LIGHT MODE
DARK MODE
Most popular
The Florentine
Legend has it that on St. Reparata's Day in the year 405, the Goths had Florence under siege, and the city was failing badly. Suddenly, St. Reparata appeared in the midst of the fighting, holding a blood-red banner emblazoned with a white iris, and with that, the fortunes
If you don't hear the pleasant din as you approach the market, you can read the signs: a fruttivendolo unloads then carries a crate of cabbages on his shoulder, the piazza is barricaded by a sea of white vans hatched open, chefs and kitchen hands dart back and forth
Have you ever come out from the Uffizi or another museum feeling sore and exhausted? You're not alone. ‘People usually go to a museum, see as much as they can, get exhausted, and don't return,' says New York consultant Phil Terry. The idea behind the Slow Art
In the city known as the 'cradle of the Renaissance,' surrounded by buildings roofed in predictable terracotta and dressed in Carrara marble, a cluster of five striped onion domes, each topped with a tall cross, is certainly not what you would expect to see in the Florence skyline. It is
Florence has over a thousand tabernacles, more than any other city in Europe. Of course, locating them all is a daunting task. To get you started, we have put together this (very) short list of major tabernacles in Florence's historic center. If organized tours are not your thing, meander
It is easy to forget while walking through the streets of Florence that it is fundamentally a secular state. Glance up and it is likely that you will chance upon one of the 1,200 tabernacles that adorn even the most decrepit and mundane of buildings; these sometimes primitive pieces
We all know and probably own the iconic shirt from the Hard Rock Café: a simple white tee with the Hard Rock's logo and a major city's name written underneath. It has become, along with the ‘I heart NY' shirt, probably one of the most clich&
New bookings for guided visits through the Vasari corridor are available until April 15, 2011. Guided tours are held twice a day, on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. For reservations, call Firenze Musei at 055/294883. Called the 'Percorso del Principe,' the tour begins in Palazzo Vecchio, continues through the
‘Tis the season, so they say. Deck the halls! It’s likely that whoever called for Christmas cheer and trimmings in the English carols had never seen an Italian Christmas. If ...
A lot has changed since the court of Cosimo I de' Medici swept into town in 1537 and began systematically defining the Medici legacy as the vital center of the Florentine Renaissance. The hope had been that young Cosimo, plucked from the Tuscan countryside as the only chance for continued
As much as you love the Italian way of life, every now and then you might find yourself craving the alluring aroma of a Thai curry and the lifestyle of a bigger, more cosmopolitan town than Florence can possibly offer. But when it comes to yoga centres, you need look
It was the late 1860s, and the city of Milan was asserting itself as a power player in the unification of Italy, laying the foundations of railroads and of Italian independence. But while the state of Italy unfolded, a quieter force was also at work in the Lombardy capital. Called
The connection between an image and the unconscious, the evocation of emotions and the very essence of being through symbolic form: these are the aims of metaphysical art, the great impetus to the ‘Copernican revolution' in the contemporary art of the twentieth century. And while surrealism and Dada had
If you're planning to spend this weekend away from Florence, I highly recommend you cancel: those who consider themselves ‘gastronauts' shouldn't dare leave the city during the Taste food fair and its companion FuoriDiTaste event. Taste has grown up, and today, in its fifth year, we
Finally, Florentines no longer have to trek all the way to Prato to see cutting-edge art of all shapes, sizes and mediums in a present-day architectural setting to match. The new EX3 Contemporary Art Center in Florence's east-end Gavinana neighborhood (beside the Coop ‘mall' on
What is an image, anyway? And in the context of art, can it ever really ‘disappear'? These and other provocative ideas are at the heart of the current show at the Centre for Contemporary Culture La Strozzina, the Foundazione Palazzo Strozzi's younger, hipper cousin located in the cavernous
One of Europe's most prestigious film festivals dedicated to South Korean cinema returns to Florence from March 12 to 20 at the Odeon Cinema in Piazza Strozzi. Now in its eighth year, the Florence Korea Film Festival, organized by the Taegukgi Association, has many innovations. The first is the
On the 500th anniversary of the Mona Lisa, one might pause and wonder about the subject and her family, the Del Giocondo. Curator Camilla Bruschi did just that, and through March 5, the Studio Art Centre International (SACI) is running a small, interesting exhibition, Family Memories of the Del Giocondo,
There is life beyond gelato. Even though many of my friends-devotees to chapels like Carraia that offer this creamy, frozen treat-would be appalled by this statement. In fact, they are probably now planning to force me on one of their daily pilgrimages so I can repent. I do
