Alle porte co' sassi (time is tight)

We are at the gates with stones!
According to the Vocabulary of Contemporary Florentine (Accademia della Crusca): “trovarsi in prossimità di una scadenza, aver pochissimo tempo a disposizione; essere molto vicino al raggiungimento di qualcosa”. In short: time is tight.
With this Florentine dialect expression, which originated in the Middle Ages, the intention is to represent the imminence of an event, something that is about to happen soon, thus emphasising the urgency of hurrying to finish what one has to do or to get to one's destination before... Before the doors close!

The expression, in fact, takes us back to the city customs of ancient times, when, at the time of the first, second and perhaps up to the third circle of the Florentine walls, the city closed its gates at dusk. The latecomers, in order to signal to the gate guards not to close the gates, but to wait for their arrival, having no other expedient but the power of wit, would pick up stones to throw on the gates and thus warn them not to leave them outside for the night.

Our itinerary focuses precisely around the gates that have been the protagonists of these events, near which we can admire some of the finest and most important craftsmen in the city of Florence, expressing sectors such as goldsmithing, bronze work, weaving for furniture, leather goods, footwear and stained glass.

This itinerary is part of the European project Crafts Code.