How street art reinvents Florence

A mural dedicated to Dante and created to commemorate the 700th anniversary of his death. It is located in Galluzzo, one of the city's neighborhoods – the Q3 - about 30 minutes away by bus from Florence's central station.

Along the six facades of the social housing on Via Corbinelli is the work of Argentine street artist Francisco Bosoletti, whose aim is to represent life as a continuous conflict and struggle between life and death, between salvation and condemnation, between punishment and forgiveness in reference to the Divine Comedy.

They are six drawings divided on six walls interacting with one another and as a whole are one. In them, we see naked bodies, the drowned and the saved, barely distinguishable that are linked by an invisible thread.

This forces the observer to embark on his/her own personal journey and to construct the moral dignity of man in order to put the pieces back together.

It is an immersive, unique experience that gives the feeling of being inside the work not only because of the size of the murals, but also because of its becoming one with the surrounding space. This work of street art gives new life and new color to marginalized spaces, giving value, too, to those who inhabit these places.

In 2020 with the aim of redeveloping an abandoned city space, four street artists were involved: Millo, James Boy, Ache 77 and Exit Enter to create a work on the walls of the Ginger Zone, an abandoned meeting place in Piazza Togliatti in Scandicci, a municipality bordering Florence and about 30 minutes away by tramway from the central station.

The whole work represents a celebration and a hymn to the joy of togetherness, union, and respect for diversity. As of today, this regenerated space, is a hub and meeting place for social and cultural initiatives, for debate and discussion, a center for social and community regeneration.

Here, you can stop at any side of the structure to observe and think as if you were in a museum. In addition to enjoying the view of these works, if you love markets, every Saturday you can take advantage of the city market with many stalls with typically Florentine or Italian delicacies.

The mural is the work of Fabio Petani, an artist who is keen on the marriage of art and botany. The work depicts flowers, trees and plants blooming on the surfaces of the new public bathhouse in Piazza dell'Isolotto, one of Florence's 5 neighborhoods located across the Arno River and created as a popular but innovative neighborhood for its time by Mayor Giorgio La Pira.

This work reflects to a large extent the identity of the neighborhood because many streets and squares are named after plants and trees. The mural not only gives a new color to a public asset, but also represents a suitable medium through which to convey awareness messages on specific issues, as in this case, on the environment, nature and the floral varieties of the area.

It is a project promoted by the City of Florence to enhance the newsstands and kiosks in the territory of the city of Florence.

The alphabet, the word, signs such as the dot, the exclamation or question mark  are the driving themes and focus for the works because they are essential features of magazines, newspapers and media.

The colors chosen and used for the works echo and are inspired by the colors of Florence.

There are nine artists involved: Corn79, Reser LL, Luca Font, Duke1, Sera Knm, Bue2530, Droste, Mrfijodor, Urto.

The newsstands and kiosks on which the interventions were made are located in Piazza dei Tigli, Piazza della Vittoria, Viale Milton and Via Fabbroni, Via Pellicceria, Piazza Duomo, Piazza Sant'Ambrogio, Piazza Alberti, Viale Righi, Piazza Piero della Francesca and Via Torcicoda.

Find out here all the kiosks and newsstands participating in the project.