When Amedeo Modigliani arrived at Gare de Lyon in 1906, a fantastic new world, unknown till that day, appeared in front of his eyes. Paris, twenty-six hours of travel by train far from Livorno, had at the time almost three million inhabitants, and at Dedo's eyes the immense boulevards, the horse-omnibus, the trams, the noise of the first motor vehicles, the bistrot, the grey roofs, the crowds, had for sure remembered him of a Victor Hugo's novel. The ville lumière was lightened by 9622 lamppost and 500.000 light bulbs. Paris was the arts' european capital and Amedeo maybe didn't even know from where to start. The museums, the Salon des Independants, the Universal Exhibitions, the Louvre, the arts' galleries, the cafè's life... Everything for him was fresh and new.At that time the artistic life was still enclosed in the “suburban” district of Montmartre, where the Impressionists found their accommodations – and success – and where the avant-gardes' exponents, among which Pablo Picasso, Gino Severini, and Costantin Brancusi, used to frequent and start to experiment the first important steps of new pictorial styles. Only later, around the end of the first decade, Montparnasse became the new artists' district, at the exact opposite side of Paris' city center. And it is right there that Modigliani became a sort of myth, a legendary figure, appreciated by few and snubbed by too many.

In Paris Dedo loved beautiful and rich women, as well as models and prostitutes. He lived an unrestrained and poor life, embracing perfectly the bohémien style typical of the artists of such period.

Modigliani missed his city – and the toasts “to Livorno” made a proof of it – its light, the marine breeze, the 5&5 (bread and chickpea pie), the “cee” (eels' newborns), but Paris inevitably became his “reign”, the place that will change him forever and shape his artistic path.