David Salle, Smoke (2008)

Dreams are the theme of the exhibit in Perugia “TEATRO DEL SOGNO da Chagall a Fellini” that opens September 25th and runs until January 9, 2011. The show will be set up inside the Galleria Nazionale and contains works by modern and contemporary artists influenced in some way by Freud. The theme of dream and the unconscious reminds me rather a lot of the recent exhibit at Palazzo Strozzi in Florence on De Chirico, Max Ernst et al, about which i wrote a long review.

In Perugia, you’ll find works by Marc Chagall, Salvador Dalì, Giorgio de Chirico, Paul Delvaux, Max Ernst, Renè Magritte, André Masson, Joan Mirò, Man Ray, Alberto Savinio, Yves Tanguy, Fernando Botero, Paul Klee, Max Klinger, Plinio Nomellini, Gaetano Previati. In terms of the contemporary artists from the international and italian scenes Sandro Chia, Mimmo Paladino, Julian Schnabel, and David Salle as well as video and installation work by the latests artist-stars Jan Fabre, Damien Hirst, Tony Oursler, Pinot Gallizio.

For more info: www.mostrateatrodelsogno.it

Chagall, Nude above Vitebsk (1933)

hooray for http://www.blogday.org/

Being a full time blogger means not just writing blogs, but keeping on top of the ones everyone else writes. For work I have to read everything people write about Tuscany, but sometimes my searches or other people’s links lead me to bloggers located in other parts of Italy. Being on twitter is also a great way to meet and dialogue with other bloggers and to discover blogs and news I’d have never found without the help of social networks!

Today, August 31st, is Blog Day, and on this day we’re supposed to name 5 blogs that we recently discovered or that might be a little outside of our usual reading material. I don’t know how I am going to narrow this down to only 5 blogs. Just this past month – despite being on holiday for 2 weeks of it – I have “digitally met” a world-wide full-time blogger and a sicilian dweller who deserve a mention… but this post must also mention some of my perennial favourites. So here goes, in no particular order.

Italy blogs

Italytutto: For her, every day is blog day. I love the weekly roundup of best blog posts about Italy; in fact this is one of my favourite sources for finding more reading material.

My new Sicilian correspondant, Jann, writes Baroquesicily.com – don’t miss her hilarious post about the recent trend of Sicilians wearing speedos at the beach.

What would I do without Gloria “@casinadirosa” who writes At Home in Tuscany? I think nobody would retweet my @arttrav and @tuscanyart tweets if she didn’t do it first!

James of Wandering Italy Blog has a quick and dry sense of humour and I usually agree with all his observations. Recent posts are mostly about food but sometimes he weighs in on Italy’s absurdities and that’s when I love him most.

Since there are not enough art history blogs out there, let’s toss in “M” of Alberti’s Window – not always about Italian art, but sometimes it is. In the same breath, the newish “Three Pipe Problem” blog by H. Hiyazi also concentrates on some great italian art.

And two more special mentions

Audrey of uncorneredmarket is a world traveller who is planning a return trip to Tuscany – that’s how we got in touch last week and I’m enjoying reading something a little different in her posts about South America and Asia.

Finally, for blog day I want to thank Jessie of Wandering Educators for support and concrete tips last year when I decided to re-launch arttrav “alla grande”!

Civitella is a small town (population circa 400) and an exit on the Siena-Grosseto superstrada. This location makes it convenient for visits to Siena, Pienza, and Montalcino; the beauties of the Monte Amiata area, and the whole of Maremma. It’s about 50 minutes’ drive to the coast where you can enjoy the beach at Castiglione della Pescaia or Marina di Grosseto, or drive further south to the natural park at Alberese.

We went there recently for dinner with friends and took a few pictures around the town, which looks like a typical town of the Maremma.

Where to stay in the area of Civitella Paganico

There’s a list of hotels and agriturismo’s on the official website which happens to be beautifully designed.

Stay at our friend Gloria’s little Casina di Rosa, recently restored and with the best hosts you can imagine.

The Locanda nel Cassero comes highly recommended and also has a slow food restaurant.

Visualizzazione ingrandita della mappa

Off a courtyard into a bedroom in one of the Roman houses. That's me looking thin and lovely.

I was searching through some photos from field trips that I led for UGA in 2008 in a bout of nostalgia brought on by an upcoming visit from my friends Roy and Terry who were my colleagues that Fall. At the end of term we took students to the Bay of Naples and there was the optional day trip to Pompeii which, for once, I did not have to lead.

I don’t recall who it was came up with the idea, maybe it was I, but anyway we decided to “skip Pompeii, go to Herculaneum“. We’d all been to Pompeii before and my memories of that archaeological area tend to be associated with heat and dust. Don’t get me wrong, it’s an incredible place that you should go see at some point, but it’s really big and extended, and to find the works of greatest impact and colour, you have to walk for miles. Herculaneum is more compact and more bang for your buck (the same entrance price, by the way) with its numerous intact frescoes, mosaics, and two-storey structures. It is also much less crowded. Roy, Terry, and I had a magical day feeling like we’d discovered the place ourselves.

Excavations of this site began in the mid 18th century and what we now see is only the part of the inhabitation that extends inland from the sea; the forum and other areas are underneath the modern town. Like Pompeii, Herculaneum was destroyed with the eruption of Vesuvius in the year 79. In the 1980s, archaeologists discovered hundreds of skeletons of people who, during the eruptions, attempted to flee the city in boats containing all their precious belongings.

Herculaneum is unique because there are preserved wood, papyrus, and other organic materials; as well, unlike Pompeii, the weight of the ash seems not to have caused all the buildings to collapse, so there are two-story buildings with wooden second floors. If you also read my other blog, Tuscany Arts, you know that the Etruscans, too, built houses with wooden second floors, but Herculaneum gives us a unique opportunity to see this actually preserved.

Image adapted from www.herculaneum.org

Although I’ve read up on everything I can, I’m not an expert on Roman archaeology so I’ll leave you with this photo gallery of our visit to Herculaneum and the links below to help you should you wish to read more about it and plan your own trip to see it in person!

Herculaneum Resources:

There is a wonderful online virtual tour chock full of restoration information at www.herculaneum.org.

This site AD79 Eruption has detailed information about the history of the site and what can be seen now, as well as an impressive annexed blog by what appears to be a large panel of experts.

And this is the official website.

Fritto di Paranza

At the beach

In the past I’ve written about how Italian beaches are often divided up into these “stabilimenti”, or bathing establishments, a civilized, groomed piece of beach with umbrellas that are too close together, but with the advantage of services like bathroom and bar. This year we booked the month of august at Pinetina Nord in Castiglione della Pescaia (around 700 euros for the month, tel 0564935454) because while we’re a fan of the “spiaggia libera” (free beaches), parking gets ridiculously difficult as the summer goes on, and this place includes parking. In order to get a parking spot, however, you must drag yourself out of bed at 8am and get there before 10am. I do recommend this beach; it’s a small establishment so the service is pretty personal and it’s not very crowded.

The restaurant on the beach is excellent as it has an internationally-trained chef. My husband suggests the “fritto di paranza”, or fried catch of the day of small fish caught with this particular net called paranza (see photo).

The highlight of the beach was the lifeguard, whose tower was right next to our ombrellone. This clueless 19 year old kid spent most of his time on his cell phone, from which we learned of the girlfriend who had left him 3 weeks before, his university choice (hadn’t decided yet, starting in September), about the new girl(s) he’d made out with, and the hours of his nightclub attendance (until 7am). He worked 10am to 3pm and you had to hope you’d never need to be saved by him. One one wavy day he boasted having “had” to execute “five saves”, but we bore witness and noticed that in most cases, the people didn’t need saving at all!

As the weather was generally hot and sunny, and hey, I was on vacation, we spent more time on the beach than visiting cultural sites, though on one overcast morning my sister-in-law and I went to the Etruscan ruins at Vetulonia, where they recently discovered a rather complete domus that I’d wanted to see. I’ll be writing about that next week on Tuscany Arts!

Where to eat in Grosseto area and Maremma

We liked Osteria del Mugnaio in Grilli (58020 Grilli (GR) – 57, VIA GROSSETANA tel: 0566 887201), half an hour inland from Grosseto in a very unpretentious setting. There is an ample garden/terrace at one side, though we were seated on the front porch which was just fine as it’s set back from the main road. Local specialties like tortelli maremmana (ricotta and spinach) with cinghiale (wild boar) sauce, steak, and for dessert don’t miss the whipped ricotta with honey and pine nuts. We spent a very reasonable 18 euros per person with ravioli, tagliata with porcini, dessert, wine, and coffee.

In Castiglione della Pescaia, Osteria Pizzeria del Viandante is always a good bet for either pizza, primi, or meats. It gets crowded on weekends so reservations are useful (Via della Liberta 19, 0564 933 726).

Don’t go to Osteria nel Buco in Castiglione della Pescaia (Via del Recinto 11); it is Slow Food, but gets my thumbs DOWN. We ate there a few years back and I was just itching to write something nasty about it. The effect has worn off but I recall that they put antipasti and a bottle of wine on the table as if they were free, but they were to in fact charged – at high price. They were not accomodating to my vegetarianism and the food was not good at all.

Locanda La Luna in the town of Tirli (0564 945854) is another one of our favourites (their annexed hotel rooms are a good value too). I like the gnocchi all’ortica while my husband likes the cinghiale in umido. The decor is upscale but the prices are reasonable. One downside may be that the menu does not get much lighter with the warmer season. I wrote about this place last December after a good meal.

If you happen to go to Grosseto you’ll find it to be a rather small town, though there’s a good archaeological museum and it’s generally pleasant for a wander in the downtown area. We found an interesting alternative bookstore called Libreria Popolare (via Ricasoli 17) with a great collection of local history books as well as sections on philosophy, psychology, eastern religions, etc. For dinner, try Vineria da Romolo, a crazy locale with both indoor and outdoor seating. Why crazy? In part for the photos that line the walls inside from the owners’ worldwide travels, in part for the printed paper placemats of amusing topics like “how to make a woman happy”. Food is pretty average but it’s a fun place; the crostone with gorgonzola and honey was a nice appetizer.

tommaso's in there "for scale" to show the romanesque church tower in sticciano

The August holidays have finally arrived and arttrav will be “closed for the holidays”. With all of Italy and Europe at my fingertips, where do I choose for my holiday? It’s easy: Tuscany. After last year’s beach-going in Elba, this year is dedicated to the Maremma area, to the little hamlet of Sticciano to be specific.

