This fascinating and accessible ethnography provides an insider's look at Florence's San Lorenzo market-one of Italy's most well-known, and traditional, local marketplaces. Like markets throughout Italy, San Lorenzo is undergoing rapid change, and even decline, as the country deals with immigration and globalization pressures, and Schiller effectively captures both the romanticism and the conflicts involved. We tend to forget that iconic sites like San Lorenzo are living things, and that they, too, undergo shifts that reflect the transformations and tensions of the time. This book reminds us of this fact in an empathetic and nuanced way. -- Michael Digiovine, West Chester University of Pennsylvania Merchants in the City of Art visits the quotidian side of Florence beyond Renaissance art and architecture to illuminate a fascinating portrayal of history and uncertainty. In a melange of global tourists, immigrants, and shifting ideas about heritage, Schiller artfully describes the complex politics that mutually threaten, change, and maintain the vibrancy of the San Lorenzo marketplace and the neighborhood surrounding it. -- Walter Little, University at Albany-SUNY

This lively and engaging ethnography, written and designed with students in mind, uses the experiences and perspectives of a set of long-time market vendors in San Lorenzo, a neighborhood in the historic center of Florence, Italy, to explore how cultural identities are formed in periods of profound economic and social change.