Mario Baracchi

And Twice on Monday

Walking the streets of Florence, Italy, on the via Dei Pecori, you might find a photography and optics store, the oldest shop in Florence. It’s for old school shooters, the ones who still use film, and you could get your glasses fixed or find a new pair. Behind inviting display cases are tiers of history: black accordion folding antique cameras, yellowed newspapers, black and white photographs.

Mario Baracchi, in a white lab coat and a tie as colorful as his years, has worked at Umberto Dei Ottica Fotografia since 1943 and run the store for over fifty years.

Baptized down the street at the massive and ornately carved il Duomo, he has stories he’ll tell you with photographs.

He fought in the war and remembers Nazis marching right in front of the store. He fell to the floor once in a bomb explosion, the air full of the dust. He was with his friend when he was killed by a land mine. The wound to his leg and his heart has lasted all these years.

A flood nearly destroyed the store in 1966. The photographs look devastating, but the glass display cases are touchingly the same, as is the sign.

He’ll show you a photograph of his beautiful wife who died twenty years ago. They never fought. Their honeymoon lasted her entire life and it was because they were not afraid to be together. They made love every day and twice on Monday because the store opened late.