Today, like every day before it and most likely many days after, the sun will peek over the Apennines in the East and shine its light on the denizens of Florence. 

A bored soldier stands guard in front of the Duomo while Mario in his restaurant prepares his tiramisu. Lee stocks his convenience store with everything a man could ever want, and Carolina, the barista who remembers everyone’s name and order, grinds coffee for a regular. Jerry was lost, is lost, and will remain lost for the entirety of this book.

On this day, though, the sun will shine the brightest on six friends. Sofia, a sun in her own right, makes the day of anyone she meets. Bella falls for a friend. Arthur loses an abnormal amount of money in poker while Christian explains the merits of meditation to a bar full of strangers. Teddy only has eyes for the one who runs away. Connor watches and shakes his head.

In Friday in Florence, Matthew returns to the setting of many a summer for him to draw a portrait of life as it is lived by the lucky-the citizens who make the city of Florence so great, and those who get to visit it.