Florence News May 2019 by FN

Florence News MAY 2019, N 0 30

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EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Lorenzo Picchi EDITORS: Kerre Lattanzio, Lauren Critelli, Julia Dowd GR APHIC & L AYOUT DESIGN: Narine Nalbandyan, Ekaterina Chebotareva CONTRIBUTORS: Christine De Melo, Catarina Brambilla, Chloe Kucera, Tana Foley, Lee Foust, Thomas Ricciotti REGISTERED AT THE TRIBUNAL OF FLORENCE N. 6008, ON 9/12/2015. PUBLISHER: FMS PRINT: ITS, Cavaglià (BI)

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THOMAS RICCIOTTI

n Florentine culture, May has always meant happiness, regeneration and, according to a tradition called Calendimaggio, the period of trysts. Popular songs were dedicated to this magic moment of flowering and rebirth, accompanied by colored flowers and garlands in people’s dress. However, the history of Florentine May flowers also has a particular, less joyful meaning. In fact, the most important festivity of this month in Florence is the anniversary of a sad memory: the public execution of a Dominican friar, Savonarola, which took place on May 23, 1498. From his Church, San Marco, Savonarola had tried to change the Florentines' minds, and preached to improve the morality of their customs. But he drove out the Medici and accused Pope Borgia of favoring corruption within the Church, and thus the powerful people he demonized had him hanged and burned. The festivity that remembers Savonarola is meant to transform pain into resurrection. Every year on May 23 at 10:00 a.m., a celebration in his memory begins in the Piazza della Signoria. A procession accompanies city authorities from the Piazza to the Ponte Vecchio, where flowers are thrown by Florentines and tourists alike into the Arno, as Savon-

arola's faithfuls did with his ashes. Known as La Fiorita (literally, “the flowered”), this commemoration is the demonstration of an unforgotten affection for a friar whose ashes are taken, year after year, towards a faraway ocean. Another notable significance of May in Florence is the death of Leonardo da Vinci. Leonardo was 67 when, on May 2, 1519, he died in Clos Lucé, Amboise, France. May is also the month of the inauguration of the Santa Croce facade. After remaining unfinished for nearly three centuries, the facade of Santa Croce was officially inaugurated on May 3, 1863. It was consecrated in 1443 but not completed until 1865, on the occasion the 600th anniversary of Dante’s birth. Spearheaded by architect Niccolò Matas, it was built in the neo-gothic style, typical of Florentine architecture, in white, yellow, green, red and black marble. May also marks the birth of Bartolomeo Cristofori, inventor of the piano, who was born on May 4, 1655. Appointed in 1688 to the Florentine court of Grand Prince Ferdinando de' Medici, Cristofori was a sophisticated innovator in the development of musical instruments and solved many technical complexities. Only three of his pianos have survived: one can be found at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, one at the Museum of Musical Instruments in Rome, and one at the Mu-

In his later years, Botticelli became a follower of Savonarola and cast several of his works in the ‘Bonfire of the Vanities.’ seum of Musical Instruments at Leipzig University in Germany. On a May day also came the unveiling of the Dante Alighieri monument in Piazza Santa Croce. Created by Enrico Pazzi, the marble sculpture was inaugurated on May 14, 1865 after being unveiled by the first King of Italy, Vittorio Emanu-

ele II. Another anniversary of this month is that of the death of Sandro Botticelli which occurred on May 17, 1510. The youngest of five children, Botticelli was in his early year apprentice to Fra Filippo Lippi. Upon establishing himself professionally, Botticelli’s work was in high demand from the Medici family, who are often thought to be the subject of his art pieces. In 1481, he was invited to Rome to contribute in the painting of the Sistine Chapel. In his later years, Botticelli became a follower of Savonarola and cast several of his works in the ‘Bonfire of the Vanities.’ When he died he was 65. In the most recent Florentine history, May marks the tragedy of the bomb exploded by the Mafia on May 27, 1993. The explosion destroyed the Georgofili Library and damaged an estimated 25 percent of the Uffizi Gallery’s artworks and part of the Vasari Corridor. Five people died, including Caterina, the daughter of the guardian of the library, who was born just 50 days beforehand. The Mafia was attacking the government that less than one year before had passed effective laws against organized crime, including a comprehensive witness protection program and a harsh prison regime for mafiosi. The two laws had the combined effect of favoring the unprecedented phenomenon of Mafia witnesses, thus breaking the omertà, the Mafia's code of silence. This month's flowers are, above all, in the memory of the city's martyrs: Savonarola and the five victims of the Mafia.

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Leonardo and Florence

Exhibit on display at Palazzo Vecchio

n May 2, 1519, five hundred years ago, Leonardo died in the French castle of Clos-Lucé. Until that very last day of his life, the Tuscan genius never quit to feel the deepest attachment to his home city of Florence. For his entire life, he kept on calling himself a ‘Florentine painter’; right before his death, he expressed the wish to be buried inside the ‘church of Saint-Florentin of Amboise.’ He wrote one of his last writings on June 24, 1518, the day of Florence’s patron saint, which was dedicated to the menagerie of lions behind

the Palazzo Vecchio. It is in the name of this never-ending connection between the city and the artist that the exhibition Leonardo da Vinci and Florence: Selected Pages from the Codex Atlanticus has been produced. The exhibit, on display until June 24, showcases 12 of Leonardo’s handwritten folios courtesy donated for the occasion by the Milanese Biblioteca Ambrosiana, where the Codex Atlanticus is stored. The codex, composed of 1119 folios, writings and drawings produced from the 1470’s to 1519, was

published for the first time in 1884 and was recently restored in 2008. The twelve selected pages are the only ones of the codex that allude to Florence. The first folio recites ‘Sandro, you don’t say why such second-level things appear shorter than [those in] the third [level]’. With all probability, this was a criticism of the approach to the use of perspective in painting adopted by his friend, and rival, Sandro Botticelli, with whom Leonardo had shared his artistic formation in Andrea del Verrocchio’s workshop. Another one of the folios on display is a drawing that shows that Leonardo had seen up close the gold-plated copper ball that his master, Verrocchio, had placed on the lantern of the dome in 1471. In Milan, Leonardo never lost contact with Florentine merchants, bankers and travellers, and acted as a liaison between the court of Ludovico Sforza and Florence, fulfilling a variety of tasks. Another of the displayed folios testifies in fact that he was asked to procure a text on the government of Florence, probably written by Girolamo Savonarola, the Dominican preacher who established an ephemeral theocracy following the expulsion of the Medici before being excommunicated and burnt at the stake in 1498. Leonardo certainly met with him when he was consulted on the construction of the Salone dei Cinquecento in the Palazzo Vecchio. In 1500, after about 20 years, Leonardo returned to Florence, where he remained until 1503. On the day

