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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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Mimosa blosson on the International Women’s Day in Italy: la Festa della Donna
Art & Culture

Mimosa blosson on the International Women’s Day in Italy: la Festa della Donna

7 marzo, 2023 / By:
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The 8th of March is the International Women’s Day or, as it’s more commonly called in Italy, la Festa della Donna, where the importance of women is celebrated by the giving and receiving of mimosa blossom.
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Museo Nazionale del Bargello: mecca of Renaissance sculptural art
Art & Culture

Museo Nazionale del Bargello: mecca of Renaissance sculptural art

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

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

17 enero, 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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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 #4: Stibbert Museum
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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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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
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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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7 best and most distinguished libraries in Florence
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7 best and most distinguished libraries in Florence

19 noviembre, 2022 / By:
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Following the steps of German photographer Candida Höfer, who exceptionally portrayed the soul of libraries in solitude, same images in Florence reveal the splendour of the Marucelliana Library, born in the middle of the XVIII century after donation by the abbot Francesco Marucelli; the Biblioteca dell’Accademia della Crusca, placed within the Medici villa of Castello, as the largest library of linguistics and history of the Italian language; the Medicea Laurenziana Library designed by Michelangelo (holds its infamous Mannerist staircase) in the cloister of the basilica of San Lorenzo; the National Library of Florence, which also offers a free guided tour in Italian and English on Saturdays at 11:30 a.m.; the Biblioteca Riccardiana, stablished in 1600 and managed today by the Accademia della Crusca, it has also been described as «a unique example of what a patrician library in an aristocratic place (at Palazzo Medici-Riccardi) looked like;» the Biblioteca Moreniana (at Palazzo Medici-Riccardi as well), founded in the 18th century and composed of the collections of Domenico Moreni, and specialized in material on the history of Florence and Tuscany; and the modern library in the Novoli campus of the University of Florence (UniFi).…

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Uffizi Square of Florence: the sculptures of the Great Tuscans
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Uffizi Square of Florence: the sculptures of the Great Tuscans

15 noviembre, 2022 / By:
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The particular design of the Galleria degli Uffizi shapes sort of a square, around which the lodge runs. In the 28 niches that border it, Cosimo I de’ Medici wanted to place sculptures of distinguished Florentines in the field of literature, the military and the government. However, it was not until the nineteenth century, when the Grand Duchy of Tuscany was under the rule of the Lorraines, that the publisher Vincenzo Batelli finally resumed the creation of these statues.

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