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Casa Guidi, poet Elizabeth Barrett´s home in Florence
Art & Culture

Casa Guidi, poet Elizabeth Barrett´s home in Florence

1 diciembre, 2023 / By:
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Visiting a house-museum always embraces a closer emotional approach to the artist who lived there than just simply observe the works displayed in the neutral and dehumanized rooms of a museum. Casa Guidi was the Florentine residence of poets Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning for the most part of their married life. Located in the heart of Florence, the apartment has elegant main chambers with an 18th century decoration style and essentially maintains the same furniture that in the Brownings´ age. They resided here for fourteen years, between 1847 and 1861, and these interiors served as inspiration for some of their greatest poems, like Casa Guidi Windows (Elizabeth Barrett, 1851), inspired by her struggle for freedom.…

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CLET: the street artist behind the ‘customized’ traffic signs in Florence
Art & Culture

CLET: the street artist behind the ‘customized’ traffic signs in Florence

30 noviembre, 2023 / By:
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Street art does not survive in Florence as much as in Berlin. However, it has its representation with Clet Abraham (1966, Brittany). He has lived in Florence since 2005 and has today a shop and atelier in the neighbourhood of San Niccolò. His actions in the urban furniture, consisting of customizing traffic signs with stickers, bring nothing but joy to all visitors. CLET converts traffic signals into works of art without altering their function. He was first accused of abusive invasion of the public space in May 2017. The attractive French artist has been convicted by an Italian court to pay a fine of EUR10,400 for one of his works (L’Uomo comune) on the bridge alle Grazie.
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Museo Nazionale del Bargello: mecca of Renaissance sculptural art
Art & Culture

Museo Nazionale del Bargello: mecca of Renaissance sculptural art

29 noviembre, 2023 / By:
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Florence is not only beautiful on the outside; to rival its wonderful landscape and streets it also offers endless interior attractions. Since 1865, the Bargello National Museum has exhibited the most important collection of Renaissance sculpture in the world. The Medici gave the building in the sixteenth century to the bargello or head of the police, so he could use it as a prison. In fact, it was in its cortile, one of the most outstanding in the whole country, where executions took place. The site currently hosts works of Giambologna, Donatello, Benvenuto Cellini, Lorenzo Ghiberti, Brunelleschi and Michelangelo.
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The house of Piero Bargellini, a key figure during ‘l’alluvione di Firenze 1966’
Art & Culture

The house of Piero Bargellini, a key figure during ‘l’alluvione di Firenze 1966’

2 noviembre, 2023 / By:
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The Arno River severely overflowed on November 4, 1966, provoking what is commonly known as ‘l’alluvione di Firenze.’ The city of Florence and part of Tuscany were inundated by the floods, causing an impact affecting the economic and cultural environment of Florence. Fortunately, as November 4 was a bank holiday, many businesses were closed, and a large part of the population was at home, thus avoiding an even bigger disaster. Nevertheless, 101 people died, 5,000 families lost their homes, and 6,000 businesses had to close. The deluge also destroyed and/or damaged countless works of art, prominent buildings and books. The damages could be repaired thanks to the efforts of Italian citizens, international committees and foreign donors. Piero Bargellini (1897-1980), writer, historian, politician and intellectual, was the mayor of Florence in that awkward moment.
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The synagogue of Florence, example of Jewish architecture for worship
Art & Culture

The synagogue of Florence, example of Jewish architecture for worship

10 marzo, 2023 / By:
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Considered one of the best examples of Jewish architecture for worship, the Florentine synagogue, located in the heart of nineteenth-century Florence, is not only a building in which to profess one’s faith, but also a social and cultural centre. The temple was designed by the Piedmontese architect Marco Treves and opened in 1882. Today is still a place of prayer, but also of meeting and memory. The synagogue also houses the Jewish Museum of the Community of Florence, where great importance is given to the remembrance of the Holocaust and to the persecutions and sacrifices of the Florentine Jewish community. This building descends stylistically from the architectural eclecticism of the 19th century. The Moorish style predominates in conjunction with some Romanesque winks, typical of the Florentine tradition. The external decorative elements, as well as all in the interior, use coloured Venetian tiles to shape geometric ornaments.
Synagogue of Florence -Via Luigi Carlo Farini 4
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Uncommon museums of Florence #2: Stefano Bardini Museum
Art & Culture