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NEWS of his father’s death during this second stay in the Tuscan capital, as one other displayed folio testifies, he deposited his savings in the Hospital of Santa Maria Nuova. In that same period, he also studied human anatomy through the dissection of corpses. Another folio records the childhood memory of the ‘kite dream’ which has taken its place in the

history of psychoanalysis for having inspired Freud’s 1910 essay. This revealed Leonardo’s passion for the study of flight. It was in the years of this second Florentine stay that Leonardo made his attempts to fly at Monte Ceceri, while also studying the hydrography of the Arno valley, which brought him

to propose a change of the river’s course by means of a canal that would simplify its winding path. The ‘instructions’ for Leonardo’s The Battle of Anghiari, to be painted in the Palazzo Vecchio to rival Michelangelo’s Battle of Cascina are impressed in one of the other exhibited folios. This painting was also Leonardo’s salute to Florence. Shortly thereafter, in fact, he returned to Milan, in the service of the French. From Milan he then moved to Rome where at the court of Pope Leo X, he consolidated his relationship with the Medici family and particularly with Giuliano, the son of Lorenzo the Magnificent. Two of the showcased folios testify of his ties to the Medici, which began in the final decades of the 1400’s under Lorenzo’s reign and continued, although not without tensions, with his descendants. The exhibition closes with a painting that is somehow a counterweight to the drawings: the Busto del Redentore (a portrait of Jesus Christ), attributed to Gian Giacomo Caprotti, an artist known as Salaino, courtesy of the Milanese Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, to which the work was donated in 2013.

Leonardo da Vinci and Florence: Selected Pages from the Codex Atlanticus Palazzo Vecchio Until June 24

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Vasari Corridor to Reopen in 2021

2019 Leonardo’s Year The exhibition of the Codex Atlanticus, which will be courtesy borrowed from the Milan Ambrosiana Library, will showcase table grapes on works that Leonardo made in Florence. The exhibit will start next spring. The Codex Atlanticus, named after the large paper used to preserve original Leonardo’s notebook pages, is a twelve-volume bound set of drawings and paintings and comprises 1,119 leaves dating from 1478 to 1519. Its contents cover a great variety of subjects, from flight to weaponry, musical instruments, mathematics and botany. The third exhibition will be held during the second part of 2019 and will be dedicated to Leonardo’s studies on botany.

ayor Dario Nardella announced last November that, besides the Leicester Codex exhibition currently running at the Uffizi Gallery, Florence will host three other major exhibitions to celebrate the 500th anniversary of Leonardo’s death next year: one on the Codex Atlanticus, one dedicated to Leonardo’s master Andrea del Verrocchio, and one on Leonardo’s botanical studies. Nardella made his announcement on occasion of the second day of the conference of the European Capitals of Culture at Palazzo Vecchio. The exhibit dedicated to Andrea

del Verrocchio will be at Palazzo Strozzi. Leonardo was taken to Florence by his father to begin his apprenticeship in the studio of Andrea del Verrocchio in the 1470s, when Verrocchio was working on the bronze ball for the Cathedral. Verrocchio’s workshop was the most important in Florence and, besides Leonardo, ‘generated’ artists such as Botticelli and Perugino. The workshop produced marble and bronze statues, painted panels, goldsmith objects, and marquetry. It was here that Leonardo, besides learning techniques that formed him as an artist, became an enthusiastic experimenter.

he Vasari Corridor will reopen in 2021, and not in 2020 as it was announced last October. The corridor will be renovated in the next 18 months. The cost of the project is estimated to be 10 million euros. The executive project for the renovation was presented last month by Uffizi Director Eike Schmidt. A tender will be put out soon, and work will start once the contract will be assigned. “The reopening of the Vasari Corridor could be the restructuring work most quickly done in Italy in the last few years,” Schmidt said last October. “The executive project is complete in every detail and ready to be carried out; since, after deduction of administrative and legal practices, the works for the restoration of the corridor are not that ponderous and challenging, we can conclude that the reopening of this space can be considered the public work most quickly carried out in Italy in recent times.” The restoration works, which were initially estimated to be 7 million euros, include the construction of emergency exits, improvements of the anti-seismic systems, elimination of architectonic barriers, addition of new toilet facilities and the recovery of spaces for the exhibition of artworks. The Vasari Corridor traces a route

through the rooftops of Florence from Palazzo Vecchio, across the Ponte Vecchio, and to Palazzo Pitti. It was designed by Vasari in 1565, on the orders of Cosimo I de’ Medici, to commemorate the marriage of his son Francesco to Joanna of Austria. The corridor would allow safe passage for the Medici duke and his family between their residence at Palazzo Pitti and the government offices at Palazzo Vecchio, high above the butchers’ knives and plebeian crowds on the Ponte Vecchio below. The corridor stretches for more than a kilometer and showcases a collection of artworks from the 17th and 18th centuries. In the early morning on May 27, 1993, a bomb exploded on Via de’ Georgofili in Florence, killing five and wounding 48. The attempt was carried out with a small car packed full of explosives parked near the Torre dei Pulci, the seat of the Accademia dei Georgofili, located between the Uffizi museum and the Arno River.

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Beyond Performance

Cally Spooner, Mario García Torres and Opavivará!

Palazzo Strozzi Tributes Verrocchio, Leonardo’s Master Exhibit runs until July 14

alazzo Strozzi celebrates Andrea del Verrocchio, an emblematic artist of the Florentine Renaissance and Leonardo’s Master, with a major exhibition showcasing over 120 paintings, sculptures, and drawings coming from museums from all over the world. The exhibition begins March 8, and the museums from which the artworks on display were borrowed include the Metropolitan Museum of New York, the Musée du Louvre in Paris, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and the Uffizi Gallery. The exhibition, which has a special section at the Bargello Museum,

brings together for the first time Verrocchio’s masterpieces and works by the most famous artists who did their apprentice in Verrocchio’s workshop, such as Domenico Ghirlandaio, Sandro Botticelli, Pietro Perugino and Leonardo da Vinci. Thanks to loans and juxtapositions, the exhibit also reconstructs Leonardo’s early artistic career and interaction with his master. Curated by two leading experts in the art of the Quattrocento, Francesco Caglioti and Andrea De Marchi, Verrocchio, Master of Leonardo is one of the events taking place this year to celebrate the 500th anniversary of Leonardo’s death, and the first retrospective

ever devoted to Verrocchio. Born Andrea di Michele di Francesco di Cioni, Andrea del Verrocchio was a Florentine painter, sculptor and goldsmith, who became known as Verrocchio after the surname of his master.

