Florence (Italy)

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    Explosion at Fuel Depot Near Florence Kills at Least Two

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    Officials said it would take time to determine the cause of the explosion. At least nine people were injured in the blast.At least two people were killed and another nine injured Monday in an explosion at a fuel depot on the outskirts of Florence, according to city officials and the company that ran the facility. The cause of the explosion had not yet been determined, the company said.The death toll could rise, as three workers at the depot in the town of Calenzano remained unaccounted for, the officials said. The explosion occurred around 10:20 a.m. Television images showed a huge plume of black smoke rising from the site.ENI, the Italian energy company that owns the depot, said in a statement that the explosion had been confined to a loading area and a resulting fire had not spread to nearby tanks.Italy’s minister for civil protection, Nello Musumeci, said on social media that rescue workers were deployed immediately after the explosion. Local hospitals were put on high alert.Teams of firefighters arrived from Florence and surrounding towns, as well as units from nearby airports, and they managed to put out the fire “quickly, given the situation,” said Luca Cari, a spokesman for Italy’s firefighters.Italy’s national civil protection agency issued an SMS text alert to residents within about three miles of the site, advising them to remain indoors and stay clear of the facility.Officials in Calenzano urged citizens to close their windows and limit outdoor activities. Two days of mourning were announced for Monday and Tuesday. All municipal events were canceled for both days.The mayor of Florence, Sara Funaro, described the situation as “very, very bad,” and said in a statement that the city would offer psychological assistance to the families of the victims.“In these moments,” she said, “we must think of the families who are the first to be affected; we have to be close to them.”Luca Tescaroli, the chief prosecutor of the nearby city of Prato, said in a statement that his office would open a case to determine the causes of the explosion and whether anyone should be held accountable, Italian media reported. More

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      Silvano Marchetto, Owner of Glitzy Greenwich Village Trattoria, Dies at 77

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      Da Silvano was a celebrity hangout, drawing boldface names like Madonna, Barry Diller and Yoko Ono. It was often referred to as the downtown Elaine’s.Silvano Marchetto, an Italian restaurateur whose Greenwich Village trattoria, Da Silvano, opened in 1975 and became a star-studded canteen and a Page Six fixture, died on June 4 in Florence, Italy. He was 77.His daughter, Leyla Marchetto, said the cause was heart failure.For four decades, akin to a downtown Elaine’s, Da Silvano was one of New York’s reigning haunts for the art, fashion, media and film crowds. And Mr. Marchetto, a hard-living Tuscan who parked his Ferrari ornamentally outside his establishment, was its rustic host and mascot.He wore Hawaiian shirts and yellow pants, and his wrists were covered in silver bracelets and jewelry. After he fired waiters in fits of passion, he soon missed them, sending emissaries to lure them back. And when everyone from Rihanna to Barry Diller to Patti Smith frequented his restaurant, he greeted them with a friendly growl as he nursed a glass of wine.Before social media democratized the public’s access to the lives of celebrities, tabloids like The New York Post and The Daily News relied on Da Silvano as a source of juicy gossip. The patio tables beneath its yellow awning were coveted seating for those who wanted to be seen, and the pictures snapped by the paparazzi posted up along the sidewalk outside notified New Yorkers about how their favorite celebrities dated, argued, wheedled and canoodled.“Page Six covered us so much people asked if I owned The New York Post,” Mr. Marchetto (pronounced MARK-et-oh) once said. “But it was good for Da Silvano, whatever they wrote.”Mr. Marchetto’s roster of regulars included Calvin Klein, Anna Wintour, Lindsay Lohan, Joan Didion, Madonna, Yoko Ono, Harvey Weinstein, Susan Sontag, Lou Reed, Salman Rushdie, Stephanie Seymour and Larry Gagosian.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Former Uffizi Director Eike Schmidt Toys With Running for Mayor of Florence

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      The museum’s former director, Eike Schmidt, is toying — somewhat mischievously — with entering the race to become Florence’s mayor.Will he? Or won’t he?It’s a question that’s been buzzing at dinner parties and on street corners in Florence, and throughout the Italian art world. The “he” in question is Eike Schmidt, who until last month was the director of the Uffizi museum, and who has hinted that he might run for mayor of Florence in upcoming municipal elections.Since the summer, Schmidt has been toying — somewhat mischievously — with the idea of running with the Brothers of Italy, the hard-right majority party in the coalition that governs the country.Even after he was appointed last month as the new director of the Capodimonte Museum in Naples, a four-year posting set to begin this month, Schmidt has not clarified his intentions, except to say in an interview in an Italian newspaper that he would be unable to do both jobs at once.On Wednesday, Italy’s culture minister, Gennaro Sangiuliano, posted a photo on social media with Schmidt, and wrote in an accompanying post that there were “great plans and ideas” for the Capodimonte that he had discussed with the new director.But many still believe that Schmidt has larger aspirations and that his candidacy in Florence remains possible. The former director of the Uffizi — considered one of the world’s great museums, with instantly recognizable works by Renaissance masters like Botticelli, Leonardo and Michelangelo — has said he would make a decision this month. He declined to be interviewed for this article.“He’s a person who likes challenges,” said Giorgio Bernardini, who writes about local politics for Corriere Fiorentino, the local edition of the national daily Corriere della Sera. “And he’s a strong personality,” Bernadini added.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More