ANTIQUITY V. MODERNITY

Anthony Ciavarelli, reporter
Jennifer Mischler, photography
Rebekah Larisey, videography

Someone who is precise, organized and always on time might clash with someone who is a free-thinking dreamer. However, sister-and-brother tandem Carla Guardacci and Fabrizio Guardacci make their differences a strength in the running of Florence's largest international school, Scuola Lorenzo de'Medici (LdM).

"We don't like to call it business, we call it more of a mission," said Carla, who is the school's general managing director and day-to-day chief. Her brother, Fabrizio, is the school's president and resident visionary.

Carla and Fabrizio seem to agree that providing students with the best education possible is one of the most important things they can do.

The two have operated the school for more than 35 years, turning LdM into Florence's largest international school. Carla handles day-to-day tasks while Fabrizio is the visionary. Together, they make the perfect team.

“We work very well together," said Fabrizio, who also fills his busy days making films. "Sometimes we fight, but this is positive."

Fabrizio said the friction is healthy, that he likes it when people disagree.

"If it's always yes, yes, yes, we don't build up anything," he said.

The school's name, Lorenzo de' Medici, also has years of history and culture behind it. The school is named for one of the city's more colorful leaders, who ruled the Florentine Republic during the Renaissance. The name choice was deliberate and considered.

"Culture is not to remember, but instead to absorb," Fabrizio said, explaining the name.

Today Lorenzo de' Medici helps its students to absorb history and culture in an international context. The faculty at Lorenzo de' Medici has been teaching students for more than 35 years, and the school has more than 30 academic subject areas.

Every year the school has been open, at least one new building is added to facilitate the expanding instruction.

Lorenzo de' Medici started off as an Italian language class for foreigners. As Carla described the history of Lorenzo de' Medici, she mentioned that the first tables the school had for students were ping pong tables, the only tables the nascent school could afford at the time. Beginning with four classrooms and offering only language instruction, the school has since extensively diversified and now offers programs in digital media, jewelry making, studio art, art history and fashion design, among others.

Graduating from ping pong tables to desks, expanding to more than 30 school buildings in three cities in Italy and boasting a student body of more than 2,000 are measures of Carla's and Fabrizio's success and of their intriguing working relationship.

With more than 2,000 students enrolled at Lorenzo de' Medici during the academic year, 80% of which are American, people of many cultures get to interact in an educational environment.

Carla and Fabrizio both say they have great expectations for the students that attend Lorenzo de' Medici. They each said independently that they expect students to come to Italy and get a good education. They are not interested in students visiting merely to party and to sample Italian nightlife, a stereotype of American students studying abroad.

When it comes to running Lorenzo de' Medici, Carla and Fabrizio seem to make the perfect team. Carla is more practically minded, while Fabrizio favors the creative, the big picture. They balance each other out and each credit the other with being the "mind" of the school. Carla said that because of Fabrizio’s ideas and creativity, he is the mind of the school. Likewise, Fabrizio bestows that praise on Carla because of her mastery of detail and practicality.