LIGHT MODE
DARK MODE
The same team that brought us the small but perfectly formed Civilized Shopper's Guide to Florence now brings us an alphabetical guide to all things Italian. From the A of aceto balsamico to the V of vespa, this gorgeous little hardback has a classy 1920s look, each double-
Salman Rushdie's The Enchantress of Florence inspires a fury of various and contradictory adjectives while simultaneously defying description-the true mark of a great work of literature. Make no mistake, the controversial author's latest work has lofty literary ambitions; the prose is gorgeous and flowery and fantastical,
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
Fall in love with Florence all over again with Jane Fortune’s unique book To Florence, Con Amore: 77 Ways to Love the City. Jane’s affection for her adopted city shines through in this collection of heartfelt and informative essays. If it’s Leonardo lore
Florence can easily boast that she has produced more top-quality Renaissance artists than any other Italian, or indeed European, city. What’s more, she can even boast that she has nurtured the three artists who are undisputedly among the ‘top of the top’—Leonardo da
The women are beautiful. Sometimes they are of humble origin, sometimes they are aristocrats but they are always striking. The men are handsome and dashing, often airmen or navy officers, but almost always attractive and debonair. And they are in love. Sometimes it is innocent and naïve, other
Historians have a tendency to dismiss military specialists as mere chroniclers of conflict. Proper historians concern themselves with the causes of war and the long-term effects of defeat or victory—they are excited by peace treaties, not casualty lists and are interested in grand strategy, not tactical details. &
I wasn’t surprised to read that Linda Proud spent 11 years researching A Tabernacle for the Sun and Pallas & the Centaur, two of the books that make up her ‘Botticelli Trilogy’.Their erudition, depth and breadth are quite astonishing. They are the work of a
Football is unquestionably the most basic of all team sports. The sole object of the game is to kick or head a ball into the opposition’s goal and to do this more frequently than your opponents do this to you. Despite, or perhaps because of, the absurdly simple
The four-month exhibition, Cézanne a Firenze, open until July in the Palazzo Strozzi, celebrates the fact that Florence became the spiritual home for Italian Impressionism, with such leading Tuscan artists as Fattori, Soffici and Carena. The exhibition also honours Egisto Fabbri and Charles Loeser, two of Florence&
As I browsed in the Uffizi bookshop, a modest little paperback entitled 15th Century Paintings grabbed my attention. Glancing at the back of the book, I calculated that for the price of eight postcards, I could readily own this well-printed and profusely illustrated volume. But then I had
‘Do you think confessionals and stages are incompatible? They may be in other countries, but not in Italy’ Forget about all your idealizations when you read this book. Full ...
I remember once being rather disappointed by the gallery of ‘modern’ art in Pitti Palace. After wandering around its corridors for an hour or two and finding mostly charming, if second-rate, 19th-century pastorals, I asked one of the attendants where all the modern art was. ‘
If you stand in Piazza della Signoria, somewhere just in front of the Neptune fountain, and look down at your feet you ought to see a piece of round stone dedicated to the memory of Girolamo Savonarola. It is a kind of monument, which is odd, given that the Florentines
‘All I could think about were those who lived below street level.’ This was the first thought that struck Sherry Peregrin, a student and one of many Americans who lived ...
‘I said, I killed him,’ she said, and her voice was light and cool as though it was trying to float free from her body, where the bones pressed painfully ...
Alost-in-life tractor salesman plopped smack dab in the center of Florence. He’s the only man in a group of 18 women psychologists attending a seminar concerning the feminine aspect of the psyche. In other words, primitive man meets goddess.Samsara begins with a brief introduction by
Mary Jane Cryan lives in a small town nestled between Rome and Tuscany that has been under the protection of the English crown since the time of Henry VIII. Travels to Tuscany and Northern Lazio, the latest addition to her decades of ferreting out hidden history, gives readers a glimpse
Nothing can be more depressing than to encounter a husband who boasts of having seen everything in Rome in three days, while the wife laments that, in recollection she cannot distinguish the Vatican from the Capitol, St Peter’s from St Paul’s.Augustus Hare: Walks in Rome (
Who would be a tour guide? If you have ever spent a summer in Florence, wincing at compatriots who argue in restaurants and make fatuous remarks in museums, you will have asked yourself this very question. In Too Much Tuscan Sun, Dario Castagno tells of encounters with tourists so strange,
While recovering from World Cup fever, Italian football will remain in the grips of a nasty scandal. The investigations of systematic match-fixing are being labelled Piedi Puliti – ‘Clean Feet’, – and the story has already claimed a tragic casualty in the form of the Juventus star