Verrocchio, The Master of Leonardo Palazzo Strozzi Open every day, 10 a.m. – 8 p.m. (Thursdays 10 a.m. – 11 p.m.) Palazzostrozzi.org

alazzo Strozzi hosts Beyond Performance, a special project with site-specific works made by Cally Spooner, Mario García Torres, and the Opavivarà! The project highlights three ways of revisiting the notion of performance as an interdisciplinary form of expression and experimentation in different contexts, involving the audience in the first person. The Strozzina undercroft showcases the work of Cally Spooner and Mario García Torres until May 12. Cally Spooner (United Kingdom, 1983) will be presenting And You Were Wonderful. On Stage, a large video installation showing the making of a musical film in an ongoing alternation between stage and backstage. The protagonist is a chorus that transforms into a song citing Beyoncé and Justin Bieber a meeting taking place inside an advertising agency, in what becomes an ironic reflection of how media and technologies can manipulate the reality in which we live. Mario García Torres (Mexico, 1975) will be presenting Falling Together in Time, an installation in which video, painting, music, sculpture and performance art interact in a space animated also by unexpected actions.

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The installation recounts events and stories of 1980s Los Angeles’ popular and musical culture that randomly interweave and interconnect, turning into a reflection on the synchronicities and coincidences of our lives. With the installation Rede Social, a large and colorful hammock on which the public will be urged to climb, the Opavivarà! collective (Brazil, 2005) will turn the courtyard of Palazzo Strozzi into an area of participation and involvement. The objective is to have the public experience the space and architecture of the Palazzo Strozzi from a new, unconventional viewpoint devoid of any ‘hierarchy’. The installation will be on display in the Palazzo Strozzi courtyard from May 16 to July 14.

Beyond Performance. Cally Spooner, Mario García Torres and Opavivará! Palazzo Strozzi Monday to Friday 9 a.m. – 1 p.m. / 2-6 p.m. palazzostrozzi.org

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‘‘Can an Object Be the Catalyst for New Thoughts and Behaviors?’’ Antony Gormley on display at the Uffizi

his exhibition, on display in the Aula Magliabechiana of the Uffizi Gallery from Feb. 26 to May 26, showcases works by Antony Gormley, one of the most important living British sculptors. The sculptures selected are made of different materials and scales and explore both the body in space and the body as space. At the core of the show is a dialogue between two sculptures, Passage and Room, made 35 years apart, that deal with the space of the body. Passage (2016), is a 12 meter-long Corten steel tunnel in

human form, while Room (1980), is a set of Gormley’s clothes cut into a continuous 8-millimeter-wide ribbon expanded into an enclosure 6 meters square. The show is predicated on these two works and the dialogue between stasis and movement: imaginative and actual space. “I use the indexical impression of my own living body rather than mimesis to make work that both displaces and encloses, to engage and activate attention,” Gormley once said in an interview. The exhibition also includes works

made specifically for this show such as Veer II (2018), a three-dimensional life-size cast iron evocation of a tense nervous system at the core of the body, and Breathe (2018), a large lead-covered expansion work that applies the cosmic principles of the Big Bang to the singularity of a subjective body. Departing from ideas about an exhibition as a space for aesthetic contemplation or the enjoyment of narrative or representation, Essere invites our active participation as connectors between defined objects and open space in which mass and void, dark and light, hard and soft engage the viewer’s presence in space. Antony Gormley is widely acclaimed for his sculptures, installations and public artworks that investigate the relationship of the human body to space. His work has developed the potential opened up by sculpture since the 1960s through a critical engagement with both his own body and those of others in a way that confronts fundamental questions of where human beings stand in relation to nature and the cosmos. Gormley continually tries to identify the space of art as a place of becoming in which new behaviors, thoughts

and feelings can arise. Gormley’s art has been widely exhibited throughout the UK and internationally with exhibitions at Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, UK (2018); Long Museum, Shanghai (2017); National Portrait Gallery, London (2016); Forte di Belvedere, Florence, Italy (2015); Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern (2014); Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Brasilia (2012); Deichtorhallen, Hamburg, Germany (2012); The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg (2011); Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria (2010); Hayward Gallery, London (2007); Malmö Konsthall, Sweden (1993) and Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark (1989). He has also participated in major group shows such as Documenta 8, Kassel, Germany (1987); 42nd

Venice Biennale (1986); and 40th Venice Biennale (1982). Permanent public works include the Angel of the North (Gateshead, England), Another Place(Crosby Beach, England), Inside Australia (Lake Ballard, Western Australia), Exposure (Lelystad, The Netherlands) and Chord (MIT – Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts).

Essere

Antony Gormley Uffizi Gallery Until May 26

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Female Perspectives

Exhibit on display at the Pitti Palace

naugurated on occasion of International Women’s Day, the exhibition Female Perspectives. Women of Talent and Commitment 1861-1926 is on display at the Pitti Palace. The showcase focuses on the professional commitment and talent of women in Italy from the late 19th century until the mid-1920s. The time frame chosen goes from 1861 to 1926, two years that mark important steps in the history of women’s redemption as far as their image and public role were concerned. In 1861, right after Italy’s

unification, women joined the Artisans’ Brotherhood; in 1926, Grazia Deledda won the Nobel Prize for literature with her novel Canes in the Wind in 1926. Works of art, photographs and a variety of objects illustrate the jobs performed by women of all social classes. Peasant women were often involved in farm works but also in other activities such as mending, knitting or weaving straw. A different life awaited the educated women of the middle class, who could go into teaching or even become artists or writers. In the latter

