California State University International Program Florence

Isabella Toraldo di Francia is presently Language Instructor and Coordinator of the Language Department at the California State University Program in Florence. She was born in Florence and has lived in Florence and in the United States. She studied Education at the University of Florence, was co-founder and director of a pre-school in her native city, and has worked in various capacities for the Syracuse University and California State University study programs there. In addition to her work in education, she is an active writer and translator.

She has contributed to several guidebooks, notably Blue Guide Southern Italy, Blue Guide  Northern Italy and Blue Guide Yugoslavia (Black/Somerset, 1979 and subsequent editions); Il Duomo di Siena (Rome: Arno e Tevere, 1984), Santa Maria Novella (Rome: Arno e Tevere, 1984), Palazzo Vecchio (Rome: Arno e Tevere, 1984) and Guida di Firenze (Florence: Scala, 1986), and has written (on Dante’s Florence) for The Tattler magazine(London). Furthermore, she has translated and/or edited numerous publications on science and art, including exhibition catalogues for the Luigi Pecci Center for Contemporary Art, Prato; Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art, Turin; Palazzo Grassi, Venice; the American Academy, Rome; the National Museum of Cinema, Turin; the Museum of Modern Art, Lugano; the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City; and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. She lives in Fiesole with her husband, artist/writer Paul Blanchard, and her daughter, Melissa, a cultural anthropologist. Her interests include music, poetry, photography, yoga  and alternative medicine.