This Advent we’ve chosen twelve different depictions of the Nativity, which we have discovered in the course of Blue Guides research trips around Italy—plus one final one from our latest title in preparation. 1. The ox and the ass and the baby in the manger from an early Christian sarcophagus…
An exhibition at Palazzo Pitti (Leopoldo de’ Medici, Principe dei Collezionisti, on until 28th January) displays a selection of the exquisite objects from the famous collection of Cardinal Leopoldo de’ Medici, youngest son of Grand Duke Cosimo II and Maria Magdalena of Austria. Perhaps the most surprising thing about this…
This year Florence has celebrated the 30th anniversary of the Merchant Ivory film closely based on E.M. Forster’s famous novel, first published in 1908. This autumn a restored version was shown in the presence of James Ivory, members of the cast, and those who worked on its production. An excellent…
Florence is determined to keep its place as a centre of fashion (despite fierce competition from Milan). Of the famous “Pitti” fashion shows, which are held throughout the year, the most prestigious remains “Pitti Uomo”, which takes place for a week in June. This year Eike Schmidt, director of the…
The current exhibition (on until 20th August) of drawings by Giuliano da Sangallo and his circle at the Gabinetto dei Disegni e delle Stampe (the Prints and Drawings Collection) on the first floor of the Uffizi provides an interesting and peaceful interlude if you are planning to visit Florence in…
One of the Uffizi’s masterpieces, the unfinished Adoration of the Magi by Leonardo da Vinci, has been absent from the gallery since 2011 undergoing a meticulous but complicated restoration in Florence’s famous state restoration laboratory. It has just been returned and is currently on view in a special exhibition on…
Covers the full range of what this extraordinary city, cradle of the Renaissance, has to offer. View the book’s contents, index and some sample pages, and buy securely from blueguides.com here »
Talking to a friend a few weeks ago, he mentioned that he was about to go back to the Uffizi with a grandchild and would be showing him just five paintings there. A method of ensuring not only his full attention but also his appreciation. I can only imagine what…
There is a very interesting small exhibition (on until 12 March) at the Galleria dell’Accademia in Florence dedicated to the little-known painter Giovanni dal Ponte (or Giovanni di Marco di Giovanni, 1385–1437/8). It is introduced with a stunning triptych by him of the Coronation of the Virgin (illustrated above), which…
Although Michelangelo’s David is today considered the most important single art object to be seen in Florence (or possibly one of three, along with Botticelli’s Spring and Birth of Venus in the Uffizi), it was largely ignored by visitors up until around 1860, soon after which it was brought inside…
Who was Matilda of Canossa? Last year, the Casa Buonarroti in Florence housed an exhibition dedicated to her, a woman who might seem to have little to do with the great sculptor who once owned the house that is now a museum to his memory. But the connection becomes clear…
The long-awaited new museum of the Ospedale degli Innocenti in Piazza Santissima Annunziata in Florence finally opened last month. Its most famous works of art, the enamelled terracotta medallions which Andrea della Robbia added in 1487 to Brunelleschi’s portico in the piazza, are currently exhibited at eye level since their…
A delightful small exhibition at Palazzo Pitti in Florence (until 11th September) of genre paintings and portraits from the mid-16th century to the early 18th illustrates the protagonists of the comic, sometimes bizarre side of court life in Florence in those years, which was otherwise locked away from public view.…
Almost the first house you come to on the peaceful Lungarno Soderini (which skirts the Arno as it flows downstream away from the centre of Florence) is the Museo Bellini, in a charming small building designed at the turn of the last century by the eccentric architect Gino Coppedè for…
For anyone in Florence, there are only a few more days left to catch this important exhibition at the Galleria dell’Accademia (closes 9th November) dedicated to art inspired by Italy’s most famous saint. Unfortunately it has limited space and the crowds of visitors who come to the Accademia just to…
At the Bargello museum in Florence a small and delightful exhibition in the two rooms off the medieval courtyard is running until 21st June. Il medioevo in viaggio is the result of collaboration between four European museums (the Bargello, the Musée du Moyen Âge in Paris, the Museu Episcopal of…
“Power and Pathos. Bronze Sculpture of the Hellenistic World” is the penultimate exhibition to be held under the mandate of James Bradburne, Director General of the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi. Bradburne has succeeded in turning the palazzo into Florence’s most important exhibition space. And no more fitting show could have taken…
by Alta Macadam (author of Blue Guide Florence) The wide streets around San Lorenzo, the great Medici church close to their family palace, which in effect form a piazza, have recently been cleared of market stalls so that the exterior of the building has regained its dignity. Inside visitors have…
There are no fewer than seven UNESCO World Heritage sites in Tuscany alone—more than in some entire countries. This has perhaps tended to diminish the importance of the achievement last year of a group of experts, led by Prof. Luigi Zangheri, to have twelve Medici villas and two gardens in…
The Popularity of the Primitives, an exhibition which runs at the Galleria dell’Accademia in Florence until 8 December, is concerned with the fascinating subject of when 14th- and early 15th-century Italian paintings (and other early art treasures) came to be considered worthy of notice and were, as a consequence, incorporated…
