Florence by the ‘Shore’

Outside Florence’s ancient Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore, people are milling around the quiet Piazza del Duomo, calmly taking in the last moments of a May evening.

Just a few blocks away, inside a renovated bank building, a much noisier scene is unfolding. The buzzing of electric hair clippers can be heard through the walls as a quartet of amateur barbers unsuccessfully attempts to fade a hairline. Pranksters hold a stuffed squirrel hostage. Two lovers forlornly debate their relationship as their scantily clad roommate insensitively interrupts to smoke a cigarette. Camped outside are a flock of young admirers, hungry for a glimpse into it all.

Ladies and gentleman, Italy has been “Jersey Shore’d.”

For the record: The caption that accompanied a photo of four members of the “Jersey Shore” cast in a July 27 Calendar article about the MTV show shooting in Italy misidentified two of the men. The caption said that Paul DelVecchio was on the far left; that was actually Mike Sorrentino. The caption said Sorrentino was third from the left; that was DelVecchio.

Since the MTV reality show’s debut two years ago, the cast of “Jersey Shore” — Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino, Ronnie Ortiz-Magro, Paul “Pauly D” DelVecchio, Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi, Jennifer “JWoww” Farley, Sammi Giancola, Vinny Guadagnino and recent addition Deena Cortese — has become infamous for spending days and nights clubbing, tanning, fighting and carousing. For the show’s fourth season, which premieres Aug. 4, MTV sent the tangerine-tinted posse nearly 4,000 miles east to the home of such historical figures as Dante and Leonardo da Vinci as a way to shake things up and keep the franchise fresh.

These days, the cast’s every move is fodder for the tabloids. Paparazzi stand guard outside the Florence dwelling, which explains how reports of a fistfight between Sorrentino and Ortiz-Magro surfaced in the media, as well as how word spread that Polizzi had crashed into a cop car.

But becoming household names for being themselves has inevitably changed the “Jersey” cast members, making them thoughtful about what was once thoughtless behavior. This becomes clear the next day, when Sorrentino and Ortiz-Magro are seated at a café wrapping up lunch. As the crew prepares for the trek back to the cast’s European abode, Sorrentino and Ortiz-Magro share a brief, unguarded moment.

“I’m awesome in front of the camera,” Sorrentino tells his roommate in a hushed tone, seemingly unaware of the reporter taking notes nearby. “To be honest with you, I’m not great at anything else.”

Luckily, he doesn’t really need to be.

A former assistant manager of a gym in New York’s Staten Island, Sorrentino now is a published author, has fox-trotted his way through a season of “Dancing With the Stars,” has a development deal and a string of product endorsements. He is a lucrative brand, as are his housemates, some of whom reportedly make six-digit figures per episode. The first season of the reality soap averaged 2.7 million viewers. Last season’s premiere scored 8.4 million total viewers, according to the Nielsen Co.

It’s a media whirlwind none said they saw coming. According to DelVecchio: “I thought it’d be cool. It was different. No big deal. But I did not think there was going to be T-shirts of everything I say. That there’d be dudes on the boardwalk with my hairstyle. That there’d be guys taking pictures of everything I did. How does that happen?”

The cast has been in heavy rotation on MTV since its debut, with seasons rolling out as fast as they can be filmed. In fact, as you read this, the show is in production at its Seaside Heights, N.J., headquarters for the fifth season. And spinoffs featuring DelVecchio and besties Polizzi and Farley begin production in the fall. Options for the cast extend beyond the fifth season.

“I enjoy every second,” Polizzi said. “I just look at it as spending the summer with my friends. I can do [‘Jersey Shore’] for the rest of my life.”

Does all this saturation threaten to dim the glow of the reality stalwart as its funny, obnoxious cast members try to hold on to the loudmouthed quirkiness that first made people want to watch them?

Chris Linn, MTV executive vice president of programming and head of production, doesn’t think so: “We’re very careful to rest them in between so that people are excited to see them when they do come back each season.”

The Italy trip, though, seemed to be MTV’s way of “looking for a conceit to make sure that [the show] didn’t get boring,” said Andy Dehnart, a reality TV connoisseur and editor of RealityBlurred.com.

