What originally began as casual sketches left behind at The American University of Florence’s (AUF) Fedora Pastry Shop and Bistro turned into a public art presentation for Matilde Ricci.

A Fedora regular, Ricci would stop into the bistrot located inside the university's Palazzi Community Center (PCC) for coffee and quietly sketch, often giving intricate pen drawings to the staff.

When staff members shared her artwork with PCC director Valentina Monaco, she was immediately impressed and invited Ricci to showcase her work publicly.

The free presentation, a continuation of the PCC’s cultural integration series “Made in Florence,” welcomed both students and Florence locals, giving the typically reserved artist a chance to share her work with the wider community.

Ricci explained Monday evening in the PCC’s outdoor seating area that her art focuses on places: the buildings, landmarks, streets and landscapes that make up Florence and the stories they tell. 

She presented numerous different scanned and enlarged prints of her work, hung on an easel, while the crowd listened and passed around her notebook, thumbing through pages of original sketches.

Ricci said she undergoes a “personal journey” as she draws, appreciating the solitude of being alone in a crowd of people and taking the time to get to know her surroundings. 

“When you're alone and there are lots of people around, chaos is something that surrounds you, Ricci said. “But at the same time, there are spaces that are almost still, which are things that remain there and over time remain the same in the end. Instead, people come and go.”*

Ricci said this is why she prefers to draw places, like Fedora and the streets around Galleria del'Accademia, over people, which Monaco reiterated.

“She doesn't feel comfortable drawing people, because she is afraid to lose people,” Monaco said. “She feels that the building or streets will stay there forever, while people, she feels that she could lose them.”

Ricci’s appreciation for permanence is reflected by her preference for using pen over pencil.

“I've never liked the pencil, precisely because it can also go away, and therefore it doesn't remain on the paper, whereas the pen is a fixed thing,” Ricci said.”* 

Whether it be while she is physically there or later, pulling from her memories, Ricci told the crowd she chooses to draw places as she remembers them rather than matching their precise geography. 

She said this allows her art to preserve her past emotional experience of a place through ink and paper, capturing moments of stillness within Florence’s constant movement. 

The glimpse the crowd got into Ricci’s artistic world is exactly why the PCC hosts “Made in Florence” programming, according to Monaco.

“This is a very, very young girl, but she's very talented,” Monaco said. “And in this way, they [‘Made in Florence’ attendees] have the opportunity to get to know people that maybe in other places, you wouldn't have the same opportunities."

The next “Made in Florence” event will be held on Monday, March 23 from 6:30 – 7:30 pm, highlighting the history and craftsmanship of Florentine furniture and décor company, Casa della Cornice. 

All quotations in this article marked with an asterisk (*) were translated from Italian into English. These are approximate translations and should not be regarded as the interviewee’s verbatim words.