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cases, however, women had to focus on subjects that were considered feminine, such as children’s books, school textbooks, articles for magazines about the household, etiquette, good manners and so forth. Between the early 1860s and the mid-1920s, Florence was a favorite destination for women who had established a solid reputation in the arts or were socially and politically engaged. Among them, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Jessie White Mario, Theodosia Garrow Trollope, and Margaret Fuller should be mentioned. “In the space of just over half a century, the time frame explored in the exhibition, conditions developed for women’s social liberation and for a new independence for them, so that they were no longer restricted to the sole role of angel of the hearth. The exhibits tell the story of a time when the question of women came to the fore, when engagement in the workplace, political interests, intellectual life and independence were still a privilege or the result of a struggle,” said Uffizi Director Eike Schmidt. “Women had to build their own identity in society and in the workplace while continuing to play a crucial role in the daily life of the family and in the home,” exhibit curator Simonella Condemi said. “We have endeavoured to pay tribute to women’s tireless toil by showcasing both the variety of different ways in which it that toil was expressed and women’s talent in the fields of art, photography, writing, teaching, politics and many

other spheres.” “Florence was a magnet for foreign women artists who sought to carve out ‘a room of their own’ in the salon and the studio – and, eventually, the academy itself. International female artists are well represented in this exhibition because ‘expat women’ enjoyed a brand of freedom in Italy that was unknown in their home countries,” Linda Falcone, director of Advancing Women Artists said, a Florence-based US organisation devoted to researching, restoring and displaying art by historic women in Tuscany’s museums and museum storehouses. “In the show, this freedom is represented by works painted by German symbolist Julia Hoffmann Tedesco who emulated her Mac-

chiaiolo husband’s interest in portraying women and their personal sphere, Irish portraitist, poet and palatine for the Italian cause, Louisa Grace Bartolini, Mary Egerton Bracken, an English socialite and painter who frequented the Browning’s entourage at Casa Guidi, and French-born Nabis artist Elisabeth Chaplin, the youngest and most prolific artist represented in the Gallerie degliUffizi’s collection,” Falcone said. The exhibition runs until May 26.

Female Perspectives Sala del Fiorino, Modern Art Gallery, Pitti Palace Until May 26

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Fiesole Commemorates Its Anti-fascists

he city of Fiesole presents an exhibition celebrating the Monument to the Three Carabinieri, an imposing bronze sculpture created in 1964 by Marcello Guasti for the town’s new panoramic terrace designed by architect Giovanni Michelucci. The work was made in honor of three carabinieri - Alberto La Rocca, Vittorio Marandola and Fulvio Sbarretti - who helped anti-fascist partisans in the fight against the occupying German troops during the Second World War. The Nazis killed the three in the summer of 1944. The exhibit, titled Marcello Guasti, Giovanni Michelucci, and the Monument to the Three Carabinieri, begins on Feb. 17 in the Sala Costantini. The first part of the exhibition is called “The Genesis of the

Monument: ‘The Leap towards the Infinite.’” The second part, called “Guasti and his Contemporaries: A Dialogue with the Antique”, will begin in May. The exhibit runs until Sept. 30. With this event, Fiesole commemorates the three antifascist heroes while also paying homage to Giovanni Michelucci, one of the most important Florentine architects of all times, and Marcello Guasti, one of the most acclaimed Florentine sculptors of the postwar period, who died last January.

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‘What I Saw on the Road’ Kiki Smith on display at the Pitti Palace

he exhibition showcases about 40 works produced over the past 20 years by Kiki Smith, a West German-born American artist who has primarily addressed the themes of sex, birth and regeneration. The works, on display in the Andito degli Andolini of the Pitti Palace, were produced with brightly colored jacquard cotton tapestries, fragile bronze, silver and wood sculptures, and works on paper. The exhibit focuses on Smith’s most recent production from 1990s onward. Until the 1990s, Smith’s

approach was exclusively centered upon the female body in all its fragile mortality, often torn and at times even dismembered, but also heroically and proudly capable of redemption and rebellion. In her later production, Smith broadened her horizons towards a more multifaceted look at what goes on outside the body. What I Saw on the Road is thus what interacts with our existence as we cast a poetic gaze on the relationship between the body and the world, between man, nature and the cosmos. “The extremely elegant grace of Kiki’s latest works, whose often fragile and precious matter is an effective metaphor of the human condition, especially that of the woman, has the loftily ethical aim of recreating unity and harmony in what is so often a world of brutality and discord, unleashing a deeply revolutionary energy: hers is the vocabulary of a new, unexpected and disconcerting pietas,” said Uffizi director Eike Schmidt. In this exhibition, Smith stages a fairy tale of nature whose leading players are animals, onto whom we transfer our human feelings and fears in a tangle of groves and thickets. “It is a contemporary cosmography useful for underscoring the organic, psychological, spiritual and imaginative continuity that knows

no hierarchies among living beings and that constitutes the common backdrop against which the affairs of the entire natural universe are played out,”, said exhibit co-curator Renata Pintus. The exhibit runs until June 2.

Kiki Smith What I Saw on the Road Pitti Palace Until June 2

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Tony Cragg on Display at Boboli Gardens

ith their layered, fragile, organized fabric and their primordial force, Tony Cragg’s monumental sculptures offer an unexpected, complex dialogue with the nature and beauty of the Boboli Gardens and the city of Florence. The exhibition Tony Cragg at Boboli Gardens, on display at the Boboli Gardens from May 5 to Oct. 27, presents 16 works by English contemporary sculptor Cragg made from 1997 to the present day. With their imposing and poetic presence Cragg’s sculptures accompany visitors on a journey of amazement and knowledge which provides a new interpretative key of both the sculptures and their surrounding space, almost as if the unexpected plastic forms on dis-

play suddenly revealed the energy and irrepressible underground force of the surrounding hills: familiar and comforting views that have been ‘disciplined’ by architects and gardeners over the last five centuries. The role that Tony Cragg gives to his sculptures is, in fact, precisely this: the emerging of new meanings, dreams and languages from an incessant and restless exploration of matter and their relationship with the environment. “This is the first time that a main Italian museum has dedicated a monographic exhibition to Tony Cragg - said director of the Uffizi Galleries Museum Complex, Eike Schmidt, when presenting the exhibit at a recent press conference. “The Boboli Gardens, with their nat-

ural wonders, works of ancient art and highly rational structure, are the perfect theatre for this exhibition. In fact, the theme of sculpture in the park, central to the artist’s poetics, necessarily includes forms inspired by nature and its mysterious power, created by Cragg to provoke a strong reaction in the observer, whether it be pure emotion or intellectual interpretation”. Born in Liverpool in 1949, since 1977 Cragg lives and works in Wuppertal, Germany, not far from the Skulpturenpark Waldfrieden, a lively exhibition center dedicated to contemporary sculpture created by Cragg himself in 2008. Active on the art scene since the late 1970s, Cragg has exhibited in many of the most important galleries, museums and parks around the world and has participated to major contemporary art exhibitions such as Documenta and the Venice Biennial. He also teaches at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf and the Universität der Künste (UdK) in Berlin and has received prestigious awards and honors including the Turner Prize (1988), Shakespeare Prize (2001), and the Praemium Imperiale for Sculpture (2007).