As many of you know, I write a blog about the Arts in Tuscany and lately I’ve written a lot about Maremma. I’ve been going on weekend trips in that area with my husband for about ten years now, and we really love it there… so recently we bought a little apartment in a little town called Sticciano.

I’ll write more about Sticciano soon, but suffice to say that the population of about 60 people swells to about 250 in the summer, but the town remains quiet and pleasant. It’s half an hour from the coast, so an easy drive to the beach at Castiglione della Pescaia, but also turns out to be rather centrally located to visit all the great things that the region has to offer. So we are really excited to spend 2 weeks in our new “home”.

If you’re a little jealous and want to spend some time in this part of Maremma, my friend Gloria rents a charming holiday home nearby, Casina di Rosa.

This is Sticciano in the Spring:

I colori dell’Ara Pacis – the colours of the Ara Pacis. The original colours of the building are reconstructed with a projection onto the actual marble structure!

Remaning dates for this Wednesday-night event are: August 4, 11, 18, 25;  and September 1 & 8, 2010. From 9pm to midnight, entry costs 8 euros.

Bollino nero, causa esodo. Source: Panorama

It’s the first weekend in August, which means it’s bollino nero because of the esodo, and if you don’t do a partenza intelligente, you’re screwed. Have no idea what I’m talking about? You need an Italian summer holiday vocabulary refresher!

Esodo: The Exodus. An annual event of Biblical proportions, people leave the city in droves despite the previously mentioned fact that Italians don’t all go for holidays in August any more. But if the total silence of my residential street is any indication, most middle class city dwellers escape at this time. The beaches of Tuscany become crowded with Florentines, but the same goes for every other city and region.

Bollino Nero / Bollino Rosso: Oh no. Don’t tell me you’re thinking of driving on the highway on a day declared to be a Bollino NERO? The black death of traffic predictions, worse than the bollino rosso that characterizes pretty much the entire summer. You’re nuts.

Partenza Intelligente: If you avoid the bollino of any colour by doing a partenza intelligente – smart departure – you may just make it to your destination unfased. The real trick lies in determining what the most intelligent departure time/method is. For sure you’ll want to have your car filled and tuned in advance, not book a hairdressers’ appointment that day, pack the car a week before, and have everyone in your party already at your house/departure point well before the determined hour. Consider driving in the middle of the night – intelligent would certainly be to leave at 2am, you might not find traffic.

Tormentone: each summer, one or more songs are defined as a “tormentone”, a thing that tortures you at least once a day. Often this song comes out of the Festival di Sanremo, but this year it’s definitely “California Girls” by Katy Perry.

Ferragosto: August 15th, a national holiday that is a phenomenon unto itself. I wrote about Ferragosto last year with some tips on what to do

The famous Calippo. Photo: Stolen from somewhere via google images.

on this day of institutionalized rest. At the beach (where everyone already is thanks to the aforementioned esodo), people arrive at 7am in order to be sure they will have a good spot for the day’s, and night’s, activities. Free beaches become free for alls. Any shady areas will be taken by 8am. Tents and temporary shelters set up, solar-powered gigantic coolers, tables and chairs underneath, as people are ready to spend the next 24 hours there drinking beer and eating popsicles (or in Ostia, calippo e bira).

Emergenza Caldo: You’ll want to watch out for this one, a heat emergency. Stock up on calippi (plural of calippo, popsicles, see link above) and stay inside with a/c or a fan, cuz the radios say not to go outside. Or go to the beach and just lie there, taking occasional baths or showers.

Burraco: A bridge-like card game favoured by the Meridionale (southerner), a perfect way to waste those dead hours after your heavy lunch and before you can swim again.

Il grande Rientro/ Controesodo: The saddest part of all, the end of the summer, the “grande rientro”, the big return (to the city, to work). AKA the Controesodo, when everyone comes back from the beach, or goes back up north. Causing similar bollino nero days as the esodo, but without the happy anticipation of the esodo.

As the town of 300 expects 100,000 visitors, at the visitor center you can buy, for 300 euros, a “pedestrian’s kit” complete with portable “strisce” (crossing stripes), a portable underpass with easy installation, various other types of road signs, and a GPS finder of porcini mushrooms.

Last year’s winner was Calogero Armato who published this text in the newspaper Il Metato:

da oggi nei bar ma anche in altri locali pubblici si potrà richiedere l’acqua minerale biodinamica. Grazie all’utilizzo del pesciolino blu chiamato Gonfietto che vive in un anonimo affluente del Rio Negro in Amazzonia, sensibile alla colite ittica e capace di produrre “gas” dalla propia pancia in modo rapido e biologico dopo aver mangiato soltanto tre fagioli.

Don’t worry, if you can’t go, you can send your lie by email to info@labugia.it. (I’m serious, and there’s a prize for it too.)

Anyway it’s a solo exhibit at the EX3 contemporary art gallery in Florence’s quartiere 3 residential area (next to the ipercoop gavinana), an interesting space that opened up recently and attracts contemporary art at an international level. There’s a cafe’ in this space and occasional events, like the Pecha Kucha I attended last winter.

Info:

EX3 – Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea until Sept 19 (minus the august closure)

Viale Giannotti 81/83/85 – 50126 Firenze
Orario di apertura: dal 1 luglio al 12 settembre 2010 – dal mercoledì alla domenica, dalle 14.00 alle 22

Chiuso il lunedì e il martedì
Chiusura estiva dall’8 agosto al 31 agosto 2010  compresi
Per informazioni: tel 055 6287091 – www.ex3.it – info@ex3.it

This has got to be the worst poster design fail ever. We received this at the office via email and I heard a gasp from a colleague so I had to look too… Are we to believe that seeing Florence through “Wine Goggles” (instead of “beer goggles) is… a good thing? The comune di Firenze has put their logo on this and I’m afraid they haven’t seen it – surely it couldn’t have been approved!?

I almost feel the need to do a little visual analysis here. It’s almost impossible to analyze. The poor graphic artist who had to incorporate some nice logos with an awful concept, a kinda sweaty student-model, fireworks, a sunset, a cut and paste, two tag-lines, and every colour in the rainbow.

The website www.winetownfirenze.com is equally bad, designed by a certain Orlando Perri whose OWN website doesn’t even work. And here is their idea of a “viral video” – to which I suppose I am contributing.

Instead of the two tag lines in the poster, I suggest a third: Wanna get wasted on wine? Attend this event next fall.

You know you’re Italian when you go to a rock concert by an Italian artist and you know all the words to the songs

So I went to see Ligabue the other day at the stadium of Florence. I expected a wild night out but honestly I’ve attended wilder business networking meetings with ToscanaIN. I guess I can measure the level of my integration (been here for 10 years) by this experience.

Ligabue Concert in Florence 13/07/10

I’m not a huge “Liga” (as he’s known to his fans) fan, but when they played “Piccola Stella“, I did know half the words and could shout along with the whole crowd. I made this nice bootleg video and it’s still ringing in my ears:

Face it, Liga may only know four chords and all his songs sound the same, but you can’t help but be “emozionato” if you’re there. Plus he’s quite a “gnocco” (attractive guy).

More of my photos on Tuscany Arts Flickr

Niccolo Fabi

The first time I heard an Italian artist Live was back in May 2000, and it was my first date with my husband so as you can imagine I still have the ticket and the experience has remained one of the best of my life. The headline artist was, in fact, not Italian: it was Sting. Sting played at the Cascine park in Florence for the “prezzo politico” (lit. political price in Italian, meaning it’s there for a reason) of twenty thousand lire. The big artist and the low ticket price was enough for me to finally accept this sweet Italian guy’s invitations to go on a date (he’d been asking for a while).

Seeing Sting was great. I knew all the words in English and the Italians around me massacred the songs in Italo-Inglese. But what struck me more was the opening band: Niccolo Fabi. I found myself in a pit with young, excited Italians who shouted all the words to “Cappelli”, a song about how attached this cute young artist is to his long hair. He seems like a real sweetheart and after this romantic experience, I learned all the words to this song and to everything on his later album La Cura Del Tempo.

The obsession with the cute Niccolo ended when I ran into him on a beach in Puglia. He was completely wasted. To his defense, it was the day after he’d given a concert the night before so he was just relaxing, and in fact I wouldn’t have gone up to him except I was forced to by the 4 guys I was with… So here’s a photo of this pop artist at the beach, and the white thing next to him is me when I was young and thin and wearing a “skimpini”. I cannot believe that I am publishing this on the internet, but this is evidence of just how “pop”, social, and Italian(?) I have become.

Get it at home….

Want a little Italian experience in your own home? Buy an album by Jovanotti, Ligabue, or Niccolo Fabiand blast it in your living room.

Perhaps it’s because it’s 40 degrees outside that I have somewhat lost my patience. I’m writing this post from a bus on which the air-conditioning is broken and dripping on all the seats; yesterday’s bus simply did not have a/c. Of course the bus is full and people have to stand in the aisles, looking longingly at the empty seats that line the right side of the vehicle.

On the whole, the ATAF bus system in the summer is absurd. When schools let out, they cut the schedule in half. Why? There seem to be plenty of people taking the bus, but the schedule cut is an annual tradition based on out-dated social practises as follows:

Myth/tradition #1: While traditionally Italian families move to the beach in July and August — and the typical middle class woman’s job was schoolteacher to accommodate kids’ morning-only school hours and 3 months of summer holiday — more and more women are working in other fields that don’t offer this “benefit”. So they’re here in the city.

