Areas of Expertise
Lecturer and Writer
Paola Vojnovic’s lectures in Florence date back to 2007 when she was a teaching assistant at Syracuse University in Florence. Today, she is an active lecturer at the British Institute of Florence and other American university programs in Florence. She is also the author of a number of publications, and is currently working on a book revealing some of the “secret” or hidden places she has found all over Florence.
Private Guide of Florence and Tuscany
In 2008, after an intensive 800-hour training, Paola become an authorized tour guide for​ the City of Florence and Province of Tuscany. Since then, she has had the privilege to share her passion and love for Florence and the Tuscan Region with hundreds of people from all walks of life, all ages, and all over the world. She has offered tours to celebrities and noted individuals who, like everyone else, fall under the spell of this magnificent city and want to discover more.
​In addition to her personalized “insider” tours in and around Florence, she leads field trip programs and insider private tours to Venice, her second favorite city in Italy.
Paola brings her substantial knowledge of art history and Italian culture to all of her tours, and it would be her pleasure to design a special itinerary for you and your family, and escort you on a memorable tour designed especially for you.
Fundraising
After Paola’s graduate research led her to Santa Croce in 2006, that beautiful church and monumental complex (still home to the Franciscan community) quickly became her favorite place in Florence. From 2012 to 2019, she worked for the Opera di Santa Croce, a nonprofit organization that has been connected to the church since 1371. The burial place of Michelangelo, Galileo, Machiavelli, Rossini, and other Italian geniuses, Santa Croce preserves within its walls treasures that fill art history books: frescoes by Giotto and his school, works by Donatello, Rosellino, Vasari, and Bronzino, and the incomparable architecture of the Pazzi Chapel by Brunelleschi.
Paola had the privilege of spearheading three successful fundraising projects for the Opera: “Crazy for Pazzi,” launched in 2014, was a Kickstarter campaign to restore the loggia of the Pazzi Chapel at the Church of Santa Croce. Thanks to donations of more than 800 donors from around the world, $102,426 was raised and this jewel of Renaissance architecture was brought back to its original splendor.
​
“In the Name of Michelangelo” was launched in 2017 to help raise the €100,000 required to clean the tomb of Michelangelo and restore the altarpiece of Buonarroti family in Santa Croce. More than 130 individuals and organizations from around the world contributed to this effort, donating over €120,000.
​
Final fundraising effort took place in 2018 and 2019, to raise a part of funds ($100,000) necessary for the organization and presentation of the landmark exhibition "Sisters in Liberty: from Florence, Italy to New York, New York" which is currently on view at the Ellis Island Museum of Immigration in New York City.
​
​