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Northern Italy
Artists of the Pustertal
The Pustertal (in Italian, Val Pusteria) is a valley in the mountainous South Tyrol region of Northern Italy, the region on the border of Italy and Austria and known in Italian as Alto Adige. Until the end of the First World War, this was territory that belonged to the Empire…
The Blessed Josef Mayr-Nusser: Anti Nazi hero
The life of Josef Mayr-Nusser (1910-1945) is a chapter in the complicated story of South Tyrol. Born in Bolzano Bozen, he was an active German speaking Catholic, contributor to the subversive young Catholic newssheet Tiroler Jugendwacht (subversive because the Italian government banned use of the German word Jugendwacht – literally…
Venice attempts to stem the tide
(and some news from Rome and Florence) by Alta Macadam The long-discussed entrance restrictions to Venice are finally to become operational on 25th April. The system is designed to limit the numbers of day-trippers, who come to the city for just a few hours (often as part of a tour…
Most rare in marble portraits
The above title is a quote from Giorgio Vasari. They are the words he used, in his famous Lives of the Artists, to describe Alessandro Vittoria (1525–1608), a man who became one of the greatest Italian sculptors of his age. Vittoria was born in Trento, a city in the far…
Venice in Peril
The UK-based Venice in Peril Fund is one of several international charities devoted to safeguarding the future of this unique city. Guy Elliott, Chairman of Venice in Peril, outlines some of its recent projects. The Venice in Peril Fund was founded in 1971, succeeding an earlier fund instituted in 1966…
The Venetian Republic in times of plague
The Venetian Republic had to take steps to contain infection in the city as early as the 15th century. Their dependence on trade, bringing merchant ships from the East, meant that they were particularly vulnerable to the spread of disease (just as we are told today that globalisation has favoured…
Lorenzo Lotto: Portraits
“Lorenzo Lotto. Portraits” is the title of an exhibition currently running at the National Gallery in London. It has come from the Prado in Madrid, in slightly slimmed-down form. Not all of the works on show in the Prado can be seen in London (the catalogue is teasingly tantalising in…
Titian in Brescia
Tiziano e la pittura del cinquecento tra Venezia e Brescia is an exhibition curently running (until 1 July) in the Museo di Santa Giulia in the Lombard town of Brescia. The centrepiece is Titian’s Averoldi polyptych—although it is in fact only present in a dramatic video show as the curators…
Raphael in Bergamo
There are two exhibitions in the two neighbouring Lombard towns of Bergamo and Brescia in northern Italy which are drawing crowds of visitors, especially from Italy itself. Bergamo has chosen Raphael since the town’s art gallery, the Accademia Carrara, owns one of his early masterpieces (St Sebastian), just restored. Brescia…
Dürer in Milan
A major exhibition is in progress (until 24 June) in the Palazzo Reale in Milan: Dürer and the Renaissance (between Germany and Italy). One wonders if the title was chosen rather to entice visitors than to explain the true content of the show: ‘Dürer’ without ‘the Renaissance’ may have been…
Pictures from Lake Maggiore
Blue Guide Lombardy, Milan and the Italian Lakes is timetabled to appear at the end of this year. Here are some images from a recent research trip to Lake Maggiore. The castle of Angera looms tall over the southern end of the lake. In the possession of the Borromeo family…
Christmas with the Gonzaga
A wonderful time to visit Mantua and Sabbioneta is the week before Christmas. Empty of tourists and Italian school trips it is likely you will be the sole visitor to Mantegna’s famous Camera dei Sposi in Mantua’s Palazzo Ducale and, indeed, the only foreigner in this very beautiful town. The…
A people who changed history
The exhibition currently running in Pavia near Milan (Longobardi. Un popolo che cambia la storia) has been given a good amount of publicity in Italy since it is the first time artefacts produced in the period when the Lombards dominated the Italian peninsula have been collected together from many different…
Roman Brixia
Brescia is well known for its wealth of Roman remains due to the unique urban development of the town after the demise of the Roman Empire. The original nucleus of the settlement at the foot of the Cidneo hill became crown property under the Lombards in the 8th century and…
Sabbioneta, Cryptic City
We came to Sabbioneta the small Renaissance city brought to its final form by Vespasiano Gonzaga in 1590, in the spring of 2015 to check it as a possible stop on a tour. Despite its World Heritage status, Sabbioneta is still little visited; we were almost alone as we explored…
Giovanni Battista Moroni
At the Royal Academy, London until 25th January. For anyone who loves Lombardy, Giovanni Battista Moroni (1520/4–1579/80) will be a familiar name. He is one of the finest portraitists of 16th-century Italy. This small and beautifully curated show at the Royal Academy attempts to demonstrate that he can stand with…
Artwork of the Month: November. Reason, Unreason and the Turin Shroud
“Throw reason to the dogs! It stinks of corruption.” While browsing the Guardian website the other day, I came upon this injunction in an article by Jason Burke, who had seen it scrawled on a wall in Kabul in the 1990s. It was only a matter of minutes after reading…
Artwork of the month: September. Watercolour of the Great War
The town of Gorizia stands on the Slovenian border in an expansion of the Isonzo valley, hemmed in by hills. It is a peaceful little town with public gardens and buildings in the Austrian style. After the fall of the independent counts of Gorizia in the 15th century, the city…
Rissëu
Rissëu is the local name given in Liguria to a peculiarly Genoese form of decorative cobblestone paving. The style was enormously fashionable in the 17th and 18th centuries; it is thought that it may have been inspired by Graeco-Roman mosaics which the maritime republic’s sailors encountered on their Mediterranean voyages.…
