Kathleen Thorpe's photos with the keyword: Firenze

Thank you all for visiting and for your gracious and appreciated comments! I wish I could thank each of you personally. Have a great creative day! Please do not use my photograph without my express consent. All rights reserved. Kathleen

Florence, Italy Thank you all for visiting and for your gracious and appreciated comments! I wish I could thank each of you personally. Have a great creative day! Please do not use my photograph without my express consent. All rights reserved. Kathleen

Florence, Italy - Not the best image; shot through a window. But, just seeing the architecture, the ancient tile work, and returning to Firenze begged for the photo as we sat in the bar enjoying an Aperol spritz. It was one of those "you had to be there moments". Thank you all for visiting and for your gracious and appreciated comments! I wish I could thank each of you personally. Have a great creative day! Please do not use my photograph without my express consent. All rights reserved. Kathleen

Florence, Italy Even though I took this photograph in May in Florence, it seems appropriate to use on New Year's Eve. I wish you all the best in 2015!!!! Thank you all for visiting and for your gracious and appreciated comments! I wish I could thank each of you personally. Have a great creative day! Please do not use my photograph without my express consent. All rights reserved. Kathleen

Florence, Italy Thank you all for visiting and for your gracious and appreciated comments! I wish I could thank each of you personally. Have a great creative day! Please do not use my photograph without my express consent. All rights reserved. Kathleen

Firenze, Italia - statuary on the Ponte Vecchio I had to dodge a few cars while standing in the middle of the road for this very quick shot. {:o) Thank you all for visiting and for your gracious and appreciated comments! I wish I could thank each of you personally. Have a great creative day! Please do not use my photograph without my express consent. All rights reserved. Kathleen

Florence, Tuscany, Italy One of my favorite memories of Italy are the street scenes such as this of vegetable stands and shoppers. Thank you all for visiting and for your gracious and appreciated comments! I wish I could thank each of you personally. Have a great creative day! Please do not use my photograph without my express consent. All rights reserved. Kathleen

Florence, Italy - This street mime was performing very close to the Piti Palace. Thank you all for visiting and for your gracious and appreciated comments! I wish I could thank each of you personally. Have a great creative day! Please do not use my photograph without my express consent. All rights reserved. Kathleen

