Out of Florence

"Out of Florence" is Harry Brewster's warm and evocative portrait of life at San Francesco di Paola, the medieval former convent around which his world revolves. He muses on the exotic locations he has visited, and on his immense pleasure at returning home.

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Out of Florence is Harry Brewster’s warm and evocative portrait of life at San Francesco di Paola, the medieval former convent around which his world revolves. It was here that his grandfather, the sculptor Adolf von Hildebrand, lived and worked and created a centre of European culture where such visitors as Richard and Cosima Wagner, Clara Schumann, Ethel Smythe, Henry James, William Ewart Gladstone and Bernard Berenson came and went.

The memory of his family home has been a constant companion to the author during a life spent travelling extensively, whether in Greece and Italy – where classical antiquity is never far away – or even when he roams further afield to America leaving the ancient world far behind. Here he muses not only on the exotic locations he has visited, but also on his great pleasure in returning home, and shares such entertaining episodes as his epic and successful battle with the Hilton Hotel over the proposal to block Leonardo da Vincis’ historic view of Florence.