Vecchio versus Antico

by Abigail Padfield 

I was sitting at Caffe d’italia and Romano was walking around. I asked him to join me and we started talking about the history of Cagli. He told me about how Cagli used to be located on top of the mountain.

As the conversation continued, we started discussing the building of Cagli. He told me stories about how Mussolini spoke on the balcony of the building where Mimi’s Café is located. I asked him about the palazzo and described it as vecchio. He told me that the palazzo was not vecchio but antico. I asked him what the difference between the two words was and he explained that the palazzo was built in 1289 so it is considered antico but he is vecchio. This was a great learning experience on when to use antico and vecchio but it makes me wonder why Ponte Vecchio in Florence is not Ponte Antico.