Firenze architettura e città-Atlante

by Giovanni Fanelli

In the preface to the original edition of this work (published by Vallecchi in 1973) Giovanni Fanelli wrote: “This book does not presume to offer a ‘definitive’ account of the culture of a city which has left an enduring mark on western civilization; rather, it is a working tool which offers food for thought … This is the first comprehensive work to survey and discuss, in a reliable, verified and all-encompassing analysis, the current knowledge on Florentine urban culture and notably on the relationship between architecture and city as structures created by citizens for the organization of their existence and activities”.
Over the past three decades this huge undertaking in two volumes – one of text, the other of illustrations with commentary – has become a classic. Hard to find (and extremely expensive), it is now available once again in its original layout.
Giovanni Fanelli is Professor of History of Architecture at the University of Florence. He is the author of numerous books and articles on the history of architecture, urban history, and the history of photography and graphic design.
Among his works on urban history are: Lucca: spazio e tempo dall’Ottocento a oggi (Lucca, 1997, 2nd ed.), with Gilberto Bedini; La Valle Tiberina toscana (Florence, 1973), with Gian Franco Di Pietro; Firenze (Bari-Rome, 2002, 7th ed.); Città antica in Toscana (Florence, 1990, 3rd ed.), with Francesco Trivisonno; Fin-de-siècle: la vita urbana in Europa (Florence, 1991); Lucca: iconografia della città (Lucca, 1998), with Gilberto Bedini; Lucca: iconografia fotografica della città (Lucca, 2002), with Barbara Mazza.
He has edited many exhibition catalogues; he has directed and directs series for several Italian publishers, among them Vallecchi, Laterza and Cantini. He has been Scientific Director of the Fondazione Ragghianti, Lucca.
With Mandragora he has published Giovanni Michelucci fotografo (2001), L’anima dei luoghi. La Toscana nella fotografia stereoscopica (2001) and Brunelleschi’s Cupola. Past and Present of an Architectural Masterpiece, written with Michele Fanelli, and Twenty-two vews of the Cupola (2005), a collection of his own drawings of the masterpiece.