Leonardo da VinciSalvator Mundi An inscrutable smile, a curious pose and mesmerizing eyes are all reminiscent of the Mona Lisa. Over the course of centuries missing da Vinci's have been coveted and searched for. No less true for the Salvator Mundi, Leonardo's "Savior of the World." The story of the painting's journey crosses [...]
Michelangelo. It is a name that conjures images of paint strained eyes, of angry popes and of marble dust. MichelangeloBacchus, 1496-1497 The Bacchus, an unusual and controversial work, was created by Michelangelo between 1496 and 1497, when the young artist was twenty years old. The commission came from a rather unexpected source, that [...]
Michelangelo's David towers over the history of Renaissance art in Florence. His expression of beauty, idealized and immortalized in stone, has drawn millions of visitors from around the world. Yet, there are other Davids, equally fascinating and artistically important, across the city of Florence. Four remain in the city and two have been placed in [...]
Il Torchio - OltrarnoVia dei Bardi When you cross the Ponte Vecchio, and leave the cacophony of central Florence behind, you enter a world apart. This is the Oltrarno, the south side of the city and its creative center. Small workshops line narrow lanes. Borgo San Jacopo, a shady narrow medieval street, leads [...]
Bottecelli Annunciation My first encounter with Botticelli's breathtaking Annunciation at the Uffizi Gallery was many years ago. Crowds strangled any reasonable view of either the Primavera or the Birth of Venus, so I turned my attention to works along the 'side walls' of Gallery 10. What a marvel. Translucent wings curve along the [...]
Palazzo Davanzati Florence I have walked past this imposing Renaissance palazzo for many years, paying little heed to what, at the time, I thought was just another historic building in Florence. Talk about being wrong! The Palazzo Davanzati is now a gorgeous, living museum. Rooms, frescoes and furniture from the Renaissance have all [...]
Introductory Note: Among the lanes and avenues of ancient Rome were apartment buildings known as insule (insulae, plural). Within these structures were small upstairs rooms that were used for meals. The Italian word for the dinner meal, cena, comes from the Latin word for those upper rooms: cenaculum. The Italian word for the Last Supper, [...]
Firenze at Sunset From the high piazza above the city, where a bronze copy of Michelangelo's David keeps a constant vigil over the cradle of the Renaissance, the city seems to contain few green spaces, where visitors and residents can escape the narrow, crowded and ancient streets. Look more closely and you will [...]
NaveSanta Maria Novella (1360) Most visitors to the Basilica of Santa Maria Novella, overcome by the sheer scale and beauty of the church, often miss one of the most important treasured works of early Renaissance art in Florence. In this photo, if you look to the left of the pulpit and the column [...]
Piazza San Marco Florence The present day Church and Monastery of San Marco in Florence was built on the foundation of a 12th Century Valambrosian Monastery. It was in 1435 that the Dominicans from the Convent of San Domenico, located in the hills above Florence in the town of Fiesole, assumed responsibility for [...]
