ART + CULTURE

Florentine Crime, Florentine retribution

‘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 ...

ART + CULTURE

SamSara

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

ART + CULTURE

What was Florence like in 1764?

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

ART + CULTURE

Travels with Intent

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 (

ART + CULTURE

‘Tourists say the darnedest things’

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,

ART + CULTURE

Dirty work in the Bel Paese

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

ART + CULTURE

Who is pinocchio?

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

ART + CULTURE

Open eyes, open mouths

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-

ART + CULTURE

Library resources in Florence

While we’re eagerly awaiting the reopening of libraries on May 18, here’s a round-up of the online resources so we can get our literary kick from home.       ...

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