Fun, Fascinating, and Amusing Facts about Italy/Florence

After living in Florence for a several months I have gathered many fun, fascinating, and amusing facts that I wanted to share with you. Some of these may make you smile, surprised, or just amused.

1) Apparently, 60% of the world's most important works of art are located in Italy and approximately half of these are in Florence.

2) Italians live life by their own set of rules, even on some occasions the exact opposite of the law:

- While driving, Italians consider red lights more of a suggestion than a enforcement.

- Italians choose to close and open their shops/restaurants/buildings at their own leisure, even if it happens to contradict their supposed hours. (especially on Sundays, nothing is open)

-Italians love to stand really close to people; they don’t seem to understand the idea of personal space.

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3) 90 % of Italians say they are Catholic but roughly only 20% attend mass each Sunday.

4) It is impolite and looked down upon if someone orders any drink that has milk in it after 11 o’clock in the morning. This long list includes cappuccinos, lattes, and mochas.

5) It is impossible to buy chocolate chips here. This makes it especially difficult for a certain young foreign exchange student from American to make proper chocolate chip cookies. 

6) Italians prefer having baby boys than baby girls. When a baby boy is born, a typical Italian would congratulate the family by saying it’s a “un maschio”. In other words, congratulations on having a boy. When a baby girl is born in Italy, one would sooth the family by stating it’s a “bella bambina”, meaning you have a beautiful baby girl. On average, an Italian would add on beautiful to baby girl to ease the tension of having a girl instead of a boy.

7) Italians love to go on strike; especially the public transportation sector and even more specifically when you need to use them. It tends to be the most scheduled strikes as well. For example, everyone would plan to strike from 6 in the morning till 5 in the afternoon, and then continue on with their day.

8) On average, Italians only drink while eating food.

9) Florence is known for its leather, raw steak, hand-made paper, and, of course, art.

10) The Arno River is infested with large catfish-looking serpents. Apparently, this is a growing problem for the other creatures living in the river because they are currently being killed off by the serpents.

11) The Uffizi houses over a thousand pieces of art and has about 1.5 million visitors a year.

12) The twenty-five year old Michelangelo took on the challenge “David” and chiseled this sculpture for two and a half years. When finished, “David” was supposed to be placed on Florence’s Duomo but after seeing Michelangelo’s masterpiece the community moved it to Palazzo Vecchio. If a modern day artist tried to recreate Michelangelo’s “David” today, without the help of any power tools, it would take about seven years.

13) Since we are already on the topic of the “David”… Apparently, Verrocchio’s bronze sculpture of the “David” was modeled after his young student, Leonardo Da Vinci.

14) Italians really don’t like it when you rest your feet, or legs, on top of chair, tables, or foot stools. They find it very impolite and rude.

15) The city of Florence is still restoring art that was damaged from the flood from 1966. The water from the Arno River was so great that it reached up to, or more than, 3 meters high.

16) Italians start celebrating Christmas well before Americans. (This might have to do with the fact we have Thanksgiving, while Italians do not.) But Florence has been decorating its’ streets with lights, little Christmas trees, and festive wreaths since the beginning of November.