This project takes shape far from the canonical image of Florence.
It moves along the margins of a city I know from within, through spaces that are crossed but not truly seen—everyday fragments that slip outside the compact narrative of the city of art. In these lateral zones, where Florence stops representing an idea of itself and reveals what it is in its quiet present, I search for a way of looking that suspends judgment, allowing places to speak without being forced into a predefined aesthetic.
Black and white creates the necessary distance: it neutralizes the immediate impact of color, pulls the image away from the noise of the present, and restores dignity to what lies outside the visual conventions the city has projected onto itself for centuries. In these spaces, forms, traces, and subtle shifts accumulate, revealing another Florence—less visible, yet no less real. To observe these off‑frame places is to listen to their silent memory, the one that emerges when the rhetoric of the historic center recedes.
It is a practice of attention, an archaeology of the present—a way of standing before reality without consuming it or turning it into a complacent image.
Lorenzo Valloriani is an Italian photographer. He holds a degree in Art History. His work investigates the contemporary city, with particular attention to urban margins and ordinary spaces excluded from monumental representation. Through a rigorous, non-narrative documentary practice, he explores the relationship between architecture, time, and vision.
He has published two photobooks: Ventennio (Editrice Quinlan, 2023) and Secret Tuscany (89books, 2024).
© Text and pictures by Lorenzo Valloriani
