Florence | Renaldo Pazzi | Andrea della Robbia | Pharmacy of Santa Maria Novella
Anthony Hopkins’ Florence
by
Mark SealLUNCH/EXCURSION "Italians center their activities around
food - and the Sunday noon meal, which is usually buffet-style,
with grilled vegetables, cheeses, fresh pizza bread, prosciutto,
omelets, tomatoes, and salads. There was always the temptation on
Sundays to visit the great art and treasures of Siena, which are a
little more than an hour's drive, or the Roman theater in Fiesole.
Since we were in
Florence before it got too hot, the weather was
splendid."
SIGHTS "Other sites featured in the film are the Pharmacy of
Santa Maria Novella, one of the oldest perfumery-pharmacies in the
world, established in 1221. The opera sequence in Hannibal was shot
in front of the Pazzi Chapel, in the courtyard of the church of the
Santa Croce. The Pazzi family had organized the assassination of
one of the Medicis on the steps of this chapel. An ancestor,
Renaldo Pazzi, was one of our lead actors in the script. It was a
coincidence we would be shooting this pivotal scene there. Wherever
the camera turned, the backdrop and vistas of Florence were rich:
whether we were shooting in the loggia of the Uffizi Gallery, with
the long cinematic corridors; to the statues featured in the Piazza
della Signoria in front of the Palazzo Vecchio; to the exterior
steps of the Spedale degli Innocenti [the Orphans' Hospital] with
grand arches and the famous discs in terra cotta decorated by
Andrea della Robbia; to the corridors along the Piazza della
Repubblica; to the Mercato Nuovo, where the famed statue Fontana
del Porcellino, the wild boar that, legend has it, can ensure a
return to Florence by throwing a coin into the basin and rubbing
his nose."
ONE MEMORABLE DAY IN FLORENCE
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