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Author and philanthropist, Dr. Jane Fortune is founder and chair of the Advancing Women Artists Foundation and creator of the Jane Fortune Research Program on Women Artists in the Age of the Medici at the Medici Archive Project. Her books include When the World Answered: Florence, Women Artists and the 1966 Flood; To Florence, Con Amore: 90 Ways to Love the City; Art by Women in Florence and Invisible Women: Forgotten Artists of Florence. She is known as “Indiana Jane” because of her efforts to identify and restore art by women artists in Florentine museums and deposits.
SAVE THE DATE! When the World Answered, the new PBS documentary based on the book by Jane Fortune and Linda Falcone, will premiere at Florence’s Odeon Cinema Hall at 6.30pm ...
Artemisia Gentileschi's Mary Magdalene, Apelles Art Collection, Luxembourg. Copyright: Kik-irpa BrusselsJane Fortune: Nearly 25 years ago you wrote ‘Artemisia has suffered from a level of scholarly neglect that is unheard of for a male artist of her caliber.’ Is this still true today?Mary Garrard: No,
The Florentine’s culture editor Jane Fortune recently met with Michael Palin when he interviewed her for his upcoming BBC art documentary on Baroque master Artemisia Gentileschi. Since then, Jane ...
Baroque artist Artemisia Gentileschi (1593?1656?) was internationally famous during her time. Not only did Europe?s most powerful commission her paintings, they wanted self-portraits for their collections. Poets found her a worthy muse for their verses and her fellow painters aspired to have her as their sitter. To
Florence never ceases to surprise and delight me. As many times as I?ve passed the Palazzo dell?Arte dei Beccai on via Orsanmichele, I had never ventured inside until Linda Falcone and I were invited there in October to speak about our new book, When the World Answered: Florence,
In October 1943, Paola Levi-Montalcini and her twin sister, Rita, boarded a train in Turin without knowing exactly where they would get off. Decades later, her sister would be a Nobel Prize-winning scientist while Paola Levi-Montalcini would be one of twentieth-century Italy?s most significant abstract
In autumn, it rains copiously in Florence, often causing the Arno River to swell and sometimes overflow. With many tributaries and limestone and granite basins that provide very little absorption, the river is prone to spilling over its banks. In fact, Florence has suffered numerous catastrophic floods since the one
The burnt-yellow nineteenth-century villa, where Imelde Siviero (Pisa, 1918?99) lived, was designed by Giuseppe Poggi, the urban architect who broadened Florence?s constricted medieval structures to create avenues befitting the capital of a newly born Italy. Casa Siviero stands on lungarno Serristori, just steps from Torre San
The cultural program "A Year of Art in Florence for Giovanni Colacicchi" foresees a noteworthy calendar of events at various Florentine venues.
In the early 1900s, Tuscany was a magnet for Italy-loving expats. Many frequented the literary circles of Florence, among them Vernon Lee, Gertrude Stein, Bernard Berenson and Iris Origo; others created art, such as Frank Lloyd Wright, Maurice Denis and Carlo B?cklin. Some stayed briefly or made frequent
On Friday, March 7, the Advancing Women Artists Foundation (AWA) and Syracuse University, with the support of the U.S. Consulate General in Florence, will commemorate International Women’s Day with a special event: Women Artists and Wikipedia. This editing marathon will bring together scholars, writers, art historians and
Since the 1850s, caf?s in Florence have been characteristic haunts: places for intense political discussions and bitter quarrels or creative spaces where kindred souls gave each other the courage to follow their passions. Once social hubs for the socially and intellectually elite, they are still a great place to
With the unification of Italy, the Basilica of Santa Croce became known as the Pantheon of Italian Glories, where the country’s most illustrious personalities would find their final resting place. Many marble tombs to prominent women—from princesses to art patrons and artists—still grace the
This August, at the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, an American surgeon was measuring his finger against one on the hand of Giovanni d’Ambrogio’s 600-year-old statue of the Virgin Mary. As a result of this gesture, the finger—which was a plaster
Dante and his Divine Comedy is a ‘hot’ topic lately, thanks to Dan Brown’s latest mystery, Inferno, set mainly in Florence (see page 18). However, few visitors to the city know that 24,000 Dante-inspired volumes can be found at Florence’s Società
Daphne Maugham fell in love with artist Felice Casorati long before the couple met, thanks to a painting he had produced of Cynthia, her dancer sister, while she was a prima ballerina at Turin’s private Teatro Gualino. Recognizing a maestro from afar, Maugham moved to Turin in 1925
When the father of Sofonisba Anguissola (1532?1625), an affluent nobleman from Genoa, sent Michelangelo her drawing entitled Laughing Girl, the Renaissance master openly admired her talent, challenging her to draw an emotional expression that was more difficult to depict: crying. Her Boy Pinched by a Crayfish, created in response
Nineteenth-century Florence was home to many well-known writers, artists and political personalities who were women, from Elisabeth Browning to Carolina Bonaparte. Tuscan-born sculptor F?licie de Fauveau (1801?1886; see TF 64 and 165) was embraced by the international intellectual community, gaining commissions from the likes of
Foreign artists of many mediums have worked and studied in Tuscany for centuries, seeking inspiration from its masterful art and evocative landscape. Yet, who are some of the creative personalities that have produced art here during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries? To find out, head up to Fiesole and
Florence's Il Bisonte Gallery's viewable collection of lithographs boasts several top names in twentieth-century art. Visitors to the gallery are welcome to stop into its pleasant, wood-floored room, with its walls lined with racks of signed, poster-sized lithographs. Among the artists featured are Italian Pop
As one of the lowest-lying areas in Florence, the Santa Croce district bore the brunt of the dire flood that ravaged the city in November 1966, damaging innumerable art works, including several gems (now restored) that are currently exhibited in Santa Croce's refectory room, or Sala del Cenacolo. &
Oscar Wilde, Aldous Huxley and Edith Wharton all came to visit her. Henry James and Mario Praz frequented her salons. English writer Vernon Lee welcomed them all. For 46 years, at her villa, Il Palmerino, Lee ‘held court' for a vast network of Anglo-American and Florentine writers, artists,
Those looking for an art-filled, meditative spot without Florence's summer crowds should make a quiet visit to the Chiostro dello Scalzo, located on the city's ultra-central via Cavour, just past the church of San Marco. With any luck, you'll be alone to admire its 16
A city famed for its Renaissance sculpture, Florence also hosts interesting works by female sculptors. Following what she has coined the Women Artists’ Trail, TF’s culture editor Jane Fortune ...
