Via dei Georgofili: The Night of 27 May 1993
Why is it significant?
Stop at the corner by the Torre dei Pulci, the medieval tower at the back of the Uffizi, and take a moment before reading the plaques on its wall. The tower is the home of the Accademia dei Georgofili, founded in 1753 to study agriculture, one of the oldest academies of its kind in the world.
Key Facts
| Place | Via dei Georgofili: The Night of 27 May 1993 |
|---|---|
| Address | Via dei Georgofili, 50122 Firenze FI, Italy |
| Geo Coordinates | 43.76850, 11.25500 |
| Part of Walk | Guilds, Feuds and Bonfires: The Florentine Republic Walk in Florence |
| Generated | Generated |
Stop at the corner by the Torre dei Pulci, the medieval tower at the back of the Uffizi, and take a moment before reading the plaques on its wall. The tower is the home of the Accademia dei Georgofili, founded in 1753 to study agriculture, one of the oldest academies of its kind in the world.
Shortly after one o'clock in the morning on 27 May 1993, a vehicle packed with explosives blew up in this narrow street. Part of the tower collapsed. Inside lived Fabrizio Nencioni and his wife Angela, who looked after the academy, with their daughters Nadia, who was nine, and Caterina, who was less than two months old. All four were killed. Dario Capolicchio, a twenty-two-year-old architecture student, died in the fire that swept a building across the street.
The bomb was the work of Cosa Nostra, the Sicilian Mafia, part of a campaign of attacks that year in Florence, Rome and Milan, aimed at forcing the Italian state to back down. Dozens of people were injured. In the Uffizi, windows and ceilings gave way, several paintings were destroyed and many more were damaged, and restorers spent years repairing what could be saved. The bosses who ordered the attack were later tried and convicted.
There is nothing to see here in the tourist sense, and that is the point. The tower was rebuilt, the gallery reopened, and every year on the anniversary Florentines come back to this corner to remember the five names.
On a walk about power, it is a hard lesson to stand beside. The old Republic fought its quarrels with towers and knives; in 1993 a criminal organisation tried to bend a democratic state with a bomb aimed at a family, a student and a museum, and the city did not bend. Walk on quietly through Via Lambertesca to where the long courtyard of the Uffizi meets the Loggia dei Lanzi.