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The Florentine
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.
Inspired by a Florentine itinerary linked to Palazzo Strozzi's city-wide cultural and artistic extravaganza, the exhibit, American's in Florence: Sargent and the American Impressionists, The Florentine’s culture editor, Jane Fortune, shares her ‘gems,’ treasures that spotlight the importance of international artists and intellectuals
Florence, with its austere pietra serena (sandstone) buildings, never fails to excite one's emotions! It is most magical either as the sun begins to spread across the brick-red roofs or as it sets, reflecting its glorious golden colors on the surface of the Arno. It is a city
The Florentine's culture editor, Dr. Jane Fortune, is known in Florence as ?Indiana Jane' because of her efforts to identify and restore art treasures by women artists in Florentine museums and deposits. Author and philanthropist, she is founder and chair of the Advancing Women Artists Foundation and creator of
The Florentine's culture editor, Dr. Jane Fortune is known in Florence as ?Indiana Jane' for her efforts to identify and restore art treasures by women artists in Florentine museums and deposits. Author and philanthropist, she is founder and chair of the Advancing Women Artists, a foundation whose latest project
Nearly 400 pairs of eyes follow the visitor down the elevated passageway that stretches from Florence's Palazzo Vecchio to Palazzo Pitti. In 1565, Cosimo I de' Medici commissioned Giorgio Vasari to design and build (in just five months!) the one-kilometer structure that became known as the Vasari Corridor
This is a chapter from Jane Fortune's book Invisible Women: Forgotten Artists of Florence Suspicious that artist Elisabetta Sirani (1638-1665) had been poisoned by an envious maid, her father forced authorities to exhume her corpse from a vault in the Bolognese church of San Domenico. Thus,
A child prodigy who copied the masters and painted the powerful, Angelica Kauffman (also spelled Kauffmann; 1741-1807) accompanied her father on a five-year journey through Milan, Venice, Parma and Naples. Johann Joseph Kauffman was a minor Swiss painter of portraits and frescos. His daughter was an international sensation. &
In her forthcoming book, Invisible women, Jane Fortune spotlights women whose lives and works have enriched Florence's artistic wealth throughout the centuries. Marietta Robusti, known as ‘La Tintoretta,' is one of these women, and her paintings are part of the Florentine collections. Marietta Robusti (Venice, circa
It has been a long time since my last ‘Mosaics'. My lengthy leave of absence, however, was not a result of writer's block. I was diagnosed with breast cancer, and in 2008 I was fighting for my life. As my doctor said, I was ‘cut (surgery), poisoned (
Passion, intrigue, drama, torture and art. The life of Artemisia Gentileschi-one of the world’s greatest Baroque artists-has all the chiaroscuro trappings of a romance novel. Her father, Orazio ...
The Garden of Daniel Spoerri In the early 1990s, Romanian-born Spoerri created a sculpture garden of 16 hectors in the town of Seggiano. Ninety installations are placed among 200 olive trees and the remains of old vineyards and chestnut woods. All of the works are by Spoerri and
The Art of Women from the Renaissance to Surrealism, open until April 6 at Milan’s Palazzo Reale, spotlights five centuries of art by women and showcases 200 works representing 110 women artists. As the exhibition’s name suggests, there is something for all artistic tastes—from
In 402AD, the Roman emperor Honorius decreed the city of Ravenna the capital of the Western world, a title it kept until the eighth century. The city became the center for mosaic art in the fifth and sixth centuries, and Ravenna, which is accessible by train from Florence (see ‘
Most people who head to Florence do so to see its Renaissance art treasures. But did you know that Florence boasts one of the world’s finest photography museums? Florence is the home of Alinari, the world’s oldest firm working in the field of documentation of
‘Sculpture is the art of producing, in three dimensions, representations of natural or imagined forms. It includes sculpture in the round, which can be viewed from any direction, as well ...
There are many important, and splendid, frescoes in Florence, among them the cenacoli (Last Supper paintings), all of which are frescoes. To get you started, here is a list of frescoes I believe should not be missed: The Brancacci Chapel: Masolinos and Masaccios famous frescoes. The Palazzo Medici-Riccardi: Benozzo
Frescoes reached their splendor in the Renaissance and Baroque periods, and Florence abounds with incredibly beautiful frescoes that the decorate walls and ceilings of churches and cloisters, public buildings and private homes. Understand the work that went into creating these paintings and you will find their beauty even more powerful.
A chapel is a place for prayer, meditation, or private worship. A recess or small room within a church or cathedral; space in the private quarters of a state building (such as the chapel of Eleonora of Toledo’s chapel in the Palazzo Vecchio); a room in a private
Donatello’s David (1440), in the National Museum of the Bargello, is undergoing an 18-month restoration. This fifteenth-century bronze statue, the first free-standing nude statue by a Western artist since antiquity, will be cleaned while visitors to the Bargello watch. All the restoration equipment will be
I have enjoyed many, many books set in Italy or about its people, history, and art. Here are some that I have enjoyed recently and think you might, too: April Blood, by Lauro Martines, is about Florence and the plot against the Medici by the Pazzi family; in Scourge
The huge brown stone cube that presides over the Piazza della Signoria and whose tower figures so prominently in Florence’s skyline is equally imposing in the history of Florence. For nearly 700 years, the Palazzo Vecchio (‘Old Palace’) has been the place where civic affairs have
In my research, I have found it puzzling that only one annunciation was cited as done by a woman’s hand. This reference is in Germaine Greer’s book, The Obstacle Race. She mentions an Artemisia Gentileschi Annunciation (1630) in the Capodimonte Museum, Naples, which portrays an interchange
