'HITLER'S CARPET A TALE OF ONE CITY

This study focuses on a mid 17th-century Persian carpet, most probably from Isfahan, which is currently kept in the Museo Bardini in Florence (inv. no. 555). This carpet came to be known in oral tradition as ‘Hitler's carpet’ because it was reputedly used on 9 May 1938 to welcome Hitler on the platform of Florence's main train station. The first part of the article provides a historical overview of the political role of carpets. Relevant historical sources and accounts of the particular uses and the rituals and codes involving audience-hall carpets in the medieval Islamic world are gathered and discussed in order to establish the carpet's political function. Thus, to a certain degree, light is also thrown on the long history preceding the common present-day diplomatic use of carpets in official arrival ceremonies for political figures and on the particular story of its use in Florence in 1938. Drawing upon archival materials, visual and written alike, the second part of the article focuses on oral tradition and Florentine urban narratives associated with the Bardini carpet and aims to explain the complex relationship between fiction and reality in the construction of its modern biography.