Federico Santini

I studied at the Scuola Normale, so Piazza dei Cavalieri feels more like home to me than Piazza dei Miracoli does, and I usually open sessions there instead. I explain how Vasari redesigned the whole square for the Knights of St Stephen, and hold the camera on the sgraffito decoration across the Palazzo della Carovana's facade long enough for the patterns to actually register. I like showing a square most visitors skip entirely, since it tells a different, later story about the city than the tower does. I keep the pace slow enough to read the facade properly.