Florence 1921
Buy this print on Etsy →Countless artists have shown Florence blazing under Tuscan sun. Roger Broders, in his 1921 poster for the city, did something far rarer: he let the Renaissance dream unfold by moonlight.
Instead of brilliant daylight, Broders offers an intimate nocturnal vision of Florence. Beneath a luminous moon, the city's famous landmarks shimmer and glow, their outlines softened into a hushed, romantic reverie. It is a bold reversal of convention, and it reveals the quiet enchantment that has drawn travellers to Florence for centuries, the sense of a place best savoured in stillness, when the crowds have gone and the stone itself seems to breathe. It is an unusually intimate approach for a travel poster, and it lingers in the memory long after the brighter, busier images have faded. The soft glow of the moon does the work that sunshine usually does, wrapping the domes and towers in a spell of quiet romance.
Roger Broders (1883-1953) was among the most gifted poster designers of the golden age of rail. His luminous images for the PLM railway lured travellers toward the Alps, the Jura and the Riviera, and his flair for compressing a scene into flat, saturated planes of colour made him one of the most collectable names of his generation. Here that flair serves not spectacle but atmosphere.
The poster is a distinctive expression of Art Deco. Rising in 1920s France, the movement celebrated speed, elegance and machine-age geometry, reducing elaborate views to bold, simplified shapes. Broders bends that graphic clarity toward atmosphere here, proving Deco could conjure mood and mystery as readily as glamour and optimism.
Displayed at scale, a vintage lithographic poster becomes a genuine focal point. Its rich palette and poised composition hold their own above a sofa, bed or console, anchor a gallery wall of mixed prints, and bring colour, warmth and a sense of history to a living room, hallway, dining room, home bar, kitchen or studio.
Every print is made to order on premium 189 gsm museum-grade archival matte paper with fade-resistant pigment inks, for deep, gallery-quality colour and crisp detail. Choose your size from the drop-down menu: 8x12, 12x18, 16x24, 20x30 or 24x36 inches. Each order is carefully packaged and shipped rolled in a sturdy tube, with the smallest size sent flat; a frame is not included.
This is a faithful fine-art reproduction of the original stone lithograph, colour-matched and printed to archival standards rather than a flat mass-market copy. It preserves the texture and character of the antique poster while arriving crisp, clean and ready to frame. Reproduced from a high-resolution scan of the original, it retains subtle age-toning as part of its authentic historic character.
For the romantic, the traveller and anyone who loves vintage posters and Art Deco design, this moonlit Florence makes a memorable gift and a lasting way to bring a piece of Italian travel art into a home, studio or workplace.
