Expat Life

Life in Florence as an import. It’s not all pizza and mandolino but it’s not bad.

Florence

A renaissance art historian’s guide to Florence through its history, monuments, and people.

Fuori Porta

“Fuori Porta” literally means outside the city gates. Anywhere outside Florence!

Rome

An art historian’s approach to the monuments of the eternal city.

Tuscany

Art, sea, mountains, islands, shopping, hiking, culture… Tuscany has it all.

History of the Palazzo Vecchio (funny video)

This video was made by a Syracuse University Florence student, Remi Evans. It was her final project for a course called Masterpieces of Renaissance Art, a favourite of students for many years, taught by the legendary Prof. Rab Hatfield. I was teaching assistant for this course back in 2000 and 2004!

The video is amusing yet accurate, and it’s fun for me to see how this student has perfectly translated the history of the Palazzo Vecchio’s construction as Prof. Hatfield teaches it. The content of that lecture, with my own spin on it, ended up in one of the first posts on arttrav (around November 2005) and a podcast too. Read, or listen to, the history of late medieval Florence and the Palazzo Vecchio here!