Tony Cragg at Boboli Gardens Boboli Gardens Until Oct. 27

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Animalia Fashion

he exhibition showcases items created between 2000 and 2018 loaned by some of the most famous fashion brands and emerging stylists from all over the world. In an entertaining and poetic manner, and at a time when climate change related problems are bitterly debated, Animalia Fashion explores the relationship between fashion and animals. In this showcase, clothing, accessories and jewels become an experience: a journey of exploration probing the history of zoological science and a discovery of forms and colors that conjure up images of animals. The exhibit opens with a section devoted to spiders and contin-

ues with others devoted to swans, shells, hedgehogs, fish, coral and more, ending with butterflies. “In this array of almost 100 pieces ranging from dresses and handbags to shoes, jewels and accessories, Haute Couture interprets a fabulous universe in which mannequins become the creatures of a modern and poetic bestiary,” Uffizi Director Eike Schmidt said. “It is also a tribute to the artistic and technical qualities of contemporary fashion, an industry to which the Museo della Moda e del Costume di Palazzo Pitti is devoting fresh energy and attention.” “In an emotional dialogue with this zoo of fabric, feathers, leathers and more, the visitor is surprised and involved in the discovery of the wonders of the animal world, which becomes a source of inspiration for designers and creates unexpected juxtapositions in the observer’s imagination,” said exhibit curator Patricia Lurati.

Animalia Fashion Museo della Moda e del Costume, Pitti Palace Tickets: € 16; € 8 for EU citizens aged 18 to 25 Free for those younger than 18 Tuesday – Sunday: 8.15 a.m. – 6.50 p.m. Closed Monday Until May 5

12 Florence News

NEWS

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Inside the House of Michelangelo Discover the Casa Buonarroti Museum

he Casa Buonarroti Museum celebrates the greatness of Michelangelo while presenting a Baroque exhibition of the art collections of the family. The museum also offers the possibility of admiring the two famous marble relief pieces sculptured by Michelangelo in his early years: the Madonna della Scala, which shows Michelangeloâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s passion for Donatello, and the Battle of the Centaurs, which conveys the admiration of the art-

ist for classic art. The Buonarroti family greatly contributed to enlarge the building and embellish the museum with the aim of preserving objects from different cultures, including the recent collection of the autograph drawings by Michelangelo consisting of 205 precious sketches and the equally important Archive and Library. The exhibit showcases rare art collections including paintings, sculptures, majolicas

made for the New Sacristy. The idea of creating a building to celebrate the glory of the Buonarroti family was an initiative of Michelangelo Buonarroti the younger, a prolific promoter of cultural activities, who employed for the works of the building the most renowned Florentine artists such as Artemisia Gentileschi, Pietro da Cortona, Giovanni da San Giovanni, Francesco Furini and the young Jacopo Vignali. The rooms were chosen by Michelangelo the younger to exhibit the most precious objects of his colleciion, including the small cartoon of Mi-

chelangelo showing a Madonna with Child and the wooden panel representing some episodes of the Life of St. Nicholas masterpiece by Giovanni di Francesco, a disciple of Domenico Veneziano.

Casa Buonarroti Museum Via Ghibellina 70 Closed on Tuesday Opening Hours: 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. www.casabuonarroti.it

Madonna della scala, marmo

Battaglia dei centauri, marmo

and archaeological findings that are arranged on the two floors of Michelangeloâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Casa. A specially equipped room displays on rotation a small number of the drawings of Michelangelo. Among the works exhibited are the Crucifix of Santo Spirito, which critics tend to attribute to Michelangelo, the two 16th century Noli me tangere based on the lost cartoon, the Wooden model for the faĂ§ade of San Lorenzo, and the River Divinity, which was used to prepare one of the sculptures

Studi per la testa della Leda, matita rossa

Madonna col Bambino, matita nera, matita rossa, biacca e inchiostro

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Showcasing Models of Leonardo’s Designs

Florence News 13

NEWS

Leonardo Florentine Steps

lorence is not home to many works of art by Leonardo. However, those present are fundamental to understanding him. Here are are a few steps in Florence to explore the personality of this genius of History.

to picture, in the grand scheme of things, the documentation of the life and works of Leonardo. The museum also provides a rest stop, the Caffè Michelangiolo, included in the entrance fee to the exhibition, and a bookshop rich in publications and gadgets.

Uffizi Gallery

he exhibit presents working models of Leonardo’s designs that the Niccolai family has been reconstructing since 1995, when Carlo Niccolai dedicated himself to working full-time with the desire to realize Leonardo’s legacy. His passion founded the Niccolai Collection, the largest private collection of Leonardo models in the world, comprised of more than 300 working models created by himself and his sons, together with a team of artisans, engineers, historians and architects. The models have been displayed at more than 100 international exhibitions throughout Europe and as far as Australia, New Zealand,

China, the US, Brazil, Saudi Arabia and Finland. The exhibit also displays copies of six codices that reveal the inner workings of this great man’s mind. The Niccolai family has been widely praised for their ongoing devotion to realizing the vast inheritance that Leonardo left to science.

Le Macchine di Leonardo da Vinci Via Cavour 21 www.macchinedileonardo.com

The ‘revolution’ of the Uffizi Gallery continued last year as three of Leonardo da Vinci’s greatest masterpieces, previously housed in separate rooms, are now on display together in a room dedicated exclusively to Leonardo. The three paintings – the recently restored Adoration of the Magi, The Annunciation, and The Baptism of Christ (which Leonardo painted together with Verrocchio) – are now housed in one same room to bring out “the fullness of the forms that are so typical of Leonardo’s style,” said the great promoter of this revolution, Uffizi director Eike Schmidt, at the inauguration of the new arrangement. The room dedicated to Leonardo completes a triptych highlighting the museum most important works, together with two other arrangements, one with Michelangelo’s Doni Tondo and the masterworks of Raphael, and the eight-room section dedicated to the works of Caravaggio. Schmidt

For further information see: www. museoleonardodavincifirenze. com/2/ also said the next development will be this coming fall with the opening of new rooms dedicated to 16th-century Venetian artists including Giorgione, Tintoretto, Tiziano, Bernardo Licinio, and others. The new room showcasing Leonardo’s works was set up as part of the celebrations for the 500th’s anniversary of his dead.

The Leonardo da Vinci Museum Located on Via Cavour 21, this exhibition is composed of more than 50 functioning models that spread across four areas: a large hall, in which you can find his civil engineering machines, one dedicated to his flight machines, another to machines of war and, most recently, one showcasing a collection of anatomic models. At the museum it is also possible

Fiesole Historically, the Parco di Montececeri owes its notoriety to the fact of having been chosen by Leonardo da Vinci in 1506 as the starting point for his experiment with his ‘flying machine.’ Inside the park, in memory of the first-ever attempt to fly, stands a monument that carries Leonardo’s epigraph. The monument is located in a small panoramic stopping point where Leonardo’s machine first took flight. The Parco di Montececeri has its two main entrances at Borgo di Maiano and Via di Doccia. From Maiano you proceed straight along until you find the first abandoned stone quarries on your left; at a certain point, you pull away from the left onto a sharp rise and a path that winds up to the point where Leonardo experimented with flight.

