Many readers have asked "How do I keep up with new articles on your Travels Across Italy blog?" It is VERY easy. When you are reading any of the articles, on the right side of the screen you will see a space where you can enter your email address. Enter your email address in that [...]
Tourists hurry through the corridors of the Pitti Palace museums every day. Often, in their rush to see the Palatine Galleries, the Museum of Costume and others, they miss one of the true treasures of Florence - the Silver Museum. The assumption, incorrectly made, is that the museum houses only silver. Such is not the [...]
The palazzo blends in to the myriad pattern of such buildings in Rome. As you ride out of the Termini station in a bus or taxi, you would hardly notice it. However, you are missing a trove of ancient artifacts, frescoes and bronze; the only other close competitor to the collections is the Archaeological Museum [...]
Marina Calamai Logo On a recent visit to Florence, I had a the good fortune to meet and spend some time with Marina Calamai, an artist in the truest sense of the Renaissance artist. She is a creator, a dreamer, someone who places follows her inspiration in numerous directions, always creating art in as many [...]
How do you influence, control or even manage a Grand Duke of Tuscany? Very carefully. Pierfrancesco Riccio (or da Riccio) was selected as the private secretary to Grand Duke Cosimo I of Tuscany. In the course of his tenure, one of the most important roles was the recommendation of, and support for, works of art [...]
His father was a tailor and, as was custom in many cases during the Renaissance, he took his father's labor as his name: Andrea del Sarto - Andrea of the tailor. Enormous talent built a phenomenal career for a man who died at the young age of 43, a victim of the plague. He was [...]
When I led my first small group tour seventeen years ago, we offered only one itinerary: an exploration of Venice and Tuscany. Our group stayed in a lovely villa nestled in the hills near the Tuscan city of Impruneta, just south of Florence. The villa proved a wonderful location for that tour, enhanced by the [...]