In the feverish climate of renovation and progress which
effected the whole of Europe at the beginning of the 20th
Century, also in Florence industrial development becomes the main
aspect of social life, replacing the age-old tradition of
handcrafts. Urbanistic development was greater in the western
part of the town where the Nuovo Pignone and Galileo factories
had grown up. It is in this atmosphere that futurism finds in
artists such as Rosai, Soffici and Conti and a few others the
link with European culture. Meanwhile in the field of literature,
an extraordinary number of reviews began publication (the
"Leonardo", "La Voce" and
"Frontespizio,"), which are characteristic of the
particular time the town is going through as one of the liviest
international towns.
With the arrival of Fascism, Florence both architecturally and
urbanistically, as well as artistically, is dominated by the
inspiration of Roman-style grandeur which borders on the
anonymous, with a few exceptions anticipating the style of
architecture which will become popular after the War; the Santa
Maria Novella station by the Michelucci group, the Stadium by
Pier Luigi Nervi and other rational buildings.
During this period, the same as Maccari's "Selvaggio"
(1928), Rosai rediscovered, with his authentic sensitivity and
clarity, the values of a wonderland full of moods and cultural
stratifications.
The poetic and literary world, on the wake of the avangarde
magazines, whose protagonists used to meet at the "Giubbe
Rosse" Coffee House, tends towards a line of defense, of
cold war against the pseudo-cultural impositions of the Fascist
regime. These magazines also attract foreign contribution to
Florentine culture and an attempt at "alternate
culture" is made during the years between the two World
Wars.
The destruction incurred during the Second World War and the sad
episode of the bridges over the Arno which disappeared, along
with the portions of the riverside and streets around the Old
Bridge, broke up the town's centre even more. During the period
of re-construction, building speculation was to play a major part
in the new urbanistic structure of the town.
In the artistic field, along with a renewal of naturalism and the
remnants of post-macchiaolic degeneration, the post-War years
mark the birth of new literary reviews: "Inventario",
and "Società" by Bilenchi, "II Ponte"
by Calamandrei, up to "Belfagor" and
"Paragone", in the fifties, by Roberto Longhi and Anna
Banti. Not to be forgotten either, the cultural policy that the
"Nuovo Corriere" (which ceased publication in 1957)
offered daily (under the Direction of Bilenchi) and the
"Studio di Storia dell'Arte" (under the Direction of
Ragghianti), with its articles that are openly-declared to be
de-provincialising, devoted to antique and contemporary art (such
as the Guggenheim exhibition and the Frank Lloyd Wright
exhibition in 1951, which brought to Italy, for the first time,
the breath of international architectonic innovation) that will
pave the way for the revolutionary movements, somewhat behind in
respect to international culture, or even Italian culture, the
first abstractists in Milan and Como began work around 1930,
which take place around several well- known cultural
personalities.
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