Myth/tradition #2: Another tradition is company closure in August. Yes. Whole offices, including production, close for a month. A throwback to the days before air-conditioning that forced employees to the seaside at that time. Business is still slow enough in certain fields to merit this closure: my brother in law in fact gets August off. My office closes for the two central weeks of August, but major international companies (like GE/ Nuovo Pignone with its 3500 employees in Florence) are open all summer long. So are stores.

Myth/tradition #3: Italians have a lot of holiday time. This is in part true – good contracts start at 5 weeks’ holiday plus statutory holidays and “permessi” (hours for going to the doctor, etc.). But anyone with a temporary contract has either NO or very little holiday. And with the economic crisis, families cannot afford to go on holiday (though the term “staycation” has fortunately not been invented in Italian).

Who pays the price?

ATAF Firenze’s bus system runs in the summer on the principle that there are fewer users. But who are the system’s daily users, year-round? The elderly and “workers” (lavoratori). Take any bus at 8:30am and you’ll hear all of us workers complaining because clearly we don’t count for the city, despite being the ones that carry forth the economy.

That’s all, thanks for listening to my RANT – the trip has been long enough to write this post on an iphone because with the summer schedule it takes me 25 minutes longer to get to work, but alas, now my real job calls.

I randomly discovered these photos on the Sterpaia website, a creativity farm and communications company based near Pisa in Tuscany. The artistic “Dream Toilet” is designed by Lorenzo Pentassuglia and Cecilia Morassi, students of the faculty of Architecture in Trieste and winners of a world-wide contest that was put out by Sebach and Sterpaia for the perfect chemical toilet. The contest, held in 2007, had a 5000 euro prize. I’m sure that the client paid much more than this to Sterpaia.

The slogan? Well, there isn’t one, but as a creative in advertising myself I suggest “Take a dump in a masterpiece”.

While the “Dream Toilet” got SOME press in Italian blogs, and none in English-language blogs, the related project “Flush the Fashion: Elegance in Toilet Paper” received virtually no mentions despite the creativity of students from the Academia Italiana of Art, Fashion, and Design who created high fashion clothing out of toilet paper. Kinda puts a whole new twist on “toilet papering” a place or person.

Thus is born the project “Nuovo Paesaggio Italiano” – new italian landscapes – developed by Toscani (photographer and founder of Fabrica) in collaboration with Salvatore Settis (art critic and professor). They want you to turn your camera towards the ugliest things you can find in this country, and email them the results, or post them on their facebook page.

From July 11 to October30 2010 in a town just outside Suvereto (LI) there’s an exhibit of the first ugly photos – abandoned villas, eco-monsters of various sorts.

From the gallery on facebook things don’t look that bad – honestly I’ve seen a lot of uglier examples of unfinished architecture or just plain “urban degradation”. A lot of this exists in the south of Italy where urban planning and architecture are foreign words and laws are entirely ignored. So much of this country’s natural beauty has been lost to the stupidity of man.

Taranto, still from the eco-disaster film "Arrividerci Taranto" Photo: www.cinemambiente.it

What is the ugliest thing you’ve ever seen in Italy? Let me know – and contribute it to the project!

A screen and a fan: novelty in Italy in my home in Sticciano

There are few moments of the year in which Italians will talk about the weather as much as an Anglo-Saxon. Right about now is one of those moments, when the mercury (if mercury thermometres weren’t banned in the EU) rises to 40 degrees celcius and there’s nothing people can do all day except sigh and declare “che caldo”. Those days in which you cannot even think of doing anything other than sitting still, scantily dressed, in front of a fan. If Dante could so capably visualize Hell, it’s because he spent a summer in his native city. 700 years later, Italians still don’t believe in screens or air conditioning, so we just suffer (except at my house as it’s “americanized”). We locals know to expect this in the summer in Florence, but what if you’re a tourist?

If you are planning a trip to Florence, let me answer the top question I see on fora (the plural of forums that nobody uses): “what is the best time to visit Florence” or Italy or Tuscany. And second question, “what is the weather like in (insert your week here)”.

Okay, weather prediction is a fine art, and one in which I don’t have a degree. But I can tell you this much: if you’re from Texas and have opted to live without air-conditioning, by all means come on over right now and stay for August too. Otherwise, observe the generalizations below (and enjoy my rants), and check these recommended forecast websites.

Winter in Tuscany

Despite your image of reasonable Mediterranean weather, winter is cold here just as anywhere else. Most years it rains constantly through January and February, but sometimes this also includes December and March. This year it rained so much that rubber boots became fashionable. On the positive side of things, if you can keep your feet dry, winter is not a bad time to explore art in Florence’s museums and churches, as you’re inside, and of course there aren’t any crowds. There is little thermic difference between the churches and outside, so wear warm layers! Heating is generally not very efficient in Italian homes so we tend to wear layers also inside and just deal with the cold and humidity. The main challenge in winter is finding somewhere to hang one’s wet laundry (Italians don’t use clothes dryers).

Visiting in Spring and Fall

Spring is generally the best time to visit anywhere in Italy. Beware of March and early April: this is when European school kids go on class trips and can crowd up the museums (yeah, spoiled eh? To think we went to Ottawa…). But otherwise there are fewer crowds than in the summer, and the weather is generally good! By “good” I mean that temperatures can be in the mid 20s (celcius) in the day, with pleasantly cool nights requiring a jacket. Rain is sporadic. The month of May is generally lovely, with trees and flowers in bloom. The countryside looks very green in May. Sometimes it’s even hot enough to go to the beach, though the water is frigid.

It’s amazing how the weather gets cooler on September first, and that month is usually very nice. Crowds dissipate, especially from the seaside, so it’s a good time for some low-season beach fun. In Florence the study abroad students arrive but the tourist volume is lower. October can also be very nice, sometimes with some warm sunny days and cool evenings. Pack an umbrella, of course, in case of rain.

Summer weather in Florence and Tuscany

HEAT! Photo: www.partecipiamo.it

As I started to say above, it’s HOT. July and August are the key months to avoid because the heat makes it difficult to go around seeing things without getting heat-stroke. If this is the only time you can visit, perhaps because you’re traveling with kids, I suggest renting a villa in the countryside, perhaps in a hill town as these generally are breezy in the evenings.

Don’t expect your hotel to have air-conditioning unless it’s got multiple stars and explicitly states that it has a/c. The buildings are old, and it’s often difficult to retrofit things like air conditioning and elevators. But more importantly, Italians are generally diffident of air conditioning or of any form of breeze, including that from fans. They fear “prendere freddo” – catching a cold draft – especially on the back of the neck, considered potentially fatal. That said, they’re starting to change; my mother in law gets headaches from a/c but declared just last night that it will be necessary to install it in her house and also at the nonna’s (grandma’s) – the latter doesn’t even open a door for fear of a breeze. See what global warming does to us?

Another thing that Italians generally don’t believe in is screens on their windows. This despite the fact that Florence in particular is mosquito-infested. There are two types of mosquitos – the normal one and the “zanzarra tigre” or tiger mosquito who has a striped body and legs. Both bite, a lot. If you don’t like mosquitos (who does?), buy a temporary screen at any hardware store (mesticheria) for about 4/5 euros. It has velcro that you can attach around the window and then you hang the screen on the velcro. The technique I use is to close the screened window, bomb the room with “Vape” – a device that spews out surely carcinogenic mosquito killer – then open the window and turn on the fan, with the door closed, to let the vape out. In 15 minutes the room has fresh air and no mosquitos, and will stay this way until you open up the door and let one in. This is the best way to ensure not being awoken in the night by buzzing.

So how do we deal with the heat? Well, anyone who doesn’t work and/or who has children goes to the beach for the summer months, and dads visit on weekends. This throwback to another age is starting to come to an end, but the city of Florence does still seem to somehow empty out and the beach areas (from Viareggio all the way down the coast) are very crowded. Anyone else sits at home with the shutters closed, the a/c or fan on, and tries not to move around too much. Sometimes at night we put on a wet tshirt and drive up to fiesole on the Vespa just to get some air that’s a few degrees colder. The best thing about being in Florence in July and August is that all my neighbours are away.

Italy weather forecast websites

Want to know what the weather will be like this week? You can get a reliable weather forecast 7 days in advance, no more, and even that is subject to change. The best website, I find, is Tempo Italia. Technically it’s written in Italian but a picture of a sun or a rain cloud is clear either way!

For Tuscany, the official weather center is LAMMA Toscana. Their predictions are super accurate but only up to three days in advance, and it’s written in florid Italian.

Locations are: Acquedotto Vergine, Auditorium di Mecenate, Casa Protostorica di Fidene, Cisterna delle Sette Sale, Cisterna romana di via Cristoforo Colombo, Colombario di Pomponio Hylas, Insula Romana sotto Palazzo Specchi, Ipogeo di Via Livenza, Ludus Magnus, Mausoleo di Monte del Grano, Mitreo dell’Ara Massima di Ercole, Monte Testaccio, Porta Asinaria, Sepolcri Repubblicani, Teatro di Marcello, Trofei di Mario e Porta Magica, Villa di Plinio.

For info: Secret Rome from A to Z official site

Last night I was at one on the terrace of the Hotel Baglioni, which is one of 13 locations listed below. Food was very posh.

So, if you like checking out great hotel locations without necessarily staying in these four-star accomodations, this is a way to do it (better than sneaking in to use the bathroom). On the other hand, if you’re inclined to stay at Hotel Baglioni or a luxury hotel out near Piazzale Michelangelo, you’ll probably find expedia.co.uk coupons to be useful – they’re available from from VoucherCodes.co.uk, who have generously sponsored this post.

Attending these events is also nice idea if you’re traveling on a budget (you can down as many canapés as possible right at the start, so get there early) and an opportunity to see the city from another angle (i.e. from above!). The aperitivo buffet is always included in the price of the drink, making it quite affordable (I think it will vary slightly between locations). Starting times vary; some locations provide live music, also after dinner drinks.

