ART + CULTURE

Biblioteca della Toscana

A bright new chapter on Tuscany’s literary scene, the Biblioteca della Toscana is perfectly placed for commuters close to Santa Maria Novella station. Opened in November 2016, the library’s kilometre ...

NEWS

TheFLR Issue 2: 5 things you need to know

The theme is DESIRE! Out this May, preorder your copy of TheFLR - The Florentine Literary Review now to avoid disappointment!

ART + CULTURE

Trumping history with the Borgias

There are moments when, rather than feeling like a straight line, history starts to resemble a circle. Author Sarah Dunant compares past with present.

ART + CULTURE

An open call for illustrators: TheFLR Issue Two

TheFLR. The Florentine Literary Review is looking for a talented illustrator to add shade and shape to its second issue.

ART + CULTURE

7 art history books to read before you visit Florence

A guide to 7 books that will provide a great route into the subject of Art History in Florence.

ART + CULTURE

The Tuscan Times Book Club reading list

A group of book lovers that meet every month in the Tuscan towns of Arezzo and Cortona, to unite over the wonders of words and discuss all things literary: this ...

ART + CULTURE

7 mystery books set in Florence

If you like to be kept on the edge of your seat, this list of mystery books set in Florence could be right up your alley. Mystery, suspense and thriller ...

ART + CULTURE

6 new books set in Florence

As any avid book lover will know, there’s nothing quite like sitting down to a good read. Whether it be outstretched in a hammock on a warm Tuscan afternoon or ...

ART + CULTURE

How Italy invaded the world

The Florentine: Your latest book, Italy Invades, takes readers on a tour of military history of il bel Paese. How extensive have Italy’s invasions been down the centuries? Christopher Kelly: Italians have really gotten around. Everyone knows about Christopher Columbus and Marco Polo, but Italians have an amazing

ART + CULTURE

American expat self-publishes memoir of Florence

  Susan Kelley is an American expat who has spent 16 years living in Florence with her husband William Kelley, a renowned painter (see theflr.net/williamkelley). Now Kelley has published her ...

THINGS TO DO

Bookshop cafes in Florence

Lingering over a book and a cup of coffee, and maybe even a conversation, is a pleasure shared by many. Around the world, making it possible for customers to browse ...

ART + CULTURE

Interview with John Hooper

John Hooper, Southern Europe editor of the Guardian and Italy and Vatican correspondent for the Economist, Hooper’s many years of experience as a journalist and observer of Italian culture make him the perfect person to field questions about the people we all know and love, yet rarely completely understand.

ART + CULTURE

Michelangelo’s signatures

The 450th anniversary of the death, at 88, of the great Renaissance sculptor, architect, painter and poet, Florentine Michelangelo Buonarroti, has produced a flurry of new books about him and his work. One of the best and unique among these is Carl Smith’s What’s in a

ART + CULTURE

#FloodLadies

As part of a project to safeguard and promote a hidden part of Florence’s heritage, the Advancing Women Artists Foundation has sponsored the restoration of seven works in the Museo Novecento and has published a new book about the female artists whose art forms part of the Florentine

ART + CULTURE

Revealing Dante’s legacy

If I thought that my answer were to one who might ever return to the world, this flame would shake no more; but since from this depth none ever returned alive, if what I hear is true, I answer you without fear of infamy. —Inferno XVII. 61–66 (

ART + CULTURE

In their footsteps, through their eyes

How many people have set foot in the church of Santa Croce in Florence in the 700 years of its existence? We can realistically estimate that the number is close to at least several million. For most of these visitors, we will never know what memories remained with them following

ART + CULTURE

Henry James

The portrait of American author Henry James is amongst the paintings by John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) currently at Palazzo Strozzi in the exhibition Americans in Florence: Sargent and the American Impressionists (see TF 159). James was a close friend of Sargent and instrumental in promoting the artist's career

ART + CULTURE

A sober look to Italy

The Fiddler's Elbow, also known as l'Irish has been frequented by locals in Florence, especially the English-speaking, for over 20 years. This popular watering hole in piazza Santa Maria Novella helped inspire CR Lloyd's book, The Second Shot, a controversial political thriller set in Florence, which

ART + CULTURE

Contemplating Florence

Andrea Ponsi's Florence: A Map of Perceptions takes an unusual and innovative look at the birthplace of the Renaissance through the eyes of an architect. Ponsi, who has lived both in Florence and in the United States, takes both a personal and professional view of a city in which

ART + CULTURE

Singing the female body

Corporea is an Italian edition of a bilingual collection of contemporary English and American poetry. This book features a wide variety of women's voices, including such recognizable names as Lucille Clifton, Margaret Atwood, Adrienne Rich, Sharon Olds, Maxine Kumin, Marge Piercy, along with lesser-known poets.   What makes

ART + CULTURE

Speaking Italian culture

When I was approached about writing a review for a book titled Speak the Culture: Italy, I groaned-loudly. Writing about culture is hard. Writing about national culture in a land where no one feels particularly national about anything is even harder. The list of authors and editors boasted an

ART + CULTURE

Medicimuse?

Josephine Rogers Mariotti   Florence, Edizioni Polistampa, 2009   12 euro    What is it about the Mona Lisa that keeps people talking-and publishing books-500 years after the fact? Is it the ambiguous smile? The mysterious identity? An obsession with all things da Vinci? At a time

ART + CULTURE

The first American ambassador living in Florence

Many know George Perkins Marsh as a pioneering environmentalist, statesman, author, lawyer, architect and linguist, but few know that he was an expatriate in Italy as the first and longest-serving American ambassador to Italy appointed by Abraham Lincoln in 1861.   Marsh was first stationed in Turin for four

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