Thank you all for visiting and for your gracious and appreciated comments! I wish I could thank each of you personally. Have a great creative day! Please do not use my photograph without my express consent. All rights reserved. Kathleen The Massacre of via dei Georgofili (Italian: Strage di via dei Georgofili) was a bomb explosion set by the Mafia very early in the morning of 27 May 1993 in Florence, Italy. The attempt was carried on with a Fiat Fiorino full of explosives, parked near the Torre dei Pulci, between the Uffizi and the Arno River. The edifice was the seat of the Accademia dei Georgofili. The large explosion caused the death of five people: Caterina Nencioni (50 days old), Nadia Nencioni (9 years old), Dario Capolicchio (22 years old), Angela Fiume (36 years old), Fabrizio Nencioni (39 years old); 48 other people were wounded. The tower and other buildings were destroyed and others damaged, including the Uffizi Gallery, where three paintings were irretrievably destroyed, including an Adoration of the Shepherds (1620) by Gerard van Honthorst. The massacre was ordered by the Corleonesi mafia clan, led by Totò Riina, in response to the application of the article 41-bis law, by which jailed mafiosi were isolated and put under severe restrictive measures. The bombing was followed by another two: on 27 July, in Rome, near the churches of St. John Lateran and San Giorgio al Velabro and at Milan, in via Palestro, where another car bomb killed five people. Later, pentito Gaspare Spatuzza claimed to have repented for his participation in the incidents. In the same declarations, Spatuzza cited politicians Silvio Berlusconi and Marcello Dell'Utri as the new political associates of mafia at the time, after their traditional supporting parties, such as Democrazia Cristiana had been wiped out by the 1992 Mani Pulite scandal. Italian investigators said today that the Mafia was behind a series of bomb attacks last year against cultural and church targets in Italy partly to destabilize the Italian Government, but also because the Mafia felt that the Roman Catholic Church had abrogated an unwritten hands-off policy toward organized crime. The investigators, who are investigating the bombings of targets that included the Uffizi gallery in Florence, said they had issued arrest warrants for eight suspects, all with Mafia associations, and had made two arrests. None of the suspects have been linked directly to the Uffizi bombing, though the investigators said evidence suggested that all the groups that exploded the bombs worked in close contact. They said further warrants and arrests were forthcoming. From May to August 1993, five car bomb attacks in Rome, Florence and Milan left 10 people dead and dozens wounded. In addition to the Uffizi, the targets were two venerable Roman churches, San Giovanni in Laterano and San Giorgio in Velabro, and a modern-art gallery in Milan. A powerful bomb also exploded near the home of a television talk-show host, Maurizio Costanzo, a vocal Mafia opponent. Mr. Costanzo escaped unharmed. Intelligence Chief Quits The bombings outraged Italians. They prompted the head of the civilian intelligence agency to resign and led to shake-ups in the national police organization. The Prime Minister at the time, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, blamed a "turbid alliance of forces" that he said pursued "both political destabilization and criminal goals." But in their presentation today, the investigators focused solely on the Mafia. Of the eight against whom arrest warrants were issued, four were already in jail, including Salvatore Riina, the reputed "boss of all bosses" of the Sicilian mob. Two men suspected of actually setting off explosions, Aldo Frabetti and Antonio Scarano, who were identified as known drug runners with links to organized crime, were detained in recent days. The investigators accused Mr. Frabetti and Mr. Scarano of placing the bombs that exploded in Rome last July 27, causing widespread damage to San Giorgio and the Lateran basilica and wounding dozens of people. Explosives Moved Around The magistrates presented a detailed picture of the way large amounts of explosives were moved about the country together with illegal drug shipments, a Mafia specialty, and concealed for months in apartments controlled by Mafia figures. The investigators described how the explosives were delivered by truck at regular intervals to a tenement building on the Via Ostiense in Rome, and hidden under gravel in the building's courtyard. The main breaks in the case, the investigators said, came from ordinary citizens who volunteered observations of suspect activity, from Mafia turncoats and from telephone taps in apartments and jail cells. But the investigators were reluctant to reveal details, for fear of jeopardizing the ongoing investigations. The car bomb at the Uffizi, which killed five people, exploded on May 27, 1993, blowing out skylights and windows and damaging paintings. Restoration work is continuing, though large areas have been restored and reopened to the public. At a news conference, the investigators said today that the order for the car bombs had been issued by the Mafia to strike at the Government, at the Roman Catholic Church and at media figures who opposed the Mafia, like Mr. Costanzo. Bombs Followed Crackdown After the killing in May 1992 of the country's top Mafia prosecutor, Giovanni Falcone, the Government began the biggest crackdown against the Mafia in years, leading to the arrest of Mr. Riina, who had spent more than 20 years on the run. Michele Coiro, the chief investigator, said the Mafia believed that this crackdown "might constitute the beginning of the end." Among those sought for detonating the bombs in Rome are Leoluca Bagarella and Giovanni Brusca. Mr. Brusca is a well-known Mafia operative who is also accused of setting off the bomb that killed Judge Falcone. The Mafia also meant to strike back at the church, Mr. Coiro said. During a visit to Sicily in May 1993, Pope John Paul II urged Roman Catholics, who make up the vast majority of Sicily's five million people, to rise up against the Mafia. Mr. Coiro said the Pope's appeals were evidently viewed by the Mafia as breaching a kind of "non-belligerence accord" between Mafia and church. He said that in an apparent reprisal last September, the Rev. Giuseppe Puglisi, a priest in Palermo who was an outspoken opponent of organized crime, was shot and killed in what investigators believe was a Mafia operation.

I saw this piece of art sticking out of a building about 30 feet high as we walked through Firenze! You never know what you will find!! Thank you all for visiting and for your gracious and appreciated comments! I wish I could thank each of you personally. Have a great creative day! Please do not use my photograph without my express consent. All rights reserved. Kathleen

Hotel Degli Orafi, Firenze, Italia - It's a good thing I walked my feet off every day ... {:o) Thank you all for visiting and for your gracious and appreciated comments! I wish I could thank each of you personally. Have a great creative day! Please do not use my photograph without my express consent. All rights reserved. Kathleen

Thank you all for visiting and for your gracious and appreciated comments! I wish I could thank each of you personally. Have a great creative day! Please do not use my photograph without my express consent. All rights reserved. Kathleen

Close friends Prosecco and Aperol Spritz!! {:o) Thank you all for visiting and for your gracious and appreciated comments! I wish I could thank each of you personally. Have a great creative day! Please do not use my photograph without my express consent. All rights reserved. Kathleen

Roof top view from Hotel Degli Orafi. Thank you all for visiting and for your gracious and appreciated comments! I wish I could thank each of you personally. Have a great creative day! Please do not use my photograph without my express consent. All rights reserved. Kathleen