Via dè Tornabuoni

This guide to Via de' Tornabuoni in Florence centers on Salvatore Ferragamo, a shoemaker's son from near Naples who left for America as a teenager and ended up fitting stars like Mary Pickford and Rudolph Valentino in Hollywood. It also traces the medieval fortress behind him, Palazzo Spini Feroni, raised in twelve eighty-nine by a banker named Geri Spini for defense rather than commerce, long before it bore Ferragamo's name. Look up at its jagged battlements as you stand on the street below.