Uncommon museums of Florence #2: Stefano Bardini Museum

31 diciembre, 2022 / By:
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Stefano Bardini (1854-1922) was a prominent Italian antiquary who decided to transform his collection into a museum and donate it to the city of Florence. The building, a magnificent palace eclectic in style, where the museum has its headquarters, was acquired and restored by Bardini in 1881, in order to be used for his antiquarian trade activity. The antiquary modified the structure adding new gates and stairs, used medieval and Renaissance stones, chimneys, in addition, he affixed painted coffered ceilings. Bardini transformed the old building — the former church and convent of San Gregorio della Pace — into a wonderful neo-Renaissance villa, where, besides the exhibition halls, there were workshops so that the pieces were restored before selling them.
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Uncommon Museums of Florence #1: Museum of Masonic Symbology
Art & Culture

Uncommon Museums of Florence #1: Museum of Masonic Symbology

28 diciembre, 2022 / By:
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Opened in March 2012, the Museum of Masonic Symbology was founded by Cristiano Franceschini in Florence as a private initiative with the aim to transmit to the brothers the evolution of different Masonic traditions over time. According to Franceschini, the museum is mostly visited by Brazilians, since there is a large number of Freemasons in that country. Moreover, for the broader secular public, the museum wants to make known the Masonic ideology, philosophy and ethics through the representation of symbols, on which these rituals are based. The collection on display includes ritual objects with etched, embroidered, applied, printed or engraved symbols. The first Italian masonic lodge, known as “The Lodge of the English-people” was created 1731 in Florence. The collection presented here comprehends more than ten thousand objects dated from the end of the eighteenth century and coming from around the world: dresses, aprons, belts, bottles, porcelain, pins, ties, stamps, photos, documents, books, glass slides or magic lanterns are part of the lot.
Museo di Simbologia Massonica – Via dell’Orto 7
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Uncommon museums of Florence #3: Museo di Casa Martelli
Art & Culture

Uncommon museums of Florence #3: Museo di Casa Martelli

27 diciembre, 2022 / By:
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There is always an interesting spot to discover in Florence that keeps us away from the common repertoire, this is the case for the so-called Martelli’s House Museum. The Museo di Casa Martelli was a residential palace inhabited since the beginning of the 16th century by the bankers family Martelli. In 1986, Francesca Martelli, last family member living there, left the house to the Curia of Florence. In 1998, the Curia sold the palace to the Italian State and it became a museum in 2009. From that point on, the palace is a state civic museum that displays the remains of the Martelli family valuable art collection, as well as the house frescoes.…

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Tomás Saraceno presents ‘Aria’ at Palazzo Strozzi
Art & Culture

Tomás Saraceno presents ‘Aria’ at Palazzo Strozzi

13 noviembre, 2020 / By:
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A visionary artist whose multidisciplinary practice encompasses art, social and life sciences, Tomás Saraceno creates immersive works and participatory experiences that suggest a new way of living in our world by forging connections with such non-human phenomena as spiders, dust particles and plants, which become players in his work and metaphors of the universe. …

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Palazzo Medici-Riccardi presents Picasso portrayed by Edward Quinn
Art & Culture

Palazzo Medici-Riccardi presents Picasso portrayed by Edward Quinn

4 febrero, 2020 / By:
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Until March 1, the exhibition ‘Picasso. The other half of the sky. Photographs by Edward Quinn’ at Palazzo Medici-Riccardi in Florence proposes an approach to discover the Spanish artist and his relationship with the female world through the photos of one of the most notable photographers of the twentieth century: Edward Quinn. The show is the result of the unusual friendship that linked Picasso with Edward Quinn. Quinn became one of the few photographers who were allowed to photograph him at work, and he was embraced in his private life too. Consisting of eighty photos, the exhibition shows the intimate and private Picasso.…

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