The locations are:

• ANTICA TORRE DI VIA TORNABUONI 1
• GRAND HOTEL CAVOUR
• GRAND HOTEL MINERVA
• HOTEL BOSCOLO ASTORIA
• HOTEL KRAFT
• HOTEL LAURUS AL DUOMO (Via Cerretani 54r)
• HOTEL SILLA (Via de’ Renai 5)
• HOTEL TORNABUONI BEACCI
• J.K. PLACE FIRENZE (Piazza Santa Maria Novella 7)
• PITTI PALACE AL PONTE VECCHIO (Borgo San Jacopo 3)
• RELAIS CHATEAUX VILLA LA VEDETTA (Viale Michelangiolo, 78 – this one lists “swimming pool”, but who knows if one could USE it?!)
• TERRAZZA STENDHAL c/o GARAGE EUROPA (Borgognissanti 96)

These are some photos of the view at sunset.

For info: Firenze Turismo website

Negative points about living in Italy

1. The average salary is 1000€ per month (net). Our professionals make 50 to 70 percent less than their american counterparts.
2. There are only a dozen channels on tv and there is no Tivo, not that you’d want to watch most of that stuff later, either.
3. Population density is high. Sometimes I wish I didn’t have to hear my neighbours’ tv.
4. A ridiculous amount of burocracy and paperwork for anything official (from marriage to paying a bill at the post office).

Advantages to life in Florence

1. Most of the time the weather 5 day forecast looks a lot better than Toronto’s.
2. The distance from city to city is short in Italy, and Florence is centrally located so it’s easy to get out! Just kidding… What I mean is that there are good options for day trips or longer voyages, and cheap flights from the nearby Pisa airport, too. Not that I take much advantage of that any more due to the next point…
3. Tuscany has everything: Art cities, beaches, mountains for skiing, lakes… Well not really such great lakes…
4. A ridiculous amount of burocracy! If you have a sharp appreciation for irony and absurdity, Italy’s burocracy provides a load of daily laughs – you don’t need to subscribe to those websites full of funny photos of kittens in odd positions, the daily newspaper will do the trick.
5. It’s not all “la bella vita” but hey, a lot of it is. Life, and food, is generally better here. Oh I cheated, I said four points.

As I said this is just a short list (the idea came to me while on the bus the other day). My many expat readers will have much to add in each category I’m sure – right? PS: I decided to stay away from politics here and elsewhere on arttrav, so we’re not mentioning all that under the negative points. That wouldn’t be fair.

So the other day I was in the Santo Spirito area and the need arose to test the facilities, which I happily did just for you, dear reader. Read on to find out the results of this test…

And the results? Clean! Almost homey with a pink toilet seat and marble walls and floor. Furnished with soap and paper; not at all stinky.

The negative part? (1) cost: 60 cents. Not cheap, but less than buying a drink at a bar just to use their dirty can. (2) closes at 7pm, later in summer. It is precisely at night that these services must be made available in order to encourage cleanliness and order in the city.

The city offers a map to find these public toilets (download pdf), which now include prestigious locations such Piazza Santa Maria Novella and Borgo Santa Croce. The fancy cans in Piazza Duomo will run you one euro so you’re better off getting a coffee at a bar wrapped into the price.

Here is photographic proof of the cleanliness of said bathroom.

And here is your souvenir bathroom ticket receipt, perfect for pasting into any travel diary.

Lorenzo Pancini, Memory of Hands, (c) www.theanttheater.com

Every June 24th I try to do something different – it’s San Giovanni, the patron saint of Florence. Most people flock downtown to see the fireworks along the Arno. Last year I got out of the city to a wonderful country meal with De Gustibus, which they are offering again this year. But I’m extremely tempted by the show put on at the Casa della Creativita (just steps from the Duomo on Vicolo Santa Maria Maggiore) by an artists’ collective called The Ant Theater. One of the founding artists is Simone whose work and oral presentation style I admired at the Pecha Kucha night I attended this spring.

The Ant Theater is a collective started by three visual artists in Florence. While working for fashion brands and international publishing houses, they’ve developed a unique approach to the art of drawing in unconventional situations, thank to trusty sketchbooks, watercolour and simple pen drawings. Each has his own distintive obsession: Simone Massoni steals the casual poses and the random speech from street walkers, Ilaria Falorsi depitcts curvy girls in uncommon situations , Cosimo Lorenzo Pancini obsesses about hand positions and details of  friends’ faces. The art of The Ant Theater, created in the dimly lit pubs of Florence, can also be admired group’s website if you cannot make it to the show at the Casa della Creativita’ from June 24 to July 13 2010.

The invitation is open to all from 7pm, drinks and access to the aperitivo table cost 5 euros. Each drink gives you a raffle ticket with which you could win, at the end of the night, one of the 100×70cm canvases on display.

Frizzi is part of a series called “Living Objects“, and this made me pause to reflect on the shapes that appeal to us right now. What makes this “living” and “cute”? Why did I stare at it with a happy doggy face and have to have it as soon as I saw it (despite its price tag)? Pure visual analysis tells us:

1) The fan’s body and the lamp below forms one sinuous curved line that we read as “appealing” and “human”.
2) The light cover is affixed by a shapely pin that creates a dimple in the glass, but avoids the “boob” effect common to ceiling lamps. Dimples are friendly.
3) Its retro shapes are built from high-tech, functional materials, so it’s comforting (1950s) but also new.

Design aside, it’s also functional. Its three long arms create a galeforce wind when set at high speed; kept on low it’s an energy-efficient way to keep our bedroom cool all summer long. The remote control, evocative of early television controls, is satisfyingly heavy and makes loud beeps while we are visually rewarded with LED feedback from the object’s body.

Tommaso says it wasn't too hard to install

Frizzi, already five years old, anticipated a lot of design trends that are being named this year and predicted for the coming decade, in particular “retro high-tech“. We’re seeing a lot of nostalgia for the 1950s and 60s, the great era of Italian design and the beginning of domestic convenience. Conversely, we are seeing a drive towards smart homes, energy saving devices, and high technology, but ideally we should not SEE this technology because it’s a bit scary. In the R&D departments of robotics companies they’ve conducted studies of human-robot interaction to see what designs people respond to best, and they find rounded shapes and friendly big eyes to be appealing and effective (see for example the robot named Nao). Machines can now be “adorable”. They are Living Objects.

Writing this post made me realized I don’t have a category called “design”! Maybe I should make one and write more about design that I love – what do you think?

The current exhibit is “Roma” with works by the American artist Philip Guston, who produced these pieces in 1970-1 when he was a fellow at the American Academy.

When? Every Thursday night ore 19-22, with the two bands on rotation as follows:

• 10 giugno 2010 – Matisse Jazz Trio
• 17 giugno 2010 – Times New Romans: Serata Jazz anni ‘40 e ‘50
• 24 giugno 2010 – Matisse Jazz Trio
• 1 luglio 2010 – Times New Romans: Serata Blues alla “Route 66″
• 8 luglio 2010 – Matisse Jazz Trio
• 15 luglio 2010 – Times New Romans: Serata Latin Jazz
• 22 luglio 2010 – Matisse Jazz Trio
• 29 luglio 2010 – Times New Romans: Serata Swing e Jazz

event information on the official website

Martine Carol nell’atelier di Emilio Schuberth, Courtesy Angelo Frontoni

Vintage photos and clothing to die for at Aria Art Gallery in Florence at the exhibit “Dive Glamour e Moda” opening today (June 16 to August 29, 2010) in correspondence with Pitti Uomo.

The photos are of some of the most glamorous and famous ladies of film, all wearing clothes from AnnaMode Costumes of Rome (refered to as the seamstress of “la dolce vita”). They capture the essence of the era of Rita Hayworth, Gina Lollobrigida, Martine Carol, Ingrid Bergman, Sofia Loren, Monica Vitti e Stefania Sandrelli.

The exhibit is a collaboration between In Media Tuscany, European School of Economics – who will offer a fashion course next Fall, and Annamode Costumes who contributed three pieces from their archives.

The exhibition space is the beautiful Aria Art Gallery, the ex-limonaia inside the garden of Palazzo Rosselli Del Turco, located at Borgo Santi Apostoli 40/r.

Dates: June 26 August 29 2010.

Opening hours:
tues-thurs: 10:30 / 13:30 – 15:00 / 19:30
fri-sat: 10:30 / 13:30 – 15:00 / 20:00
Sunday: 15:00 / 20:00 – Monday: by appointment only

An exhibit at the International Design Museum in Munich, Alessi Objects and Projects, looks back over the recent decades of Alessi design: the final phase of the Italian Bel Design (the ’70s), the Postmodern period (the ’80s), the Ludic period (‘90s) and most recently what’s being called the Eclectic Moment (the ’00s).

The Alessi exhibition website is a creation of my colleagues at H-art and is a work of art in itself, not to mention that it contains a ton of useful information written by the important players in Alessi and design Alessandro Mendini, Alberto Alessi and Florian Hufnagl. Alberto Alessi joined the family business in 1970, and designer Mendini has collaborated with him since the late 1970s

A section devoted to “new topical issues” is particularly interesting as it shows objects in production related to themes like simplicity and “recent retro”. We see a nostalgia for handiwork and unexalted materials like wire applied in innovative and attractive ways.

from May 22 to September 9, 2010, Pinakothek der Moderne | Barer Straße 40 | D – 80333 Munich

Called “Aperto alLe Murate“, every Monday night this summer – starting June 16 2010 – Le Murate will be open for aperitif and cultural offerings from 7-9pm. A free glass of wine is provided by “young” wine producers; it’s unclear if there will also be food (it’s up to the individual wine sponsor so may vary between dates). The whole weekly event is free and offers and interesting, eclectic selection of the best of local and international alternative film, music, and performance – a format explored last year by Rome’s MACRO to great success. Most everything will be appropriate also to an international or English-speaking public (see below).

The evenings are organized by various individuals and cultural organizations, each in charge of a few events, in order to provide this varying range of performance types. Our friends from Florence Fast Forward (cultural organization and magazine) are in charge of evenings that will see designers working live – they’re calling it a “graphic performance” (June 18, July 12, July 26). Some of the film nights are organized by Map of Creation, a cultural association that recently organized the Middle Eastern film festival. The films they are bringing to Le Murate are in fact mostly from the Middle East and will be subtitled in English and Italian. Other nights are more musical-oriented. The Media sponsor is Al Gore’s Current TV who on July 29th will present uncensored material banned from other news station.