During production of the show’s season abroad, reports surfaced that some portions had been staged or re-shot. Every cast member denied the allegations to The Times, as did creator Sally Ann Salsano.

“Not a chance,” she said. “At the end of the day, when you put those eight together, not the best scripted writer in the world can come up with what these guys come up with.”

Salsano describes the show’s appeal with a surprisingly charming comparison.

“Here’s what this is for me: It’s a reality version of a John Hughes movie,” she said. “I grew up watching ‘The Breakfast Club,’ about eight kids in a room who went crazy and did whatever. They fell in love, made mistakes, got into fights.”

When The Times visited in May, fans (some American, some not) were camped outside the Italian “Shore” house; security personnel kept screaming teens at bay when DelVecchio and Guadagnino decided to take an outing. Upon their arrival at the local pizzeria where the cast worked, security, again, kept passersby at a distance.

“We interact with some people, but they’re not allowed to talk about the show with us,” said Cortese, who joined in Season 3. “If they want to talk to us, they have to talk to us like normal people and not like fans.”

The decision to leave their newfound celebrity off-screen is a huge relief to cast members.

“I’ll be honest: Sometimes, the celebrity stuff gets to you.” Sorrentino said. “But you lose track of that [while shooting], because there’s just so much going on in the house. And I like that.”

Filming “Jersey Shore” abroad was not an attempt to escape the show’s fans, according to Salsano, but a treat for cast members who wanted to visit Italy. “Our whole thing was like, if the show becomes successful, to celebrate, we would all go to Italy together,” she said.

For the cast, decried by Italian American anti-defamation groups since it hit the airwaves, it allowed them an opportunity to connect with their roots. For some, that meant checking out the “cool museums” and “learning where Michelangelo painted the Mona Lisa.” (It should be noted Polizzi and Farley are not Italian).

“My mother was born in Italy and I knew it would feel like a home away from home,” Guadagnino said. “I’ve heard tons of things about it every day of my life.”

The cast members’ reputations preceded them in Florence. It wasn’t long before media reports of disgruntled locals wary of the cast’s impending arrival began circulating. Then there were accounts of eateries posting “No Grazie, Jersey Shore” signs on their doors, the cultural superintendent barring the cast from filming in museums, and Florence Mayor Matteo Renzi’s code of conduct for the cast that included not being filmed drinking in public.

“It hasn’t been a benefit for us so far,” Nicola Pecchioli, who owns a boutique next to the “Shore” residence, said in Italian in May. “They’ve been closing the road, and people are not able to come to the store because police and bodyguards are standing around.”

Others ignore the commotion. On a day when DelVecchio was passing out fliers for the pizzeria, elder Italians would simply gaze up at the cameras and shuffle by. Walk the cobblestoned streets with the American celebrities, though, and excited fans — both visiting Americans and Italians — swarm them.

Meriem Benbot, 17, a Moroccan living in Florence, sat outside the “Jersey” quarters, along with a friend, for 30 minutes hoping to see the cast.

“I love them,” said Benbot, who became a fan after the series began airing locally with subtitles. “They earn money doing nothing.”

DelVecchio said it all had him on edge.

“I was scared,” he said in a phone interview once the cast returned from Italy. “We saw all those reports. I was nervous. I thought they were going to throw rocks at us from the way the media made it seem. That wasn’t the case. People were welcoming. If they were talking junk, I couldn’t understand them anyway.”

Crews were dispatched all over the city. It takes a team of 25 to 30 on the ground working 12-hour shifts to cover the roommates 24 hours a day. Salsano, who lived in a room above the “Shore” house, set up monitors in her suite so she could keep an eye on the cast at all times.

The constant monitoring helps ensure that those totally “Jersey” moments are captured: among them, the cast thinking that the basilica was the Vatican (the latter is in Rome) or learning that tanning salons are usually found in the back of nail parlors. Then there were the arduous commutes to a Florentine gym — a central component of the “Jersey Shore” lifestyle — which was, on a good day, about 20 minutes away from where they stayed because big, American-style gyms were hard to come by in this Italian city.

Just some “Jersey Shore” kids trying to do what they do best: Keep people entertained.

yvonne.villarreal@latimes.com