Search Results for:gardens

Gardens of Florence #9: giardino di Boboli, the paradigm of a 16th century Italian garden
Outdoors

Gardens of Florence #9: giardino di Boboli, the paradigm of a 16th century Italian garden

26 marzo, 2023 / By:
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The Boboli Gardens date back to 1418 when Luca Pitti bought its land in Oltrarno intending to build the magnificent Pitti Palace, later owned by the Medici family. The Medici commissioned the landscaping to Niccolò Tribolo, the famous architect responsible for the gardens of their villas of Castello and La Petraia. However, after the premature death of Tribolo, it was Bartolomeo Ammannati who finished the job. The Boboli is the paradigm of the 16th-century Italian garden, as well as one of the most significant historical parks in Florence. Around the principal axes are placed avenues, hedges, terraces full of statues and fountains. The first operas of history were also represented in its open-air amphitheatre.
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Gardens of Florence #10: giardini Villa Fabbricotti and Baden Powell, between decadence and bucolic solitude
Outdoors

Gardens of Florence #10: giardini Villa Fabbricotti and Baden Powell, between decadence and bucolic solitude

21 marzo, 2023 / By:
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In this less-traveled park, not especially projected to attract tourists, on a Saturday noon you will find a couple of people lying on the benches sunbathing, reading, drinking beer or walking dogs. The fact that it looks semi-abandoned gives it an attractive decadent appearance. Formerly the Fabbricotti villa and the park belonged to the Strozzi family.…

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Gardens of Florence #3: giardino Bardini, splendour in the grass
Outdoors

Gardens of Florence #3: giardino Bardini, splendour in the grass

18 marzo, 2023 / By:
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Florence reaches its climax in early April as wisteria flowers blossom at Giardino Bardini. This historic garden, built with fountains and statues in English and Baroque style, is placed on a steep hill of Oltrarno. Its open green space was made public after restoration in 2007. Best to explore it is — possibly with someone loved — at eight in the morning, when just gardeners are around. Further wonders include the Belvedere, Giardino Boboli or the hike up to Costa San Giorgio and Porta San Giorgio, before pleasantly walking down to Porta San Niccolò along the trace of the old city wall.
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Gardens of Florence #14: Giardino Villa La Pietra
Outdoors

Gardens of Florence #14: Giardino Villa La Pietra

15 marzo, 2023 / By:
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Villa La Pietra is currently the headquarters of New York University (NYU) in Italy. Its garden is by far my favourite private garden in Florence and it is one of the most renowned in Italy. Built by the Acton Family between 1908 and the beginning of the Second World War, its design is very much inspired by the real Renaissance gardens of Florence, though it also contains elements of the many gardening trends and styles popular since then.…

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Il Giardino dei Tarocchi, Tuscany’s esoteric garden
Within Tuscany

Il Giardino dei Tarocchi, Tuscany’s esoteric garden

5 mayo, 2023 / By:
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Il Giardino dei Tarocchi, a picturesque park located in Garavicchio, pays homage to the esoteric world of tarot. Placed near Pescia Fiorentina (Capalbio, Tuscany), the Tarot Garden was created by the Franco-American artist Niki de Saint Phalle (1930-2002). It is composed of statues of intense and vivid colours inspired by the tarot major arcana figures. Although kitsch and naive in appearance, these enormous and explosive sculptures, in fact, combine art, architecture, and crafts. Besides that, they unveil a oneiric and spiritual aura.…

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Uncommon Museums of Florence #4: Stibbert Museum
Art & Culture

Uncommon Museums of Florence #4: Stibbert Museum

30 diciembre, 2022 / By:
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Frederick Stibbert was born in Florence in 1838. He was an eccentric antique collector, of most weapons and armours. If he had lived today, any doctor would have diagnosed him Diogenes syndrome. In spite of this, being of good lineage, albeit not being aristocratic, Stibbert prepared some rooms of his house to keep his collection, which would be ended up transforming the house in a real museum. After his death, the collection and the site were donated to the city of Florence, as Maria de’ Medici shortly did before the dynasty became extinct.…

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Martina Castagnoli´s Florence
Moments & People

Martina Castagnoli´s Florence

18 agosto, 2021 / By:
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Se mi chiedi qual’è la mia città, infondo penso che forse è la cristallizzazione della mia idea di Firenze e non so neanche se davvero esiste più, ma vi ci porto lo stesso … Magari riuscirete anche voi a vedere un po’ di quell’incanto con cui la guardo io. La mia città, quando la vedi dall’alto, riesci a cingerla tutta in un abbraccio e i tetti rossi le conferiscono quell’aria rassicurante come lo sono certi oggetti del passato, che ti riportano alla tua infanzia, che quasi ti sembra di sentirne l’odore di naftalina che avevano i cassetti delle nonne.…

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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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‘The Botany of Leonardo,’ exhibition at Santa Maria Novella Museum
Art & Culture

‘The Botany of Leonardo,’ exhibition at Santa Maria Novella Museum

21 octubre, 2019 / By:
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On view until December 15 at Santa Maria Novella Museum, the exhibition ‘The Botany of Leonardo. A vision of science bridging Art and Nature’ outlines the philosophical and technological context of the time in which Leonardo da Vinci lived in order to explore his study of form and the processes of the Plant world in greater depth. Through his eyes as a “systemic” thinker, the connections between art, science and nature, as well as the relationships between different spheres of knowledge, are revealed.  The botany of Leonardo thus becomes a privileged perspective that opens up a modern discourse on scientific evolution and ecological sustainability.…

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Medici villas #4: Villa Medici Roma
Medici Traces

Medici villas #4: Villa Medici Roma

24 julio, 2019 / By:
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The Villa Medici in Rome, together with its garden, it is one of the most majestic of the Medicean villas. Located next to Villa Borghese Park, it was acquired by Ferdinand I de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, in 1576. Since 1803 the building hosts the French Academy in Rome. It was precisely Ferdinand I de’ Medici who commissioned Bartolomeo Ammannati to complete the structure. It is the first property of the Florentine family in Rome, with which they reaffirmed their permanent presence in the city.…

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