Sollima's 'Monster of Florence' Returns with the Pacciani Chapter

On April 29, 1992, Italian crime scene investigators unearthed a 22-caliber bullet stamped with the letter "H" in the vegetable garden of Pietro Pacciani, a Tuscan farm laborer later dubbed "The Monster of Florence."

That piece of evidence — since overturned by modern forensic testing — anchors the second three-episode arc of Netflix's anthology thriller "The Monster of Florence." The first chapter, which launched in October 2025, became Netflix's most-watched series globally in its debut week.

Director Stefano Sollima was filming the new installment on a hillside set outside Rome in mid-September. In an on-set interview with Variety, he called the Pacciani chapter "completely different."

Who does the new arc center on?

The series turns from the "Sardinian lead" of the first segment — a multi-decade web of suspects tried and imprisoned over decades — to Pacciani and his alleged "Snack Buddies" group.

Pacciani lived in Mercatale Val di Pesa, a hamlet south of Florence in the Chianti hills. In a 1994 trial, he was convicted of killing six of eight couples parked in cars around Florence between the late 1960s and the mid-'80s, and sentenced to life.

He was also convicted of raping his two daughters. All rulings were later overturned. Pacciani died of a heart attack in 1998 at 73, before he could be retried. Two alleged accomplices were convicted of participating in some of the murders. Three of the eight double murders still have no convicted perpetrator.

"It's a mystery that is still debated today, especially among those convinced of his guilt," Sollima said. "And it's a very complex story to tell."

Why is the new chapter structured differently?

Sollima — whose credits include "Gomorrah," "ZeroZeroZero," "Sicario: Day of the Soldado" and "Without Remorse" — said the Pacciani arc covers 1951 to 1996.

"Unlike the previous cases — where multiple people were accused of the same murder, but were linked by an incredible web of friendships and relationships — here we are dealing with essentially a single culprit," he said. "That's why it's likely to be a bit more linear."

The anthology's format has held since season one: "you choose the perspective of the single Monster." With one suspect in view, "the way the investigative hypothesis is presented is quite compelling and striking. There are a whole series of coincidences. But obviously, they aren't enough to prove his guilt," Sollima said.

That linearity deepens character instead of thinning it, Sollima argued. "It also heightens the human aspect in terms of the relationships," he said, citing the father-daughter and mother-daughter dynamics and Pacciani's ties to the Snack Buddies. "When you decide to tell a story about evil from the perpetrator's perspective, you need the courage and the ambition to really focus on the character and his entire web of relationships."

How did Sollima handle an unresolved case?

He and his team worked from prosecutorial files and interviews with surviving investigators. "We stuck to the legal records of the case and all available information," Sollima said. "Everything you see reflects what's in the files and what actually happened."

He flagged a moral restraint as the production's hardest line: "The biggest challenge of all was being extremely careful not to pass moral judgment on the story or any of the characters being portrayed."

Who is behind the new installment?

Sollima reunited with writer Leonardo Fasoli and cinematographer Paolo Carnera — collaborators on "Gomorrah" and "ZeroZeroZero." Wildside, a Fremantle company, and Sollima's AlterEgo banner produce. Producers are Sonia Rovai, Gina Gardini, Sollima and Lorenzo Mieli. Netflix has not yet named the actor playing Pacciani.

Production rebuilt Pacciani's real house "brick by brick" on the Rome lot. The 1994 trial scenes were shot in Florence's actual maximum-security courtroom.

What comes next?

The anthology runs on a simple rule: each chapter adopts the perspective of one suspect. "Some of them were just monsters," Sollima said. With Pacciani's story shipped, the open question is which slice of the still-unsolved 20-year hunt Netflix and Sollima tackle next — and whether the series can hold the first-chapter momentum that made it Netflix's most-watched debut in October 2025.