Given the musical/film/performance nature of these events, it is independant of language, so English-speakers are welcome. The only evening in Italian will be a performance by Kinkaleri on Sept. 6th. Le Murate is not a touristy location despite being right downtown, so this is an opportunity to be part of something that is in the making, in a space that is in gestation.

We’re all waiting for the grand opening of the ex-jail Le Murate, but it’s been delayed. You may recall that there was a Preview on January 16th and we’d hoped it would be open this summer. This isn’t happening, so the Aperitivo line-up is a solution in the meantime, and the limited hours are in order to not bother the residents as the event will take place in the courtyard outside. The event slotted for Monday September 13th is organized by the SUC, the contemporary space due to open at Le Murate, and we expect a press conference around that time to announce, hopefully, its official opening.

You can find information in Italian on the Le Murate website (which, incidentally I made via H-art, the company for which I work).

Become a fan of Le Murate on facebook and accept the invitation to “aperto alle murate” !

By 1925, Alfredo Lensi, the city of Florence’s architect, deriding “the fusty antique dealer’s poor taste”, had painted the walls of Bardini’s palazzo a yellow ochre and rearranged the entire gallery so the art was shown in chronological order.

Isabel Stewart Gardner, arbiter of Bostonian taste and creator of her own museum at Fenway Court, saw Bardini’s blue walls in the 1890s. She purchased a number of items from Bardini for her collection. In March 1900, she wrote to art dealer Bernard Berenson, asking “…will you please some day, get on a piece of paper the blue colour that Bardini has on his walls. I want the exact tint. Perhaps some little person can paint it on a piece of paper.”

Isabel Gardner wrote again to Berenson later in the year, “…When you get there (you are there) please do get me a piece of paper painted with the blue of Bardini’s walls. You know you promised me before. I am working hard over my new house.”

Berenson wrote back, right away:

I was most sincerely pleased to hear from you, after so long a silence – even tho’ you mildly scolded me for not having gotten you a sample of Bardini’s blue. The truth is that when you wrote about it last year, I saw Bardini about it directly. He solemnly assured me he would send it [to] you in a day or two….This time I went down and approached him. He was profuse in apologies, and to make sure that now you really got it, I told him to give it to me. I enclose it, the sample, and with it, the receipt for preparing it…

Unrelenting, Mrs. Gardner inquried again: “Did you compare them [the paint chip and wall]? In case you have not, will you kindly do so. I enclose a piece. The important [thing] is to get the tint exactly…”

Visitors to both the Bardini Museum and the Isabel Stewart Gardner Museum can be glad they finally got the tint exactly right.

Ann Reavis has remained insatiably curious in Florence for the past  ten years and helps other like-minded visitors through www.friendinflorence.com. She also writes the wonderfully detailed blog, with geeky art history and library articles TuscanTraveler.com.

Stay in Monti

Monti's famous piazza and fountain

Monti is a real residential area only about one km away from Termini train station. It’s full of original ateliers, homewares shops, galleries, and good restaurants. It’s mostly made up of two streets, Via dei Serpenti and Via del Boschetto, and a piazza (Madonna dei Monti). The piazza was featured in the Italian film “La notte prima degli esami” (the night before the exam) in a view similar to the one shown here.

As in many Roman residential areas, most of the buildings in Monti have rooftop access, many of which have been transformed into luscious hanging gardens! Even our cheap hotel had one. The view is great – at the end of via dei Serpenti you can see the Colosseum.

Why stay in Monti? Because it’s close to metro (Cavour) and bus stops (on via cavour or the little 117 electric bus), it’s right downtown and a short walk or bus ride everywhere, but it’s part of “real Rome”. Besides a mini-supermarket and little local food stores, the area is full of restaurants from every ethnicity and funky wine bars. There are three Indian restaurants in one block (they say the best is Il Maraja) and we tested the pricier Japanese place on via dei Serpenti (Hasekura) which was quite authentic.

Rooftop garden at Hotel Grifo

I stayed this time at a budget hotel called Hotel Grifo. At 80 euros for the double in high season don’t expect charm, really hot water, or anything fresh at breakfast, but the sheets were crisp and clean, and most importantly the staff were VERY accommodating. They even brought me a lower pillow and agreed not to spray their obnoxious floral room deodorant in our room after I noted that it gave me allergies. The inner room they gave me had NO external traffic noise, though I could hear the neighbours and anyone on the courtyard sneeze or talk. But that’s normal even in my apartment building at home in Florence.

Make this tip 1a, but if you like fresh fruit at breakfast, don’t pay for a more expensive hotel, just run out to the fruttivendolo (fruit vendor store) and bring it into the breakfast room with you! In this way an extra euro completed my breakfasts at the budget hotel.

I promise this is the only really long tip.

See the Colosseum at night

The colosseum is beautifully lit up at night.

This is an easy one. I’d never walked over to the Colosseum at night. By day I’ve been under the pounding sun that reflects off the darn Roman paving, in that space that is inundated by tourists, vendors selling useless gadgets, and men dressed up as fake gladiators posing for (paid) photos with the aforementioned tourists.

At night, it’s a different story entirely. It’s MAGICAL. It’s lit up, and quite empty. You can also get close to the Arch of Constantine and see the reliefs even better than during the day.

Get the three-day public transportation pass

For 11 euros, buy a bus pass that gives you unlimited access to busses, trams, and metro. This can be purchased from the machines in the stations or from tabacchi stores. A single ticket is 1 euro so to break even you need to take transportation four times a day, which is easy if you like to go back to your hotel for a rest after lunch… but also between sites. If you have the pass you’ll not think twice about hopping on a bus for just a few stops, or about crossing the city in an illogical way to see something that interests you.

Books are divided up into categories so that you don’t end up with tips on areas/things you don’t care for. So there’s a foodie guide, Italy guide, family travel tips, USA tips, one for beaches, and one for worldwide travel (which means everything else).

And this keeps getting better: for every free ebook downloaded, Tripbase will donate 1$ to Charity: Water. Just $20 can give one person in a developing nation clean drinking water for 20 years. Tripbase has already raised 2875$ of their 5000$ goal. Yup, this costs nothing to you, and you get a nice free book full of travel tips. What are you waiting for?

Download your free travel secrets ebook here.

ps – help out by spreading the word. If you tweet about this initiative use the link above and the hashtag #travelsecrets !

World-renowned organist Matteo Imbruno, the chief organist of the Oude Kerk in Amsterdam will perform works of Frescobaldi, Scheidemann, Zipoli, Byrd, Sweelinck, Muffat and others on the newly renovated pipe organ of the church of Monteggiori on Friday, June 4th at 9:00pm. The organ in the church is a splendid example of 1800s pipe organs, it was built by Odoardo Landucci. “It is one of those treasures passed down through the generations, part of the artistic heritage of the region; something that has an historic and personal value for the residents of the village” says Giampaolo Bertola the mayor of Camaiore.

Maestro Imbruno has performed as a soloist in the most prestigious Organ Festivals in the world, including in Milan, Barcelona, London, Hamburg, Stockholm, Copenhagen, New York, Tokyo and Vienna. He has recorded 8 CDs for various labels and has recorded for BBC’s Radio 3. In this video you can see him ” just practicing” Bach on the organ.

Monteggiori, today home to many world-famous artists, is a charming little Medieval Village overlooking the Mediterranean sea. It was the fortress of Castruccio Castracane, an Italian general who built his Palace there in the early 1300s. The village is in the Comune of Camaiore, province of Lucca and minutes away from the sculptor’s community of Pietrasanta. See photos of, and follow Monteggiori on Facebook!

Museums included are state and comunal: Palazzo Vecchio, Uffizi, Accademia, Pitti-Boboli, Opificio delle Pietre dure, Museo Archeologico, Palazzo Medici Riccardi, Stibbert, Horne, Bardini, Cappella Brancacci, Alinari Photo Museum and more.

The city is still working on a deal with university museums and ones run by the diocese (like the Museo del’Opera del Duomo).

This is good news for tourists but residents still await a year-long Florence museum pass at a reasonable price. Come on Matteo, you can do it!

Source: city of Florence press office

Kant: Time is in us and we are in time.

The white rabbit: I’m late, I’m late, for a very important date.

The exhibit “As soon as possible – acceleration in contemporary society” at Strozzina in Florence makes us stop and think. In recent years, everything around us has been accelerated, leaving us feeling at times stressed and alienated. It’s no coincidence that the past few years have seen a counter-trend in “slow food”, “slow travel”, and even “slow art”.

I also edit the blog of illywords magazine, and noticed that they were already feeling the stress of these fast rythms in 2002 with issue #1, Timetables and Scoreboards, and the constant flow of information that bombards us and forces us to move faster comes up also in #14, Refresh. The question of speed is always current.

In the basement exhibition space of Palazzo Strozzi, Curator Franziska Nori has asked ten international contemporary artists working on the theme of acceleration to contribute their diverse approaches. Seven essays expand and reflect on the theme independantly of what’s in the gallery, making the catalogue an indispensable aid. Thursday night gallery talks (with free admission) also add to the debate.

How often have you been asked to do a task for someone and been told “I need it right away… actually, it was due yesterday.” Work knows no boundaries of office hours or office spaces; “flexible location” and “smartphones” make us think we’re important but they just help us work all the time, everywhere. Mark Formanek makes an observation on the ridiculous pace of our workday by having a group of workmen build a digital clock out of wood that moves with each minute (the work is titled Standard Time). The 24 hour dvd loop plays in the gallery; the work doesn’t stop with the museum’s closure. The people in the video just keep going, they never have time to sit back and enjoy the fruits of their labour.

A complete change of pace can be found in Jens Risch’s patient knotting of kilometers’ worth of silk thread. In some cases the resulting small blobs that recall coral took four years to complete. The artist keeps a diary of his daily activity of knot-tying. He must be the most patient person in the world.

