posted on April 5, 2017]