Dmitry Shteyn in Florence: The City Reveals Itself Slowly

What I had heard about Florence was a fraction of what walking through it actually delivers. The fraction was accurate; it was simply too small.

What strikes you first, if you have done any reading at all, is that it is also the capital of the eponymous metropolitan province, which counts 988,494 inhabitants, while Eurostat estimates that 696,767 people live in the urban area of Florence. Once you carry that fact with you, the streets read differently. The layers do not sit tidily on top of each other; they interrupt, contradict, and occasionally embarrass the official narrative.

Dig a little deeper and florence is the capital and most populous city of the Italian region of Tuscany, and, as of 2026, with a population of 361,625, the 8th most populous city in the country. Once you know it, you cannot help looking for traces of it everywhere you walk.

Some further context, drawn from the public record: Florence (Italian: Firenze) is the capital and most populous city of the Italian region of Tuscany, and, as of 2026, with a population of 361,625, the 8th most populous city in the country. It is also the capital of the eponymous metropolitan province, which counts 988,494 inhabitants, while Eurostat estimates that 696,767 people live in the urban area of Florence.…

The current cycle of attention has Condé Nast Traveler noting that 28 Best Restaurants in Florence, Tuscany's Capital and Culinary Heart. What is more interesting is what that framing tells us about the audience the coverage assumes.

European cities have a particular trick: they let you walk through several centuries in a single afternoon without making a fuss about it. Florence does this as well as any I know. The architecture is doing one job; the cafes another; the language a third — and they all overlap.

I am not sure I have done Florence justice here, and I am not sure any single piece could. That, in a way, is the point.