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Cloisters of Florence: the great scape
Art & Culture

Cloisters of Florence: the great scape

2 diciembre, 2023 / By:
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Florence does not stand as a vulgar Renaissance theme park, but rather as an infinite source of beauty and art, an open-air museum in which emotions grow by every minute. As I walk through the cloisters of Santa Maria Novella, San Lorenzo, San Marcos, Santa Croce or Santo Spirito, peace and solitude seem very tangible to me. However, what most hypnotizes me is rather more radical. In these religious courtyards, with their gallery portrayed on all four sides, it is easy to feel as if you had left this world, not minding at all how to return, while you are busy imagining your next sins and who will be part of them.…

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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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Tabernacles: religious street art in Florence
Outdoors

Tabernacles: religious street art in Florence

25 octubre, 2023 / By:
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There is no doubt that the tabernacles are a key element of the oldest streets of Florence. More than a religious character, it seems to me that they have quite an exquisite kitsch appearance. The city currently houses around 1200 tabernacles, of different styles and periods — some are true masterpieces. Catholics fought against heresy not only with preaching, but also by placing sacred images on the streets, houses, shops and public buildings which endure today. In Oltrarno there is still a large number of these particular street sanctuaries, available for a worldly prayer at any time of the day or night. The ancient Romans were already devotees of this form of religious architecture, for they built small temples in the streets with sacred images that protected both the house and the travelers.
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Il Liberty fiorentino: the Florentine art nouveau
Outdoors

Il Liberty fiorentino: the Florentine art nouveau

23 octubre, 2023 / By:
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Florence is not only synonymous with the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Its streets hide other equally valuable treasures that no one expects to find, as samples of the Liberty style, the Florentine art nouveau of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It is quite a decorative style in wrought iron, with floral and animal motifs, linear and curved forms. The Liberty patterns found opposition, hostility and criticism in Florence, as it was believed that these buildings broke the architectural uniformity of the city.
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Studio Musivo Lastrucci: masters of the Florentine mosaic, the art of «painting with stones»
Fashion & Shops & Markets

Studio Musivo Lastrucci: masters of the Florentine mosaic, the art of «painting with stones»

28 septiembre, 2023 / By:
PHOTOS & SPANISH VERSION BELOW

The artistic discipline named “commesso” or Florentine mosaic made with semiprecious stones emerged in Florence in the 16th century. As could be expected, the Medici family was a great promoter of this new artistic manifestation. Using the traditional technique of the Romanesque mosaic, the “commesso” added interspersed gemstones with highly aesthetic results, very similar to those of a real painting. Each mosaic is handmade in the laboratory following the traditional method, which allows to maintain the authenticity of the technique and enhance the natural colour of each stone. To complete a surface equivalent to a DIN A3 size, three or four years of craft work are needed. …

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The magical world of Gucci Garden in Florence
Fashion & Shops & Markets

The magical world of Gucci Garden in Florence

27 septiembre, 2023 / By:
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After thorough renovation, Gucci has reopened its Florence museum located in Palazzo della Mercanzia. Its three floors and different rooms have been converted into a multi-space where you can eat, shop and join the Gucci constellation. Past and present merge within a fusion of animals, plants and flowers appearing as cheerful as the intense patterns of Gucci´s traditional garments. …

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Castello Ginori di Querceto, celebrating nature and life in the Tuscan countryside
Within Tuscany

Castello Ginori di Querceto, celebrating nature and life in the Tuscan countryside

26 septiembre, 2023 / By:
PHOTOS & SPANISH VERSION BELOW

Crickets, cicadas, tafani, pheasants, wind, rain, silence … The sounds of nature. But also the colours of sunrise and sunset, the hue of the grapes, the forest-trees, and the countryside … The flavours of wine and a splendid menu at Locanda del Sole restaurant … The aroma of the wetland after the rain … The texture of the olive tree logs and the stone walls covered with ivy. And the compassion of the sun. The days pass by peacefully between swimming pool moments alone and 20 kilometres hiking treks … between wines from the Ginori Lisci winery. The time has stood still. We are in the Ginori Castle of Querceto, enjoying with the five senses. This place is an antidote to stress (the poison of the first world), and it makes us forget about the exhausting urban life, of which we are – sometimes – slaves without redemption.…

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Florence literary walk
Outdoors

Florence literary walk

25 septiembre, 2023 / By:
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Searching for the ideal of beauty in all its artistic manifestations or for an oasis to feel safe from hostility, artists, writers, architects, filmmakers, designers, historians and intellectuals, in general, had historically made of Florence their home. In just one hour, it is possible to discover all the places where some of the most outstanding writers of recent times lived.…

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Florence – To love a city
Moments & People

Florence – To love a city

2 agosto, 2023 / By:
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I feel often the captivating force of Florence acting as a magnetic power. And yet, what we know about places comes mainly by sharing certain time and space in them. Florence is there, the person appears, but the person leaves. Florence continues. The place transforms the human and the person alters the place. Thus, José Saramago once wrote: «I do not remember having ever read about the reasons that lead us to love one city more than any other (…). I believe that the love for a city is made of tiny things, of intangible reasons, perhaps a street, a fountain, or even a shadow. In the interior of the city of us all, the small city where each of us really lives. We physically inhabit a space, but above all, sentimentally, we inhabit a memory.»…

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Being an expat in Florence
Moments & People

Being an expat in Florence

1 agosto, 2023 / By:
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Meeting a foreign resident in Florence makes me wonder: “What brought him here?” (love, work, despair, art heritage, studies, food, wine, people, indecision), what moved him to stay here, what do I have in common with this person (at first and apparently quite a lot, and sometimes, in reality, nothing). However, what differentiates us, I sure know. It is usually, with natural exceptions, the routine. My discontinuous / intermittent stays in Florence let me enjoy the city with a renewed intensity each time. Such joy, I am afraid, might become ruined when choosing a permanent residence.
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