The story
Hello there. As you walk, take a moment to look at the length of this road. It stretches out before you like a long, straight spine, connecting the busy, industrious heart of the Rifredi neighborhood to the quieter, more aristocratic edges of the city. You might notice the steady hum of the traffic or the way the mid-century apartment buildings lean in over the sidewalk, but have you looked up at the sign? Via Reginaldo Giuliani. It is a name that carries a heavy, complicated history, echoing a time when the roles of the spirit and the sword were often blurred together.
Reginaldo Giuliani was not a Florentine by birth. He was born in Turin in 1887, but his name was etched into the map of this city, and many others across Italy, to honor a man who lived a life of intense and often controversial devotion. He was a Dominican priest, a man of the cloth who chose to spend much of his life on the front lines of war. During the First World War, he served as a military chaplain, earning medals for his bravery while tending to the wounded and dying under heavy fire.
However, it was his death in 1936 that cemented his place in the national memory of that era. Giuliani had volunteered to join the Italian military campaign in Ethiopia. He served as a chaplain for a division of the Blackshirts, and during a fierce, multi-day battle at a mountain pass called Passo Uarieu, he was killed. Documented accounts from the time say he was struck down while performing his religious duties and providing aid amidst the fighting. In the eyes of the Italian government at the time, he became the ultimate symbol of the soldier-priest, a martyr who represented the union of religious faith and national expansion.
While the exact date of the street’s dedication is not prominently recorded in the local stones, it was almost certainly named in the late 1930s, during a wave of urban expansion that sought to celebrate the figures of the African campaign. Today, the political fervor of that decade has faded into the background noise of daily life, leaving behind this long artery of transit.
As you continue your walk, you will see how the street changes character. Near the southern end, it is defined by the energy of the city—close to the Rifredi train station and the bustle of Piazza Dalmazia. But as you move north, the atmosphere shifts. The buildings begin to breathe, and you start to see old garden walls and narrow side streets that hint at the proximity of the great Medici villas, like Villa La Petraia and the Villa di Castello, which wait just a short distance away.
Before you move on, I want you to try something. Stop for a second and look at the nearest stone wall or doorframe. Look for the texture of the Pietra Serena, that cool, grey sandstone that defines so much of Florence. Notice how a modern intercom or a piece of street art sits directly against that ancient-looking rock. It is a small reminder that in this city, every layer of time—from a chaplain in the 1930s to the stonemasons of the Renaissance—is still right here, pressed firmly against the present moment.