ART + CULTURE

Art and culture from Florence, Italy, focusing on exhibitions, museums, artisans and more.

ART + CULTURE

Creating culture

Have you ever longed to spend warm summer nights lounging in the garden of a world-renowned Tuscan villa overlooking the city of Florence? Have you dreamed of enjoying jazz under the stars in an Oltrarno piazza? Or watching Shakespeare in a Renaissance cloister? How about spending a month among

ART + CULTURE

Cosimo I’s secret weapon

Since I have come across a secret of no small importance, considering the times we live in today, especially in use against the Turkish cavalry, I have judged it worthy of Your Majesty. (Archivio di Stato in Florence, Mediceo del Principato 238, fol. 65 - Florence, 25 February 1572)   With

ART + CULTURE

Emilio Pucci

By July 1943, it was obvious that Italy was facing imminent defeat by the Allies in World War II. In an attempt to mitigate the inevitable devastation and destruction, the Fascist Grand Council passed a vote of no confidence against Mussolini, removing him from government. Mussolini's foreign minister and

ART + CULTURE

Bettino Craxi

It all began on February 17, 1992 with the arrest of a man called Mario Chiesa. Chiesa was not only the director of the Pio Albergo Trivulzio, Milan's largest old people's home, but he was also a member of the Italian Socialist Party. A prosecutor in Milan, Antonio

ART + CULTURE

Enigma in Giorgio de Chirico’s art

‘One clear autumn afternoon I was sitting on a bench in the middle of the Piazza Santa Croce in Florence. It was of course not the first time I had ...

ART + CULTURE

Diplomacy, Italian style

I have heard you would like to try some cheeses from Pesaro, so I am sending you these as a sample. Let me know if you like them and I'll send more...     When Vladimir Putin calls George Bush, does he ask how the twins are doing? Did

ART + CULTURE

Through the eyes of Oliviero Toscani

When you hear the name ‘Oliviero Toscani’, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? The shock artist who constantly approaches societal issues head on? The visionary who breathes new life into contemporary art? The guy in the bright red glasses?   One thing is for

ART + CULTURE

Oriana, Florence and the world

She was a woman who lived and worked in a world of men. As a young journalist, she faced powerful rulers and world leaders with courage and pride, whether it was King Hussein of Jordan, Yassir Arafat or Henry Kissinger.   She rode a tank in Vietnam. Her interview with

ART + CULTURE

An age of wonders

Discovered in a Roman avviso in the Medici Granducal Archive-just one of thousands of such handwritten journalistic reports to reach Florence in the seventeenth century-is a brief but extraordinary account of the meeting of two hermaphrodites. At the very end of this document, dated November 11, 1662, the

ART + CULTURE

Franca Viola

Important social changes that began taking place in Italy after World War II gained momentum with the economic boom of the 1960s. Rigid family relationships were modified as young people ...

ART + CULTURE

The emperor’s troubles

As far as news from Poland, I regret to inform your highness that things are going very unhappily for us there...all of Lithuania and Prussia are lost to us as well...   We tend to think of our modern world as the first great information age, but already during

ART + CULTURE

Think Spring!

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

ART + CULTURE

Gianni Agnelli

Someone once said that ‘the rich get richer and the poor get children'. The first part of this saying was certainly true in the case of Giovanni Agnelli, known as Gianni, possibly Italy's most important industrialist as chairman and major shareholder of the Fiat motor company, a life

ART + CULTURE

Genius and passion

Knocking up a nun and running from the law isn't a bad way to end your career as a monk. Filippo Lippi lived and worked with a fierce passion. While his lust for life and love are legendary, the restoration of his frescoes at the Duomo of Prato show

ART + CULTURE

Canvas is for commoners

On 20 July 1658, Torquato Montalto wrote to Giovanni Battista Gondi, Two rooms were decorated for Her Ladyship the Bride with crimson damasks with very rich gold fringes and lacework, and there I saw a great number of very large ebony chests. I also saw the gift made by Lord

ART + CULTURE

Padre Pio

Padre Pio was already a revered holy man of great humility and piety when he offered himself as a victim to bring an end to WWI, the war considered ‘the ...

ART + CULTURE

The 16-year-old widow and her boy husband

Betrothed at seven and married seven years later, Margaret of Habsburg, the illegitimate daughter of the Emperor Charles V, became a widow in 1537, at the tender age of 15. Her 27-year-old husband, Alessandro de’Medici the Duke of Florence, the illegitimate son of Giulio de’

ART + CULTURE

Giangiacomo Feltrinelli

On March 15, 1972, the body of a man was found at the foot of one of the main electricity pylons at Segrate, a suburb of Milan. It appeared he had been killed when the dynamite he was attempting to strap to the pylon detonated. Although the identity card found

ART + CULTURE

The Art of Women: From the Renaissance to Surrealism

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

ART + CULTURE

The powder of persuasion

The Count of Warwick pays his reverences to His Most Serene Highness the Lord Duke, and he will give me a book in praise of chemistry by Doctor Cornacchino who teaches at Pisa, as well as a certain miraculous powder, which I tried a little of yesterday to my great

ART + CULTURE

Enrico Caruso

When Luciano Pavarotti died in September 2007, he was hailed as ‘one of the greatest’ Italian tenors of the twentieth century. The other ‘great’? During his lifetime, Enrico Caruso was as famous as Pavarotti for his unique and powerful voice, his talent and his charisma—

ART + CULTURE

Bianco Bianchi. It is marble or it is scagliola?

Florence and its surrounding areas are famous for a thriving artisan community, whose members still maintain Renaissance traditions today. Though mass tourism and a changing economy have significantly impacted the industry’s workshops, there are still numerous examples of true craftsmanship in Florence. These artisans helped make Florence one

ART + CULTURE

You bet your life!

Renaissance Florence was built around trade, and trade requires efficient and reliable banks. Banking relies on speculation on probable outcomes. So it should not be surprising that Florentines were renowned for their passion for gambling on a wide range of activities.   Betting on horse racing in Piazza Santa Maria

ART + CULTURE

Courage under fire

The crater in the highway near the turnoff to a town called Capaci, about 20 kilometres between the Palermo Airport of Punta Raisi and Palermo itself, was about 30 meters ...

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