Entertaining and hugely diverse views of the city of lagoons. The best-loved and most visited of Italian cities is vividly brought to life in the letters, diaries, and memoirs of travelers from past centuries and by the Florentines themselves. The extracts chosen by Harold Acton and Edward Chaney are as rich as the city itself in their variety and brilliance--here is Boccaccio on the Black Death; Vasari on the building of Giotto's Campanile; an eyewitness...