Expanding the Florentine Mind

I have decided that I ought to learn a little about my adopted hometown, so I have bought a couple of books to inform me about the history of Florence.
History, for a Hong Konger, is a strange subject. I am more used to history being a case of something I remember from 5 years ago, when there were once market stalls and old Chinese shop houses where there are now des-res apartments and a mall. But here in Florence the sheer quantity of history is awe-inspiring. My friend Ale, a history buff, gave me the down low when he was here for a weekend, but I figure I need to commit the details to more than short-term memory alone.
Winter has bitten hard here this week, and the cold snap (here's hoping it is only a snap) I am reliably informed by the colonel on the Meteo, is coming to us straight from Siberia. Thanks Siberia!
But the glacial temperatures tonight reminded me of a passage from one of my new books, David Leavitt's "Florence, A delicate case". He says...
"To the contemporary visitor, Florence can seem alternately officious and vulgar, in some quarters brusquely unwelcoming and in others pandering to the lowest tourist impulse. ... Many of the streets are so narrow that a normal-sized car will force you up against a wall, like a terrified cat. Everywhere you turn, there are doors so immense, that smaller, human-sized doors have had to be cut into them; there are even doors the wood of which has been carved to make them resemble stone. ... A feeling of exclusion, of pointedly not being invited to some wonderful party obscurely glimpsed, or perhaps just guessed at, has always been part of the tourist's experience of Florence - and not just exclusion from 'the real Florence' of the Florentines... Do not confuse Florence with a welcoming city; it repulses the new arrival with a hard jab in the side, a frigid stare. The weather is often terrible, since Florence occupies the conca, or basin, that spreads out between two important sets of hills - the Mugello to the north and Chianti to the south. In summer the air groes sultry, ... Winter is no better, with a wind that bears in its icy arms all manner of exotic and undocumented species of flu."
Mr Leavitt is right - the wind does have icy arms, at least right now, and he is also right that, in this city, there is a sense of a job half-done. A desire to understand and delve into the Florence of the Florentines exists for almost all who visit, and certainly, if my experience is anything to go by, for those who live here.
I wonder what it feels like once those immense doors open? When the invitation to the exclusive party arrives on the door mat?
I hope to find out!