On a whim, I accepted an invitation posted to the members of De Gustibus, a local enogastronomical society, for a “ski weekend” in the Dolomite mountains near Bressanone/ Brixen, in a small town called St. …
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Resources in Art History - technical info, student projects, bloopers, study guides.
A renaissance art historian’s guide to Florence through its history, monuments, and people.
“Fuori Porta” literally means outside the city gates. Anywhere outside Florence!
An art historian’s approach to the monuments of the eternal city.
Featured region! art, sea, mountains, islands, shopping, hiking, culture… Tuscany has it all.
The 2010 Festival dei Fiori (March 12-15) promises to be a beautiful and royal event. Held at the Venaria Reale near Torino, Italy and Europe’s best flower designers go head to head in competition. You can see them at work and admire final products; best of all, bouquets created at the fair will be auctioned off starting at 10 euros which will go to help children in Haiti.
The setting is the Savoia family’s summer residence. On Saturday night, the current royal couple will preside over the Debutante ball, at which, in a fit of retrograde social activity, 20 young ladies will debut on the arms of military cadets. Plebes may reserve a spot at the ball for 150 euro per couple (black tie for men AND long dress required for the ladies).
At the BIT tourism fair in Milano this weekend I saw a preview of this show with flower 
arrangements by some of the participating artists, and it was SO beautiful! I really wished I could have taken some home.
EVENT INFO:
location: Citroniaia of Reggia di Venaria (Torino)
when: March 12-15 2010
Cost: 6 euros regular ticket.
I am at the major tourism show BIT in Milan and have picked up a brochure I think will be of interest to a lot of people who love shopping in Italy. The area in …
Michelangelo: Anatomy as Architecture consists of drawings, archival pages, and engravings on loan from the finest collection of Michelangelo drawings and the ancestral home, the Casa Buonarroti in Florence, Italy. The exhibition explores new …
An issue I often face, that I also find people asking on forums is: “What should I bring people from Florence“? Sometimes I’m just going one or two regions away in Italy, so I need …
A Question of Style: From the 14th of January at the Museum of the Roberto Capucci Foundation at Villa Bardini, an exhibit of 23 dresses by the Italian designer. The exhibition explores the relationship between …
Lately I’ve noticed a trend that I like very much: the bookshop/library, contemporary design, cafe/restaurant. I mean really, this combines everything I love best! This week I had the fortune of finding two examples of …
I don’t normally write reactionary pieces, but this bit of news has me frothing at the mouth. This Prof. Vito Franco from the pathology department in Palermo has taken to diagnosing illnesses in famous Renaissance …
I have been tagged in the “My 3 best kept travel secrets game” that Katie from Tripbase started. Not only am I thrilled to have been chosen to contribute secrets, I’m happy that this has …
At a conference on the use of internet by libraries, archives and museums that I attended the other day (live blog here), Elena Farinelli brought up an interesting fact: if you search “Biblioteca Firenze” on …
Here’s another pre-trip research post from Robert Kimberly, who likes strange things, and apparently also likes small cars.
As an American, huge cars are almost a birthright. My first cars were a 1950 Mercury …
I don’t normally post “retweets” as blog posts, but this is the funniest thing I have read in a long time - an article in The Onion about a “mediocre trattoria” in Florence that parodies …
Some art has gotten too big to hang on a wall. Perhpas due to a new feeling for nature, some artists prefer the countryside to the city for the display of their works, and fields …
Guest post by Robert of Neon Poisoning, who is looking for weird things to see in Florence.
Raphael’s “Woman with Unicorn” is one of 48 works from Rome’s Borghese Gallery on their way to Japan, where they will stay 6 months at the National Museum of Modern Art in Kyoto and the Metropolitan Musem of Tokyo …
The contest ended Sept 27th with a few good entries sent in just under the line. We got essays from four countries and contributions in all categories except “Art… that Travels!”. I guess that one …
At Milan’s Palazzo Reale is the first major retrospective in Italy dedicated to the American artist Edward Hopper (1882-1967), the famous realist painter. This show moves to Rome in February so if you cannot see …
