December 2012

  • The real Patrick Leigh Fermor?

    The real Patrick Leigh Fermor?

    Walking seems to be back in fashion. Pilgrim routes, secret pathways, ancient trackways: it is as if we are rediscovering the traditional pace of life. One catalyst for the interest has been Patrick Leigh Fermor’s celebrated walk across Europe, from the Hook of Holland to Istanbul, in 1934, when he…

  • The joy of Giambattista Tiepolo

    The joy of Giambattista Tiepolo

    by Charles Freeman At the end of a recent tour of Friuli in October, I asked members of my group what they had enjoyed most, High on the list were the Tiepolos in the Patriarchal Palace in Udine. Commissioned in the 1720s by the Patriarch of Aquileia, Dionisio Dolfin, member…

  • Leonardo’s “Battle of Anghiari”

    Leonardo’s “Battle of Anghiari”

    by Alta Macadam A study in oil for Leonardo da Vinci’s famous lost mural of the Battle of Anghiari, which he began in the first years of the 16th century for a wall in Florence’s Palazzo Vecchio, opposite a scene of another victorious battle commissioned from Michelangelo (but never executed),…

  • In praise of Venice’s water transport system

    by Alta Macadam After spending many weeks in Venice preparing the text for a new edition of Blue Guide Venice (out next year), I feel moved to sing the praises of the remarkable transport system run by ACTV in the city and the lagoon. Despite the huge number of passengers involved,…

  • The Red Rooms at the Uffizi

    The Red Rooms at the Uffizi

    A swift tour of the Uffizi’s newly-opened Red Rooms by Alta Macadam, author of Blue Guide Florence. The Sale Rosse are a suite of nine rooms (nos 56–66) on the piano nobileof the Uffizi, opened in June this year. They are marked on this plan on the Uffizi website (which also takes…

  • The Blue Rooms at the Uffizi

    The Blue Rooms at the Uffizi

    Alta Macadam, author of Blue Guide Florence, pays a visit to the newly-opened Blue Rooms at the Uffizi. Florence’s Galleria degli Uffizi has been undergoing renovation and expansion since the State Archives left the building in 1989, releasing a vast new exhibition space on the piano nobile. When the ‘Grandi Uffizi’…

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