Michelangelo Buonarotti is most associated with Rome because of his masterpieces in the Sistine Chapel. But his work is all over the capital and it is well worth the effort to seek it out.
Here’s a business opportunity for book lovers with an itch to live and work in one of the most beautiful cities in Italy.
The Atlas of Ancient Rome, a gorgeous, new two-volume set edited by Andrea Carandini, promises to be an “authoritative archeological survey of Rome from prehistory to the early medieval period.” The slip-cased set is available now.
The 1997 winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature passed away on October 13, 2016.
Much of what we know today about anatomy was first discovered and documented in Renaissance Italy.
Have you seen this book? Many years ago, I found this book while browsing the clearance stacks at a used bookstore in Washington, DC. Published in 1990, Gli Alberi Monumentali d’Italia is a beautiful coffee table book full of color photos of legendary trees from Italy’s islands and central/southern regions. Roman pines, Holm oaks, olive,…
What you need to know about smoking in Italy, from laws to etiquette.
Excerpts from the Art Issue of the New York Review of Books. Reviews on Veronese, Piero della Francesca, and Futurism. There’s also a Michelangelo poem.
In the late winter/early spring of 1948, American playwright Tennessee Williams arrived in Rome in need of a change of scenery. Williams, of course, is known for his writing set in the American South, including “A Streetcar Named Desire” (written in 1947) and “Cat On A Hot Tin Roof” (1955), both of which earned him Pulitzer…
On Tuesday, the Museo Archeologico di Morgantina, a small archeological museum in Aidone (Enna), Sicily, held an inauguration for the repatriation of an ancient sculpture of Aphrodite.
Why do I write about Italy? As I sit here, trying to dream up a good answer to my first assignment as part of the Italy Blogging Roundtable, a project I have entered into with Jessica of Italylogue, Alexandra of ArtTrav, Rebecca of Brigolante, and Gloria of At Home in Tuscany, I am returning from…
If you know me, you’ll know that I am nuts about religious relics. And if you know David Farley’s book “An Irreverent Curiosity,” you’ll know immediately why that first line is a wee bit funny. I recently had the opportunity to sit down with Farley in Manhattan to discuss his book, which has the tag…
Five great reasons how renting a villa in Italy can work with your travel lifestyle and budget.
New Moon, the second book in the Twilight series, has some scenes set in the Tuscan town of Volterra. Learn more about Volterra, including its vampire tour.
The Monster of Florence is a true crime tale about a serial killer who terrorized the Tuscan hills around Florence for almost 20 years.
Last November, the New York Review of Books released Carlo Collodi’s The Adventures of Pinocchio under its NYRB Classics imprint. The tale, as reviewed by Tim Parks in the latest issue, is much darker than the Disneyfied version. After the jump is Parks’ full review. As always, I urge you to subscribe to NYRB; they…
Master Baroque artist Caravaggio used a “camera obscura” among other techniques to trace the models in his paintings. According to a Florentine researcher, Caravaggio made use of a dark room, first described by Leonardo da Vinci, and was able to fix the outline of his subjects in order to paint them. It’s unclear whether the…
Farewell to Christopher Hibbert, whose biographies of Rome and the Medici family established him as one of the foremost authorities on Italy’s history.