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NEWS

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Il Ponte Presents Carlo Battaglia

he contemporary art gallery Il Ponte presents a solo exhibition of Carlo Battaglia’s paintings from May 17 to July 19. The exhibit showcases 15 large works made between 1969 and 1979. Battaglia’s work from this decade represents the climax of the socalled “New Painting” movement, underscoring the distinctive characteristic of those Italian artists who found themselves in this field at the time. In a period when painting was considered too traditional, Battaglia and his contemporaries worked to find a new place for their medium in the changing art world. Based on an analysis of his artistic process and materials—paint, canvas, and frame—Battaglia focused his attention on the expressive potential of the medium itself. His art is aimed at creating the world in which he felt immersed. “His representation is not imitation: the second term is negative, the first constitutes the great tradition of painting. All of his paint-

ing is always and only aimed at creating the world in which he felt immersed,” wrote art critic Marco Pelluzzo in his 2014 Carlo Battaglia. Catalogo Ragionato. After travelling around Europe to see German, French, and British contemporary artists at work, Battaglia made his way to America to see firsthand the art that captivated him. He arrived in Manhattan in 1967 and spent six months living and working with key artists of the New York School such as Mark Rothko, Ad Reinhart, and Robert Motherwell, whose influences can all be seen in his abstract paintings of the late 1960s. In these largescale works, Battaglia uses a dark, muted palate and sharp angles that reflect the shapes and colors of the dense cityscape of New York, while also closely referencing Ad Reinhardt’s striking yet nuanced studies of abstract geometric forms. His paintings from this period show him playing with and beginning to question the distinction between

abstraction and figuration. At the 1970 Venice Biennale, Battaglia exhibited his Maree (“Tides”) series, formally introducing the theme that would come to dominate his oeuvre: the ocean. These early seascapes are long planes of variegated color that closely reference Rothko’s transcendent color field paintings that Battaglia saw in New York. Though his works of the 1970s and ‘80s can more easily be read as seascapes than his early Maree paintings, all of Battaglia’s work comes from a theory wherein abstraction and figuration are decided in the conception of a painting, rather than its execution: “an abstract image,” wrote Battaglia in 1976, “can be represented in exactly the same way as a natural image.” This lack of distinction, coming from his time with the Abstract Expressionists as well as his work within the Pittura Analitica movement, can be seen in his large paintings from the late 1980s, in which he uses color and expressive brushstrokes to manipulate the land and ocean.

Carlo Battaglia May 17 - July 19 Galleria Il Ponte Via di Mezzo, 42/b 055 240617 ww.galleriailponte.com

A Tribute to Hidetoshi Nagasawa

he contemporary art gallery Il Ponte presents the exhibition Hidetoshi Nagasawa. Sculpture in the 1970s from March 1 to May 10. The exhibit tributes an artist recently passed away, with whom in the recent past the gallery collaborated in quite a few occasions beginning with the 2005 exhibition Interference. The exhibition is centered upon a rare and important set of works made in the 1970s including Colonna (1972) and Viti di Bagdad (1975). Nagasawa arrived in Italy in 1967. Here, he matured as an artist. His most important sculptures, which often found their way of expression in the minimal reliefs of the

surface, were made between 1969 and 1979. The idea that the work must take on body and soul, in a close relationship with the environment, is of fundamental importance in Nagasawa’s art. As Francesco Poli wrote, Nagasawa’s sculptures originate from a meditated strategy of involving the space aesthetically activated by the staging of installations, elaborated to a greater or lesser degree, made up of elements that maintain their primary expressiveness and function as catalysts and generators of physical and mental tensions. The result is a new dimension characterized by a sense of suspension and lightness, by a sober and refined elegance of plastic constructions that intertwine different materials (wood, stone, marble, iron, and other metals such as copper and brass) with depths and conformations that also include the presence of living plants.

Hidetoshi Nagasawa. Sculpture in the 1970s Il Ponte Art Gallery Via di Mezzo 42b galleriailponte.com

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CITY BEAT

The Three Tenors and La Traviata at Santo Stefano Church accompanies the music, as one would expect in a traditional opera house. If you’ve never seen La Traviata, do a bit of research beforehand. It will make the experience far more enjoyable. Dancers at La Traviata show are from the Florence Dance Performance school. Choreography is by Donatella Cantagallo.

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oasting an original Romanesque facade of green and white marble, the Santo Stefano Church now serves as an auditorium for musical and theatrical performances. The concert is inspired by the world-renowned ‘Three Tenors’ Luciano Pavarotti, Plácido Domingo, and José Carreras. Standing atop Buontalenti’s stunning marmoreal balustrade of 1574 and accompanied by a chamber ensemble of mandolin, doublebass and grandpiano, Mattia Nebbiai, Claudio Sassetti, and Leonardo Sgroi dazzle audiences with their incredible voices. The excellent acoustics in Santo Stefano require no microphones. The three tenors perform the masterpieces which brought fame to Italy all over the world, such as some of the arias from La Traviata, Rigoletto and Tosca, as well as some of the most famous Neapolitan traditional songs. The musical program includes several operatic pieces from Verdi, Puccini, Rossini, Brahms, and De Curtis. The singers are accompanied by the flawless tunes of a grand piano, mandolin, and a double bass. The three tenors exuded tremendous energy and playfulness on stage, making the audience giggle at times with their delightful humor. Their velvety

voices kept a full house entranced for over an hour with each selected song showing off the full potential of their collective talent. One highlight was the aria, E lucevan le stelle from the opera TOSCA, written by Giacomo Puccini. The emotion and range of this performance was truly impressive. “La traviata last night was a failure. Was the fault mine or the singers’? Time will tell.” Those words were penned by Giuseppe Verdi to a friend the day after La Traviata premiered at Venice’s La Fenice in 1853. La Fenice’s manager had insisted on giving the leading role of “Violetta” to Fanny Salvini-Donatelli, a corpulent 38-year-old woman. Although she was an acclaimed singer, the audience openly jeered at her for attempting to portray a young courtesan dying of con-

