Santa Maria del Fiore seems straight out of an Art History book, where, to keep the eye on the architecture, people were removed. Photographing Florence at the time of COVID-19, Edoardo Delille found himself, more or less, in the same situation. It wasn't Photoshop that made people disappear, the virus of this modern plague did it instead.

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“I was surprised by this experience. Photographing the squares and symbolic landmarks of Florence, emptied of the millions of tourists who usually fill the streets of the center was a surprising experience. I found myself in a city almost ghostly in its renewed beauty, on the set of a film that I would not have imagined seeing. The silence of the streets, usually crowded with people, accompanied me in visiting, in solitude, what for centuries have been the symbols of the Renaissance beauty of the city.

I shot the scene from above, looking through the eyes of those who are now forced to see life through a window facing the street. This angle reinforced the idea of immobility, of stasis, which characterizes this period of modern history. I chose to shoot at times of the day when the streets of the centre were usually crowded with people. The hours when it is usually difficult to take a good picture of the monuments' architecture. The very harsh light of these days reveals the absence of humans even more.”