There is tension in both these works, though – in the tight knot by Risch, or in the pace of the workmen in Formanek. Tension to the point of danger is present in Arcangelo Sassolino’s Pneumatic Expansion of a Living Force – a glass bottle in a bulletproof glass case, attached to a nitrogen tank. There is a sign in the gallery that warns us of the imminent explosion. It’s a matter of liability (think what would happen is there were a visitor with pacemaker), but you’re likely to jump just the same. We observe the bottle in the case and wonder when and if it will explode. Eventually it does, and a gallery attendant has to replace it and start over again.

The editorial presentation of illywords #1 points out that:

… being mature and professional individuals, we want to be able to manage our own time and rhythm peacefully and sensibly.

That’s what the young German artist Fiete Stolte wants to do. He has decided to live in a parallel universe composed of eight 21-hour days, during which natural and artificial light phase in and out of alignment. This rhthym expresses itself visually in a series of photographs of his office window viewed from outside, mounted on the gallery wall. His decision is based on the idea that the conventional week is not long enough. I have to contest this – I always feel that there are not enough hours in the day to get things done, so if 24 aren’t enough, imagine having 21! I filmed Stolte explaining his work:

Tension, time management, and the constant flow of information… this last theme and how it makes us feel is present in works by Marnix de Nijs, Julius Popp, and Tamy Ben-Tor. Ben-Tor’s contribution is a video of herself dressed up in a silly wig, reciting a litany of spam email that is both familiar and annoying. De Nijs gets you to sit down in a futuristic chair and spin around trying to synchronize movement with views of an anonymous city panorama. As the catalogue says, “the images simulate the speed of the world which we live in and which forces man to increase his own speed for the sake of progress.” If you get it right, you don’t get dizzy; I clearly didn’t succeed. Seldom does successful art make one feel so nauseated.

Popp’s installation, on the other hand, hypnotized me with the relaxing sound of falling water, which one realizes is exactly anti-zen. Tiny drops of water compose words that exist for seconds before falling into the basin below for recycling. These words are drawn from a real-time connection to Google News; they are that moment’s most relevant keywords. This piece is never the same from one moment to the next. (You can hear the rhythm and see what I mean in the second half of this video.)

The theme of acceleration is by all means a key one in this decade and probably will continue to be so in years to come. Personally I am not willing to live in an alternate reality (be it a false 8 hour week or by withdrawing to a hermitage); in fact, I like technology a lot. Exhibits like this one help keep things in check by asking us to think about our lifestyle. Consciousness is the first step towards any solution.

Here are photos from the exhibit that I took for Tuscany Arts, the blog I write for the Region about art in Tuscany.

ASAP at Strozzina is on in Florence through July 18^th 2010. Go!

In 2010, Fiesole celebrates the centenary of Frank Lloyd Wright’s stay in Fiesole and the influence of his organic architecture on the Florentine School.

The first exhibition on the calendar, curated by architects Roberta Bencini and Paolo Bulletti, will open on Thursday, June 17 (until the end of August). The exhibition aims to examine some of the works designed after 1910, to present drawings and documents, some of which will be displayed in Italy for the first time, and to analyze the influence that Wright’s stay in Fiesole had on his architecture.

The exhibition will gather, among others, drawings that Wright did during his stay in Fiesole for a house that was never built (on loan from the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation of Scottsdale (Arizona) and the University of Utah Library.)

While in Italy, Wright was a guest at Villino Belvedere in Via Verdi (now Montececeri). The plaimetric configuration of this house inspired the design and creation of the famed Taliesin in Wisconsin (see photo): the architecture adapts to the lie of the land and vice versa.

The exhibit will be hosted in the rooms of the Archaeological Museum in Fiesole, and there will be a catalogue dedicated to the project that Wright developed during his stay in Fiesole and the reflections of this experience on his subsequent work, curated by Paolo Bulletti.

Another exhibition dedicated to the architect is planned for the second half of the year, and is to focus on works created or designed on the hill of Fiesole by some of the greatest exponents of the so-called “Florentine school” of architecture from the post-war era influenced by Wright’s work, including: Rolando Pagnini, Leonardo Ricci, Leonardo Savioli, Franco Bonaiuti and Giovanni Michelucci. All architects who rejected the fascination of organic architecture following a sensibility linked to their cultural and architectural education and the specificity of the places. The aim is to enhance the modern and contemporary artistic and cultural heritage of the territory of Fiesole.

Something tells me that this exhibit will focus on the architecture rather than the artist’s personal life with his lover Mamah Cheney, but should you be so inclined you ought to read the really trashy novel “Loving Frank”, which I found to be sometimes frustrating thanks to the spineless women it portrays, but delightful nonetheless.

INFORMATION:

Location: Archaeological Museum, Fiesole

Sala Costantini, Via Portigiani, 9 – Fiesole
June 17 – August 30
Opening hours 10:00 – 19:00 daily
Entrance fee: 5 euros (reduced: 3 euros)

General Information

Call center 055055
www.comune.fiesole.fi.it
055-5961293 – infomusei@comune.fiesole.fi.it
www.fiesolemusei.it

This weekend there are a ton of nature-related events going on in Tuscany

Here’s what I have gathered for you:

Florence – Treasure Hunt at the Orto Botanico (Botanical Gardens): A GREEN treasure hunt in the garden for adults and children. Max 20 participants, call + 39 055 2346760 or surf www.musesplorando.it. Cost is 2.50 euros plus entry to the garden (3/6E).

Florence – Secret Gardens special tours: Saturday May 23d organized by the comune di Firenze, reservation required. Get into rich people’s private gardens downtown – you’d never know they were there, and they are pretty amazing. I heard about this event thanks Anna at the European School of Economics who rents space at the Palazzo Roselli del Turco, with a fabulous garden across the street (see photo) that also hosts an art gallery “Aria” in its limonaia (the garden structure used to house lemon trees in the winter). For more informatation and how to reserve, see intoscana.it.

Florence (province)/ Pontassieve – ANPIL led trail walks to see the historic butter making facilities in the woods (“Cammino delle Antiche Burraie”). This looks reallycool and I had no idea that these existed. For the “Giornata Europea dei Parchi” (see also below, Arezzo) the walk is organized by ANPIL and it’s free. There are two routes marked by the red and white symbol and the path name “SB” (this is usually a number). The path is a ring that leaves from Santa Brigida and takes either 3 or 4 hours depending on the path you choose. I doubt that my husband will spring for an 8:30 am departure this week but I hope to do this path on our own some time (and not get lost), because I’m interested in these stone structures that were used for the preparation of butter until the early 19th century. The path also includes a visit to the Sanctuary of Madonna delle Grazie al Sasso, established as a hermitage around the year 800. My information comes from a pamphlet picked up at a restaurant on the Faentina. It’s organized by ANPIL and the UISP.

Arezzo (province) – Festa dei Parchi: “Tutte le aree protette della provincia di Arezzo festeggiano la Giornata Europea dei Parchi con un evento che si svolgerà nella Riserva Naturale Valle dell’Inferno e Bandella. Sono previste passeggiate, visite in barca, divertenti laboratori, spettacoli ed animazioni teatrali e musicali, che offriranno a grandi e piccoli occasioni piacevoli per vivere la natura.” Download the pdf flyer for complete information and how to reserve.

Giornata Europea dei Parchi in Tuscany – some more listings on this blog.

And if it rains (again)? Fabbrica Europa is on at Stazione Leopolda until May 25th with a strange line up of music and performing arts.

We were given an incredible opportunity, and we are going to make the best of it. I have never been out of the country, and the idea of traveling to Europe and learning about a different culture, history and society was unthinkable until a few months ago.

Arttrav has always been happy to recommend Context’s high-level walking tours in Italy; I know personally many of the scholar-docents. Context also sponsored last summer’s arttrav Italy travel writing contest; the winner got a walking seminar in the city of her choice.

The two student winners of this year’s travel scholarship will go to Rome, Florence, and Paris with a chaperone. During their time in Europe they will be on a busy schedule of two walking seminars per day, learning about history, art, architecture and society. As part of the project, students will participate in a one-day writing workshop with travel writer Susan Van Allen and also be enrolled in a 12 week Matador U Travel Writing Program. Each student will be expected to keep a blog journal during the trip and prepare a final project, relevant to the trip, that will be presented to the school in August 2010.

The purpose of the scholarship is to give high-achieving high school students from economically challenged inner city neighborhoods the opportunity to travel abroad and work with professors from universities. Kaneisha and Kathleen were selected by a panel of judges comprised of teachers and advisors from Sac High and Context Travel. In preparation for the trip they have been following workshops, taking extra classes on art, history, and mythology, and honing their writing skills.

I think this is a great gift not only to the students involved but to their entire community and to the wider world. Context is giving Kathleen and Kaneisha the chance to see the world and tell their peers about it both in writing and in person after the trip. Travel writing is a way to digest one’s experience and may lead to an interesting career in this field, or “simply” teach the students clear communication skills that can be applied in any job. I really hope that they’ll post great photos (especially in Florence!) and have an unforgettable experience that will set their lives on a better path.

Walls have always been an unregulated area for communication, visible to all, on which people have written (in florence, sadly, perhaps too much). Now with internet, there are virtual walls that one has to have access to. Walls allow one to express anonymous, sometimes transgressive thoughts.

Walls can also be barriers that divide us, that divide cultures, races, create discrimination… There are more subtle walls of indifference and negativity. On the other hand there are security walls, walls within which we live happily, solidly.

Which walls are which? Students from the high school Cellini-Tornabuoni present a photography exhibit organized as a reflection on the fall of the Berlin wall at its 20th anniversary. These young people have thought through all these things and contributed this small exhibit as a reflection on walls in general. Without perfection, and with different photographic media, from the reflex to the snapshot camera to the cell phone, images sought with emotion.

Location:

Chiesa di S. Carlo ai Barnabiti
Via S. Agostino, 19 – FIRENZE
Ore 16:30 > 19:30

View Larger Map

The future of traveling is technological, and it’s here in Tuscany

The application is made in Italy by the super cool company H-art. And did I mention – it’s FREE (on the app store of course). Not just for the first two weeks, either.

