Carol King looks back on the Duchess of Cambridge’s time in Florence.
As the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge become parents for the first time, many around the world will wonder when the future heir to the throne will set on his first royal tour – and to where. The royal couple do not have any overseas tours planned in 2013 because of the baby’s arrival. Prince Charles and the late Princess Diana waited almost a year after Prince William’s birth in June 1982 before carrying out an overseas tour. Prince Charles and Princess Diana then set a royal precedent when they took 10-month-old Prince William with them to Australia and New Zealand in 1983.
However, if history is to repeat itself the future monarch’s first destination could be Italy. Prince Harry also started to accompany his parents on official visits at an early age. Born on 15 September 1984, Prince Harry made his first overseas royal tour to Italy. He flew to Venice on 5 May 1985 with Prince William to join his mother and father at the end of their official royal tour.
The Duchess is no stranger to Italy because she studied there while she was still known as Kate Middleton. In 2000, after completing her studies at Marlborough College in Wiltshire, she headed to Florence to study Italian and history of art. Aged only eighteen, she did a three-month course at the British Institute of Florence in Palazzo dello Strozzino during her gap year before going to university.
The British Institute of Florence is a cultural institute founded in 1917 in Florence with the aim of promoting Anglo-Italian cultural relations, teaching English and Italian languages, and running a library of English books to illustrate British and Italian literature, art, history and music. It is the oldest overseas British cultural institute in the world. In the drawing rooms and libraries of pre-war Florence local residents, among them poets, journalists, university professors, publishers and journalists such as Herbert Trench, Lina Waterfield, Guido Ferrando, Guido Biagi and Aldo Sorani, discussed the idea of a reading room, library and space for cultural exchange between Britain and Italy.
The Duchess went to classes at the British Institute at the 15th-century Palazzo dello Strozzino and the 15th-century Palazzo Lanfredini. She studied from Monday to Friday, attending lectures on the Renaissance in the mornings and likely taking Italian lessons in the afternoons. The Duchess would have gone on art-history lectures and tours to Florence’s churches, museums and palazzi, with day trips to Siena and San Gimignano. All of the venues were ideal destinations for her to pursue her hobby in photography.
Yet it was not study all the time. The future royal hung out with friends at one of the city’s most popular bars, the Antico Caffè del Moro or Caffè degli Artisti, known as the ‘Art Bar’, on Via del Moro in the Santa Maria Novella district. Famed for its cocktails, the small, candlelit bar is situated in a 17th-century palazzo with rustic décor. The bar holds art and photography exhibitions – no doubt making it appeal to the art-loving Duchess. Since then, the Art Bar has become a favourite among ex-pats, perhaps because of the Duchess’ patronage. The owners have put a biography of the Duchess on display, in which she is quoted as having enjoyed sipping red wine in the bar in the autumn of 2000. Nevertheless, the Duchess is said to have gone easy on her alcohol intake. Friends of hers have revealed she has never been a big drinker, preferring to sip one glass of wine. A friend from her gap year in Florence told the ‘Daily Mirror’: “She would like a glass of wine but couldn’t really handle her drink. She’d get giggly and silly after a few glasses, so then she would stop. She was never interested in getting really drunk. She never ever let herself get out of control.” Although the Duchess is reported to have had her fair share of attention from Italian men, there appears to have been no romance for her in Florence. A friend of the Duchess, told ‘OK! Magazine’: “Italian men can be quite persuasive, but Catherine would never overreact to compliments. She definitely was not a giggly sort of girl batting her eyelashes!”
Bizarrely, Prince William was rumoured to be joining the same study group as his future wife, but he never did. Like the Duchess, Prince William was also set to study art history at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. However, the Duchess is reported not to have been fussed at the possibility because at the time she was more interested in another boy. Her friend told ‘OK! Magazine’: “The only time I even remember talking about William was when we found out he was coming to study in Florence, we would speculate about hanging out with him, but to be honest she never showed any interest in him or talked about him that much... In fact she was more hung up on a guy called Harry, but things didn’t work out.” After her stay in Florence, the Duchess went on to undertake a Raleigh International programme in Chile, and crewed on Round the World Challenge boats in the Solent. In 2001, she enrolled at the University of St. Andrews from where she graduated in 2005 with a 2:1 in History of Art. It was there she met Prince William.
The Duchess’ time in Italy appears to have left its mark. She and her husband hired an Italian, Antonella Fresolone, as their housekeeper in spring 2013. The Duchess is even reported to have been taken cooking lessons from her new member of staff. Hopefully, the latest Windsor will develop a taste for pasta and will be keen to visit Italy in the steps of generations of royals before him, including his mother, grandparents and great-grandparents Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip.
