The author maintains that, while creativity begins with a specific existential experience and explodes, as it were, at a universal level, its conditions in terms of time and place cannot be overlooked. The case of Florence is a good example in point. The local roots, however, important as they are, should not be turned into a myth, as the Nazi ideologists did. «Ethnic cleansing» and extermination Lager in recent European history are a severe warning.