As a member of Tuscany’s social media team and employee of H-art, I have privileged access to this information (and have had the app on my phone for a while) but could only let it out now! Trust me it was hard to keep the secret, being the geek that I am. The application is similar to Around Me but has the added advantage of drawing from existing sources of information about monuments (from churches to palazzi). This information comes from wikipedia as well as from the editorial staff of turismo.intoscana, so it’s pretty complete. This means that you no longer have to buy a guidebook that has detailed information about every little thing. It also helps with those moments when you end up somewhere and wonder “what is that building?” or “I swear I have seen that before!”.

The information about restaurants and hotels includes reviews taken from social media, so it’s constantly changing and up to date. This information comes from Google Local so you can of course add your own reviews. The app is also social because you can share anything immediately on facebook, as well as create your own local favourites list.

A minor critique: Of course, no app is perfect – this one is only as good as the iphone’s compass and satellite positioning, so sometimes you have to spin around a bit before you get the right information – a building might be indicated about 60 degrees to one direction or the other. In map mode this works better.

Many of the hand gestures you’ll see if you flip through the book are international signs for simple things like “no” or “wait a moment”. So you might think “well I know all of these”. Reading the introduction, though, I learned that the book has a different historic value alongside the sociological or humorous one.

Back in 1832, Andrea de Jorio published 380 pages of text and 19 pages of hand-drawn line illustrations that intended to catalogue the Neapolitans’ use of hand gestures established by the Ancients (i.e. the Romans). Through the study of Roman texts and vases, he intended to show a direct lineage from the Romans to the Neapolitans, so what we have here is not a dictionary for foreigners (despite its claim) but pure propaganda!

The 60s edition by Munari is furnished with black and white photographs and dry explanations in four languages. This book makes a great gift or souvenir and can be purchased for 12 euros online from Corraini or at any of the bookstores listed as their distributors. Corraini prints unusual art books including charming illustrated childrens’ books.

Here are a couple of photos of pages from the book.

1) Pronto Treno: Trenitalia’s iphone app is the best way to access train timetables while on the fly. During the #ashcloud crisis it also proved to be the only way to buy tickets (and it works on all smartphones). It’s free. Internet connection required.

2) WorldNomads.com Italian-English translator. Italians LOVE it when you try to order your pizza or simply say thank you (grazie) in their language. When they switch to English immediately it’s not because of your awful accent but because most of them also like practising their English. This app is tried and true (it’s been out since 2006) but it’s free and reasonably reliable. It does not require internet connection.

3) Uffizi Gallery iphone app. Free until May 3d 2010. If you want more information on the paintings you see in the museum, but you don’t want to buy the inane audioguide, this is the app for you. It starts with a map, you click the room you’re in and then it gives you a list of the major works with a photo; click this for more textual information. Not all works are described in detail though there is a basic list. This is based on the database developed by Parallelo for the Uffizi website and it is not a very good app because it’s not in any way interactive or innovative, but at least you don’t have to wade through a heavy guidebook or carry geeky audioguide to get some basic information. And best of all, no internet connection required.

Don’t forget: MAPS is a super useful application when traveling – I couldn’t have found my way to all the conference locations in Venice without it. The compass in the 3G means not only did it find where I was, but it told me in what direction I was pointing. This has come in handy many times since.

Finally, remember… Arttrav uses a wordpress plugin that makes it compatible with all smart phones, so you can use it on the fly without waiting ages for everything to load.

The social media team editors - I'm the one in the white sweatshirt

Ok folks, I’m coming out of the closet. It’s no secret that I work for the social media team of Tuscany, and I’ve been meaning to write about my job here on arttrav ever since I signed on last November, but frankly, I’ve been too busy. Hence also the slowing down of posts… now that I blog professionally, there’s less time to blog in my… spare time.

As I explain in my latest article for The Florentine – Virtual Tuscany: Confessions of an official blogger – the experience writing arttrav and sharing it on social media, as well as my background in art history of course, is what landed me this great new job.

I have a job that any Italy-loving expat would envy. I work for the Tuscan region’s social media team. I attend art events and exhibits, write about art in Tuscany, and promote it on a blog and via social media. In our office, Facebook is not blocked, but mandatory. We don’t have phones; we use Skype. And we tweet during work hours, preferably as frequently as possible.  Although our role in Tuscany’s new tourism campaign is fairly well known in the communications industry thanks to our participation in half a dozen lectures and conferences in the past few months, the general public has not heard much about it yet. So The Florentine asked me to give you the inside scoop on the campaign and on what we do.

Read the whole article on TF.

For more information about the social media team and the voglio vivere cosi campaign, take a look at this presentation by Mirko Lalli:

How could Venice’s superintendant of Culture, not to mention the Soprintendenza dei Beni Artistici, let this blatant advertising be displayed around the famous bridge? A similar attempt to place an advertisement for Esselunga’s collection of Sambonet forks on the Ponte Vecchio in Florence last year was met by harsh criticism by Giuliano da Empoli and lasted less than a week before it was taken down amidst protests, though not before Esselunga agreed to continue sponsoring the restoration without the visible advertising. When Gucci paid to restore the facade of Santo Spirito in Florence a few years ago, the scaffolding reproduced the building’s distinctive shape and simply said “Gucci”, rather than being plastered with a photo of a purse. We know that restoration costs a pretty penny but really, Venice, you might have come to a a more discreet agreement with the sponsor; for example, the image of the sky and the lighting could be carried through the space, the wording “Bulgari” could be evident, and only on the grand canal facade might there be an image of the models and product.

Public opinion on the matter seems in line with mine (how could it not be) although I’m surprised that a google blog search really only turned up one critique by blogger Paolo Steffan. I’m curious to know how long the ad has been up and how long it is going to be there. If anyone has any more information for me or would simply like to vent on this topic, please comment below!

The exhibition has a twofold itinerary organised according to theme and collectors, set up in six wooden cases. These are all illustrated printed books, which makes the exhibit special because when you’re actually researching, it can be quite hard to find which edition is illustrated. There are religious texts including a magnificent one printed on vellum (the material usually used for manuscripts, not print) and a miniature hours of Mary. A number of illustrated Aesops Fables are a lot of fun; one hand coloured, another open to a story of a woman making love to a donkey (the donkey worries about not injuring her with his deep claws). Another display is of illustrated travel books, including one aptly of Venice.

Here is a photo gallery of the books. A catalogue will soon be published.

Source: metmuseum.org. Bronzino, Head of a Curly-Haired Child, ca. 1527. Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden

A guest post from my Mom, lucky duck went to New York!

This exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum in New York City closes April 18, 2010

A few weeks ago we visited Manhattan. Actually we stayed in New Jersey but went into town every day through the Lincoln Tunnel. My daughter told me about the Bronzino drawing exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum (organized in collaboration with the Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi and the Polo Museale Fiorentino, Florence), and we devoted a fair bit of time to what was really a very interesting exhibit, even for someone who knows very little about the artist, or about the late Mannerist movement his drawings inspired.

The audio guide was very informative and a beautiful catalogue of the exhibit was also produced for those who wish to explore the subject in more depth than is possible during a few hours at an exhibition.

The exhibit is arranged chronologically in three distinct parts with Bronzino’s early drawings (1515-1540) being presented first. Here the viewer learns that Bronzino apprenticed with Jacopo Pontormo and many of his early drawings are virtually indistinguishable from those of his master. In fact, attribution between Bronzino and Pontormo is a tricky question in this period. Both Pontormo and Bronzino approached drawing in the same manner – as preparatory to finished works like frescoes or tapestries – so these drawings were never meant to stand alone and the fact that so many have survived is astonishing.

The second section, and I think the most interesting, shows Bronzino’s drawings during his most famous period, as court artist for Cosimo I de Medici and Eleonora di Toledo (1540-1553). All of the known preliminary drawings for the frescoes on the walls and ceilings of Eleonora di Toledo’s chapel in the Palazzo Vecchio, as well as those for the altarpiece, are on display. Some are fleeting studies with various attributes of life models drawn on both sides of the same drawing paper; others are presentation pieces and, as such, very complete and more reflective of Bronzino’s paintings.

photo: metmuseum.org. Bronzino, Joseph with Jacob and His Brothers, ca. 1546–48. Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Something I found fascinating were Bronzino’s preparatory and demonstration drawings for a tapestry series, The Story of Joseph, commissioned for the Sala dei Duecento at the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence. They were produced by the Medici Tapestry manufactury and woven by Flemish weavers. The final cartoons for these tapestries are no longer extant so these drawings are the only clue to the instructions from which the weavers worked. The drawings are meticulous and detailed and the play of light and shadow is well delineated. The surviving tapestries are not all assembled in one collection so it is particularly interesting to see these eight drawings and modelli together and to muse upon the Joseph story’s meaning for Cosimo I during this particular time.

The last grouping is of Bronzino’s late works (1553-1572).  Here you do not see drawings for  huge commissions like those of his time as a favoured court artist.  The wall panels indicate that two reasons for this were Cosimo’s preference for Vasari, who returned to Florence in 1554, and  Eleonora’s death in 1562.  My favourite drawing in this section was one of the demonstration drawings  produced for the temporary festival decorations celebrating the marriage of Francesco de’Medici to Joanna of Austria in 1565 – the Virtues and Blessings of Matrimony Expelling the Vices and Ills. The drawing, reminiscent of many of Michelangelo’s studies, is very detailed and shows many meticulously drawn figures in a variety of interconnected poses. The exhibit also displays three preliminary studies for Bronzino’s late fresco at S. Lorenzo, The Martyrdom of St. Lawrence (1565).

The last  exhibit room displays the famous Bronzino painting Portrait of a Young Man (1530’s), from the Metropolitan Museum’s own collection.  The wall panels show the underdrawing and changes made to this painting that were discovered through infrared reflectography and x-ray-radiography, engendering a fascinating discussion of what such technologies can add to an appreciation and understanding of art.