sumption. One can only imagine Verdi’s utter frustration and disappointment. “The Fallen Woman” (La Traviata) was written as a tragic three act opera based on a play, which was taken from the French novel “The Lady with the Camellias” by Alexandre Dumas (author of “The Three Musketeers”). The plot is simple: forbidden love. Violetta, a Parisian courtesan, falls in love with Alfredo, a young bourgeois from the countryside. Alfredo’s father, Giorgio, is against the relationship due to Violetta’s dubious past and convinces her to break off the love affair. Alfredo is furious and humiliates her in public. When Violetta is on her deathbed, she reconciles with Alfredo. Giorgio apologizes to her before she takes her final breath. Naturally, the music and lyrics are infused with emo-

tion to lift the soul of the listener. To experience Verdi’s timeless work in any venue is a visual and auditory delight, but Santo Stefano is a special place. The earliest mention of this Romanesque style church dates back to 1116. The original 12th century facade is comprised of white marble from Carrara and green marble from Prato. The interior was revamped in the 17th century to convert three aisles into an open space. Finally, Santo Stefano boasts wonderful acoustics. The church does not have a stage but a high altar with a stone balustrade along the front. The opera performed at this venue is mainly for listening pleasure, consisting of three talented singers – a tenor, a baritone, and a soprano – two talented musicians (grand piano, double bass), and four dancers. No elaborate theatrical performance

May Events May 3-6-17-21-24-28-31 The Three Tenors Auditorium Santo Stefano 8:30 p.m. May 2-23-30 Traviata Auditorium Santo Stefano 8:30 p.m. INFO & BOOKING: www.operainroma.com Email: florence@operainroma.com Cell: +39 373 774 6001 Landline: +39 055 230 2411

16 Florence News

HISTORY

Lorenzo il Magnifico The story behind the title

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any people have probably heard the term il Magnifico (the Magnificent) in reference to Florence's 15th century ruler, Lorenzo de' Medici, but they are likely unaware of its origin. The Pazzi Conspiracy, which took place on Easter 1478, resulted in the violent assassination of Giuliano de' Medici. To avenge his brother's death, Lorenzo went on a bloody

rampage and many people were killed as a result. Pope Sixtus IV excommunicated Lorenzo for his vendetta against the Pazzi family, their supporters, and Archbishop Salviati. In addition to this, the Signoria was ordered by papal decree to surrender Lorenzo so that he could face judgement. Of course, they refused. The Tuscan Church supported the Signoria’s decision, which eventually led to its excommunication as well.

Such open rebellion against the Vatican only served to create more enemies for Florence. Lorenzo was soon faced with political threats from Milan, Urbino and Siena, but the most serious threat came from Ferdinand, King of Naples. In order to solidify Florence’s position and keep peace in Tuscany, Lorenzo set off on several campaigns to secure political alliances. He departed- alone- from Pisa to Naples on December 14, 1479, and did not return to Florence until March of the following year. He risked his life for the peace and well-being of Florence, and the risk had paid off. Not only did he manage to successfully negotiate with the King of Naples but also with the pope. In short, he made his position in Florence stronger than ever before, and (although he never held political office within the Republic) the European rulers officially recognized him as the Head of Florence. The Florentines, grateful that their ruler had successfully thwarted war, bestowed upon him the title: il Magnifico. Pallas and the Centaur was painted by Botticelli in celebration of Lorenzo's political victory in Naples. Pallas (Peace) wears a flowing gown flaunting Lorenzo's personal symbol- the diamond (semperforever) and three interlaced rings (Renaissance symbol of the arts). The Centaur (War) is being tamed by reason and logic, which Pallas possesses in abundance. The background is most likely the bay of Naples, and the composition is enriched by olive tree branches (the universal symbol of peace).

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Why May Day

The historical roots of Labor Day

n ancient northern hemisphere spring festival, May Day on May 1 is a traditional spring holiday in many cultures. Dances, singing, and cake are usually part of the celebrations of this festivity. In the late 19th century, May Day was chosen as the date for International Workers’ Day by the Socialist and Communist parties to commemorate the Hay Market affair in Chicago. Also known as the Haymarket massacre or Haymarket riot, the Haymarket affair was the aftermath of a bombing at a labor demonstration at Haymarket Square in Chicago on Tuesday, May 4, 1886. Begun as a peaceful rally in support of workers striking for an 8-hour working day and in reaction to the killing of several workers the previous day by the police, it got violent when an someone threw a dynamite bomb at police as agents were dispersing the meeting killing seven police officers and at least four civilians and wounding many others. Though International Workers’ Day may also be referred to as “May Day,” it is a different celebration from the traditional May Day. This tradition in Italy takes the name of Calendimaggio (from the Latin calenda maia) or cantar maggio, a seasonal feast to celebrate the arrival of spring.

Medieval Cuisine

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A tradition still alive today in many regions of Italy, including Tuscany, as an allegory of the return to life and rebirth, this magical-propitiatory ritual is often performed during an almsgiving in which, in exchange for gifts (traditionally eggs, wine, food or sweets), the Maggi (or maggerini) sing auspicious verses to the inhabitants of the houses they visit. Throughout the Italian peninsula these Il Maggio couplets are very diverse, most of them being love songs that young people sang to celebrate the arrival of spring. Mentioned in the verses of the songs are the symbols of spring revival such as the trees (alder and golden rain) and flowers (violets and roses) with which the maggerini adorn themselves. In particular, the plant alder, which grows along the rivers and is considered the symbol of life, is almost in any case present in the ritual. In Tuscany, Calendimaggio is historically a mythical figure that had a predominant role and met many of the attributes of the god Belenus. It is a celebration that dates back to ancient peoples for whom the arrival of summer was of extreme importance and is very integrated with the rhythms of nature such as the Celts (celebrating Beltane), Etruscans and Ligures.

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Three Florentine Love Stories

Grand Duke Francesco I de’ Medici and Bianca Cappello

THOMAS RICCIOTTI 1) One of the most scandalous and debated illicit love affairs that occurred in Florence was that between the Grand Duke Francesco I de’ Medici and Bianca Cappello during the sixteenth century. Let’s see what happens when a rich, powerful, married man falls for a poor, beautiful girl married to another. Bianca was a noble Venetian young woman who had eloped to Florence to marry, at the age of 15, a penniless Florentine, Pietro Bonaventuri. Beautiful as she was, she soon became popular in the city and drew the attention of

many, including that of the Grand Duke himself, who appointed her husband as ‘Keeper of the Royal Wardrobe’. Of course, it was a move to keep her close to him in the palace. Let’s skip a few passages now, leaving the reader free to use his/ her imagination. Shortly after, penniless Bonaventuri was murdered in the streets of Florence. The circumstances of his death remain obscure. As it often happens when important rich people are involved, the court never came to a definitive verdict. Well, what happened after was that in 1576 Bianca gave birth to a baby who looked exactly like Francesco. There is more. Two months after

