The Gold Florin to Jovanotti and Carlo Conti

The Mayor of Florence, Matteo Renzi, presents the Gold Florin, made by Master Goldsmith Paolo Penko, to singer Jovanotti and presenter Carlo Conti.

The award ceremony took place in Palazzo Vecchio, in the Salone dei Cinquecento, on the occasion of the Festa San Giovanni. Among those present was Mayor Matteo Renzi, who gave a long speech.

“The Gold Florins – said Renzi – are now a custom for San Giovanni, like the Calcio Storico or the Fochi. The most beautiful features of Florence are not to be found in history books but in the ability of each one of us to bring them to life, the beauty of Florence is not being an open-air museum but a city that still expresses an idea for the future”.

During the award ceremony, the first citizen underlined the reasons that led the administration to choose Lorenzo Cherubini, aka Jovanotti, and Carlo Conti.

At the height of his success,” said Renzi, recalling Jovanotti’s career, “Lorenzo got back into the game: he left Italy for a year and went to the US to play in the heart of America. He is like those navigators who, starting from a small river like the Arno, went to discover new worlds and also, in the case of Amerigo Vespucci, to give them a name, to give a name to the future”.

The Gold Florin of the city of Florence was then presented to the presenter Carlo Conti.

 “In a TV where people are fake and constructed and appearance often beats substance, he is not like that. Conti expresses a beautiful idea of Florence. The greatest beauty is that of human relationships against the loneliness of our time,” the mayor concluded.