EyeItalia

In the 1920′s, this little car made a considerable statement in Italy, from a car being a necessity to a source of fun – the spyder. Fiat delivered the 508 model frame and engine in a variety of body styles: utility pickup truck, van, 4-seat sedan, the 1000 Miglia race car and this spyder model (4 cylinders just under 1000cc).

Bella figura can mean many things, but at its core is presentation…how one looks, how one comports oneself, how one makes the best possible impression in all things. That such a concept is hardwired into the Italian psyche is no surprise: what else could be expected from a country that’s been creating beauty for centuries?

Founded by Maria’s great-great-great grandfather Pietro Gianinni in 1856, Giulio Giannini & Figlio have been making books by hand for royalty, popes and poets for over 150 years. Their small upstairs workshop (laboratoria), across from the Palazzo Pitti, could well be a museum – containing antique book presses, binding machines, vats for making hand-marbled papers, and over 5000 punzoni (stamping tools) employed in the decoration of their exquisite leather books and albums.

The leaning tower of Pisa is also connected to one of the most important discoveries in physics: in 1637 Galileo Galilei, arguably the most important Pisan ever, whom Albert Einstein considered the father of modern science, proved Aristotle’s teachings on gravity – according to which objects fall at a speed proportional to weight – wrong, by dropping a heavy and a light metal ball from the tower and demonstrating how they fell contemporaneously.