LIGHT MODE
DARK MODE
Art and culture from Florence, Italy, focusing on exhibitions, museums, artisans and more.
Living in Florence, I constantly stumble across more of the city’s famous sons. With Il Genio Fiorentino in full flow, it is not surprising that a few more are coming out of the woodwork. How many of you knew that Pinocchio, the wooden boy whose nose grows when
‘Mediterranean weaving—fabric as a dictionary of economic, cultural and social relations.’ This rather ponderous title introduces a fascinating exhibition at the Museo del Tessuto in Prato comparing the different textile ...
For those of us who are trying to make head or tail of a second language, it does not hurt to give a little thought to the struggle that each one of us made to learn our fi rst. How Babies Talk by Drs Roberta Michnick Golinkoff and Kathy Hirsch-
For the Elizabethan mind, bad dreams were a symptom of melancholy, and it is both the melancholic disposition in Hamlet’s nature and his response to the overwhelming awfulness of his experiences that lie at the root of his tragedy. He answers the ghostly call to avenge his father&
Poor Michelangelo. He lived like a pauper and was chronically miserable. The image of an indigent and moody artist accords well with our idea of the creative genius. But there’s an interesting twist to Michelangelo’s story. It turns out that he was one of the richest
Life in Italy and life in the U.S. are two completely different worlds. When I was a little kid, living in Northern California, I thought there was no other place like home. I thought all of my future lay within the country that I was standing in. I was
‘A paradise of exiles’ is how Percy Bysshe Shelley described Florence, hinting at the anomaly of a city that exiled its most famous writer – Dante, creator of ‘Paradise’ – ...
Some people say Florence is stuck in the cinquecento, in other words, the Renaissance. And to be totally honest, they’re right. Florence may be the city that inspired the Renaissance, giving birth to artistic genius unlike any other epoch; and it may hold one-fifth of the world&
Aboriginal Australian Art has a universal theme: dreaming. This concept permeatesAboriginal culture, from ritual to contemporary art. The term refers to the time of creation when Aboriginal people and all of Nature came to be as they are: eternally interconnected with supernatural ancestors who impregnated the world they created with
Buskers on the bridge, gelati and late-night street-eating. For the Grand Tourist, evidently niente cambia. Many travel agents today offer enticing holidays to Europe promising sun or snow, beautiful cities and breath/taking countryside. A relatively recent enterprise one may think, yet it was thanks to Thomas
Florence continues to be one of the most popular tourist destinations in Italy and Michelangelo’s David the masterpiece everyone wants to see. This is not new. The gigantic scale of the statue has been a source of wonder since Florentines first saw it in 1504. Indeed its size
“A joy for the eyes, this exhibition warms the heart and opens the mind to dreams” This is how Antonio Paolucci, Superintendent of the Arts in Florence, described the exhibition ...
As an English speaking traveller who has journeyed the length and breadth of Italy over the past four decades—from Viareggio to Brindisi, from Trieste to Catanzaro, and many stops in between—there is one sight that has always had a particularly powerful, literally stunning effect on me
Historically, Tuscany is a region that has always been attractive to artists because of its rich cultural heritage, luminous light, and landscape. The sculpture gardens created during the 1980s and 1990s at the Villa Gori near Pistoia, the Giardino dei Tarrocchi at Pescia Fiorentina, or the Giardino di Spoerri at