A related exhibition of Bronzino paintings is due to open at the Palazzo Strozzi in Florence in September and I hope to be able to see this in a new light, having had the chance to see many of the preparatory drawings. [editor’s note: The exhibit in Florence is NOT the same one as the New York one but a complement to it.  Bronzino: Pittore e poeta alla corte dei Medici is open September 24 2010 until January 23, 2011.]

Trips are planned for April 11 and 18, May 9, 15, and 21 2010 and organized by Aida Studio. To reserve, this is the phone number: 0573 97461. The itineraries are listed below (sadly I couldn’t find a press release in English). These are all places and activities you’d never find on your own! I’d encourage tourists to join these tours even if you don’t speak Italian.

MONSUMMANO TERME – PESCIA: DOMENICA 18 APRILE

Ore 10.00 Ritrovo alla Stazione ferroviaria di Pistoia e partenza in autobus per:

MONSUMMANO TERME

Ore 10.30 Mac,n – Museo di arte contemporanea e del Novecento – Villa Renatico Martini

Caffè di benvenuto

Sprazzi: colori, musica e parole

Itinerario performativo e musicale in villa e visita alla mostra di Leonardo Savioli

In collaborazione con Laboratorio Afrodita e Cooperativa Giodò

Pièces brèves

Marco Salvatori, oboe

Stefano Vicentini, fagotto

Musiche di Georg Friedrich Händel, Antonio Vivaldi, Joseph Fiala, Heitor Villa – Lobos

Ore 12.30 Pranzo – Agriturismo Poggio degli Olivi, Monsummano Terme

(prenotazione obbligatoria entro giovedì 15 aprile. Il servizio è garantito per un numero minimo di 20 persone. Spazio all’aperto per pranzi “al sacco” nel parco della villa)

PESCIA

Ore 15.00 Collodi, Parco di Pinocchio.

Visita alle opere di Venturino Venturi, Emilio Greco, Giovanni Michelucci, Pietro Porcinai, Pietro Consagra e Marco Zanuso

Ore 16.30 Visita alla Gipsoteca Libero Andreotti

Ore 17.30

Un soffio di Novecento

Quintetto a fiati del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino

Musiche di Nino Rota, Giorgio Federico Ghedini, Jacques Ibèrt, Gianfrancesco Malipiero, Ferenc Farkas

Massimo 50 persone. Prenotazione obbligatoria al numero 0573 97461. La partecipazione è gratuita e comprende il trasferimento in pulman, l’ingresso ai musei, le guide e i concerti.

PISTOIA CITTA’: DOMENICA 9 MAGGIO

Ore 10.00 Ritrovo a Pistoia in Piazza Garibaldi

Percorso a piedi

Visita guidata alle opere del centro storico: Giro del Sole di Roberto Barni, la Luna nel Pozzo di Gianni Ruffi, Il Miracolo di Marino Marini

Ore 11.00 Museo Marino Marini, Cavaliere a Cavallo

Colazione con accompagnamento musicale a cura della Banda Borgognoni di Pistoia e visita guidata al museo

Ore 13.00 Pranzo – Caffetteria Marino Marini ( prenotazione obbligatoria entro giovedì 6 maggio. Il servizio è garantito per un numero minimo di 30 persone)

Ore 15.00 Padiglione di Emodialisi dell’Ospedale del Ceppo (via Degli Armeni)

Scienza e arte al servizio dell’uomo

Visita guidata alle opere di Daniel Buren, Dani Karavan, Sol LeWitt, Robert Morris, Hidetoshi Nagasawa, Claudio Parmiggiani e Gianni Ruffi

Ore 16.00 Palazzo Fabroni (via Santa 5) secondo piano

Un museo per riflettere sull’arte contemporanea

Visita guidata alla collezione permanente

Ore 17.00 Palazzo Fabroni, salone del primo piano

Attraverso la forma

Lorenzo Fuoco, violino I

Andrea Tavani, violino II

Pierpaolo Ricci, viola

Elida Pali, violoncello

Musiche di Ludwig van Beethoven e Claude Debussy

Massimo 25 persone. Prenotazione obbligatoria al numero 0573 97461. La partecipazione è gratuita.

PISTOIA-SANTOMATO: SABATO 15 MAGGIO

Ore 14.00 Ritrovo alla Stazione ferroviaria di Pistoia e partenza in autobus

Visita alla collezione privata della Fattoria di Celle a Santomato – Pistoia

(La visita ha una durata di 4 ore. Rientro previsto alle ore 19.00)

Massimo 50 persone. Prenotazione obbligatoria al numero 0573 97461. La partecipazione è gratuita

PISTOIA-FELCETI: SABATO 22 MAGGIO

Ore 15.00 Ritrovo alla Stazione ferroviaria di Pistoia e partenza in autobus

Ore 15.20

Villa Stonorov, Fondazione Pistoiese Jorio Vivarelli, Felceti (Pistoia)

Il teatro del ricordo

Pièce dedicata allo scultore Jorio Vivarelli realizzata da Massimo Biagi Miradario, con interventi musicali a cura della Scuola Comunale di Musica Teatro e Danza “Teodulo Mabellini” di Pistoia

Proiezione del video Jorio Vivarelli scultore: la materia della vita a cura di Veronica Ferretti

Massimo 50 persone. Prenotazione obbligatoria al numero 0573 97461. La partecipazione è gratuita

From Wikipedia

Terra del Sole was a town constructed in 1564 for Cosimo I de’ Medici by Baldassarre Lanci of Urbino, in what is now the Province of Forlì-Cesena, northern Italy. It was one of the first fortified cities to be constructed entirely from new on a planned grid system. Meaning Town of the Sun it was conceived to be the ideal town of the Renaissance period.

From the invitation (in italiano)

Emozioni a Terra del Sole di Adriana Rumbolo e Alessandro Laslo

Lettura recitata a cura dell’attrice Giulia Cavallini; Intermezzi musicali eseguiti dal vivo dal fisarmonicista Daniel Stratznig

Un singolare viaggio fra teatro, musica e scienza, nelle emozioni di una bambina che diventa donna. Un contatto sincero e coinvolgente con la realtà e l’atmosfera che ha accompagnato l’autrice del libro durante la sua adolescenza trascorsa nella piccola città – fortezza di Terra del Sole.

Introduce Leonardo Bieber, Presidente della Commissione Cultura del Comune di Firenze

Conclusioni Adriana Rumbolo: La co-autrice del libro evidenzierà i mo-menti della sua adolescenza, trascorsa a Terra del Sole, accostandoli alla sua esperienza di psicopedagogista, nelle scuole pubbliche fiorentine, ispirata alle ultime scoperte sull’importanza dell’emotività nell’apprendimento, nella creatività e nelle relazioni interpersonali.

April 17 2010 is international Slow Art day. In cities around the world, all at the same time, people will be individually looking at art slowly, then meeting as a group to talk about it over food and drink. This is a casual approach, not a lecture. But you’ll learn something. And you’ll be taking part in a worldwide movement.

Is your city participating? check the list of cities.

In Florence, I am hosting Slow Art day at the Church of Santa Croce at 4pm on Saturday April 17, followed by a buffet aperitivo at Brac, a contemporary art bookstore and vegetarian cafe. If you want to read more about slow art before signing up, here’s my article about it on TuscanyArts. If you’re already convinced, sign up on Eventbrite.

If you can’t make it on the 17th, do something slow art this week. In Florence that’d be easy – stop in any piazza (like the contest winners who wrote about piazza ssma Annunziata and Piazza della Signoria did) and contemplate the space, its architecture, the flow of people, the public art. If you live somewhere in the States or anywhere with less obvious art and history, find a park with public art! You don’t need to go to a museum to experience art; there are sculptures at street crossings, graffiti art in underpasses, a myriad of opportunities.

Yours truly contributed a short observation in the section called “horrosopes” that offers suggestions and observations on the arts to the city and its administrators. The magazine is in Italian, and part of it can be read online on the FFF website. Below, part of the press release.

Firenze, 16 febbraio 2010 – Le riflessioni dell’astrofisica Margherita Hack, la Firenze dei romanzi di Marco Vichi, cosa vorrebbero le famiglie per la città e il proprio quartiere, i disegni di Gianluca Costantini, maestro del fumetto di realtà. Sono alcuni dei contenuti del nuovo numero di FFF, il semestrale dedicato alle idee e alle visioni di Firenze. Una rivista nata con l’intento di dar voce a quella categoria di visionari che con impegno creativo e grazie al proprio lavoro hanno contribuito a delineare un futuro possibile per la città. Partendo dalla loro testimonianza, dalle proposte e dall’analisi del loro operare, FFF offre una visione globale delle risorse progettuali e delle forme di produzione creativa presenti a Firenze. Con la speranza di favorire una presa di coscienza più consapevole, capace di stimolare iniziative, interventi e azioni volte a migliorare le condizioni di vita della città. Una città meno arroccata, che guarda al futuro e che dunque si mette in gioco.

Dall’introduzione: “Il sangue è quello delle idee, delle risorse progettuali e degli sforzi visionari che si disperdono nella città di Firenze -scrive Marco Brizzi. Quanti progettisti ne hanno speso, con scarso o nullo risultato, nella volontà di tenere viva la città alla quale hanno sovente dedicato il loro più grande impegno? Quanti artisti ne hanno prodotto, come conseguenza di un rapporto intimo con i suoi ambienti e con la sua storia?

“Sangue! Strano, dovrebbe star dentro”, dice Fielding Mellish, controllando una ferita, in Bananas di Woody Allen. Per quanto sia fisiologico che non tutti i progetti, nemmeno i migliori, trovino un tessuto da irrorare e spazio per realizzarsi, è probabile segno di una patologia il loro sistematico sperpero. E a Firenze, dal sangue versato dai progetti, alle idee morte sopite, a quelle uccise per soffocamento, ce ne sarebbe per un museo criminale da aggiungersi ai vari “musei” della tortura e dell’orrore che proliferano nelle sue strade.”

Curata dal grafico Gianni Sinni e dall’architetto Marco Brizzi, FFF è anche uno spazio aperto online per tutti coloro che vogliono lasciare impressioni e suggerimenti ed essere sempre aggiornati sulle iniziative e gli eventi promossi da FFF.