Month: July 2014

  • Sacred Splendours: reliquaries of Florence’s pious grand duchesses

    Sacred Splendours: reliquaries of Florence’s pious grand duchesses

    The former summer apartments of Palazzo Pitti are playing host(until 2nd November) to an exhibition of many of the treasures which used to be in the Chapel of the Reliquaries, on the palaceโ€™s first floor. Founded by Maria Magdalena of Austria (wife of Cosimo II) and numbering some 1,000 pieces,…

  • Book Review. Helena Attlee: The Land where Lemons Grow

    Book Review. Helena Attlee: The Land where Lemons Grow

    We were off with my group from Florence to Prato, where in the cathedral there is the Chapel of the Girdle of the Virgin Maryโ€”not any old girdle, but the actual one that she dropped down to Thomas as she was being assumed into heaven. It is exposed on its…

  • Artwork of the Month: July. The Phaistos Disc

    Artwork of the Month: July. The Phaistos Disc

    On 3rd July 1908, the Italian archaeologist Luigi Pernier, working in the so-called โ€˜House 101โ€™, northeast of the palace of Phaistos, found an object with symbols on both sides, next to a Linear A tablet. The object became known as the Phaistos Discโ€”and it remains as intriguing and mysterious now,…

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