the death of Francesco’s wife, Joanna of Austria, in 1578, Francesco and Bianca were married. The timing of the event, following on the heels of the grieving period, caused widespread scandal. In addition, after Joanna’s death the existence of the illegitimate Don Antonio and his claim to the duchy were publicly acknowledged. You think the story is finished? Not at all. Francesco and Bianca died within days of each other in 1587, supposedly poisoned. On their mysterious deaths speculation followed for centuries until six years ago, when Francesco’s body was exhumed from the Medici Chapel at San Lorenzo and investigated. As evidence of a malaria-causing parasite was found in his remains, the debate was put to rest. Penniless Bonaventuri and wealthy Bianca neither revenged nor were revenged. 2) Ready for another love affair? This happened in the early nineteenth century. The protagonists are Ugo Foscolo, a man with a strong passion for writing and for political freedom, and a woman by the name of Quirina Mocenni Magiotti. In Italy, double surnames like that of Quirina imply noble descendant. The location of their affair was the now-destroyed Villa Torricelli on Florence’s Bellosguardo hill. It was precisely this place and this woman that inspired the verses of the famous, unfinished poem Le Grazie (‘The Graces’) in 1812. Those beautiful words, that Quirina was probably reading secretly from her aristocrat husband, are –

Florence News 17

HISTORY

Ugo Foscolo and Quirina Mocenni Magiotti and were – all that remain of Ugo’s love for her. Ugo was in fact exiled to Switzerland and England after Austria regained control of Italy in 1814. His tomb lies in Santa Croce alongside those of Michelangelo, Alfieri, Galileo and Machiavelli. His verses for Quirina, forever unfinished as his love for her, are still studied in Italian schools. 3) Let’s see now something about the expats. One of Florence’s most notable expat couple, Victorian poets Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, made the most of their lives here. Florence’s influence on their literary productions was profound, as profound was their love

for liberty: in fact, Elizabeth also became a passionate supporter of Italian liberation and unification. The couple lived at Casa Guidi in Piazza San Felice for 15 years until Elizabeth’s death in 1861, the same year that the Kingdom of Italy was established. She is buried in the Protestant English Cemetery at Piazza Donatello. After her death, Robert returned to England with the son of the woman to whom he was secretly married. The couple had in fact left England to escape Elizabeth’s oppressive father, who disapproved of the match, and had subsequently wed in Florence.

Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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18 Florence News

CITY BEAT

Remembering the 1993 Mafia Bombing I

n the early morning on May 27, 1993, a bomb exploded on Via de’ Georgofili in Florence killing five and wounding 48. The attempt was carried out with a small car packed full of explosives parked near the Torre dei Pulci, the seat of the Accademia dei Georgofili, between the Uffizi museum and the Arno River. The victims were Angela Fiume, a 36-year-old woman who served as an employee and caretaker of the Accademia; her 39-year-old husband Fabrizio Nencioni, who worked as a policeman; their daughters Caterina, who was only 50 days old, and Nadia, who was 9; and a 22-year-old student by the name of Dario Capolicchio. Several buildings were destroyed or damaged including the Uffizi Gallery, where three paintings were heavily damaged or destroyed (among which, a 1620 Adoration of the Shepherds by Gerard Van Honthorst). Although the perpetrators of the attacks were mafiosi under the orders of Cosa Nostra boss Totò Riina, who used the bombing as a way to force both State and Church to do step back in their anti-mafia policies, allegedly the Mafia decided the attacks with members of other circles of power including deviated Freemasonry and intelligence agencies as well as neo-fascist terrorist groups. In fact, since

the very beginning the investigations focused on prompters who were not Mafia members, adding a sinister shadow to a story that still goes on as last month a Palermo sentence condemned, amongst the others, the then heads of the Carabinieri, the Italian Military police, for having negotiated with the Mafia, as well as some major Mafia bosses. Amongst those questioned for the 1993 Florence bombing were former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and his associate Marcello Dell’Utri, the latter now in prison serving a sentence to 7 years for collusion with the Mafia to which must be added – if it will be confirmed in appeal – another condemn to 12 years of prison issued last month by a Palermo court for him to having promised the Mafia to satisfy their requests of loosening anti-organized crime legislation and policies. The Florence bombing was followed by two others: on 27 July an explosion in Rome near the churches of St. John Lateran and San Giorgio al Velabro and in Milan, in via Palestro, where another car bomb killed five people. The choice to hit cultural and religious targets appeared to be too refined to have been conceived solely by the Mafia bosses. The objectives of the Mafia (and, if proved, of its

allies) were destabilizing the Italian government and attacking the Roman Catholic Church, the latter ‘guilty’ of reversing their traditional unwritten hands-off policy toward organized crime. To add suspicious that the Mafia did not act alone in the bombings, in those dark days of 1993 Italian Prime Minister Carlo Azeglio Ciampi blamed a “turbid alliance of forces” that he said pursued “both political destabilization and criminal goals.” Cosa Nostra bosses wanted to force the Italian State to loosen the harsh prison regime regulated by the 41bis article of the Italian penal code, introduced one year earlier after two other bombings, also carried out by Cosa Nostra, killed prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, the two architects of the trial that in early 1992 brought to the first real condemnation of mafiosi in Italian history. Another alleged objective of the those not in the Mafia – the investigations focused on a criminal system allegedly formed by some Freemason lodges, deviated intelligence agencies, and neo-fascists groups – was to swipe away the old political class and favor the advancing of a new one, which effectively happened in the turn of a few months with the elections of March 1994.

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UNH in Prato Hosts Conference on Mafias, Murder and Money

he MS Investigations Program, Henry C Lee College of Criminal Justice and Forensic Sciences, University of New Haven, is organizing a three-day conference focusing on how organized crime, terrorists and corrupt officials work internationally to form financial alliances. The conference, which will take place of the University of New Haven campus in Prato June 24-27, will focus on three areas – sports integrity, human trafficking, and money laundering. Scheduled speakers are police, prosecutors, politicians, investigative journalists, academics, athletes, former match-fixers, victims, anti-money laundering, and compliance executives. Among those giving a speech will be Henry C. Lee, the modern-day ‘Sherlock Holmes of America’ – pioneer in the of use of forensic science in criminal investigations and professor at University of New Haven; Iana Matei, winner of the U.S. Department of State ‘Hero of the Year’ for her work in the rescue of hundreds of women caught in human trafficking; Peter Gomez, one of Italy’s top investigative journalists and author of a number of books on corruption, the mafia, and financial crime; Steven Berryman, former Special Agent with the IRS Criminal

Investigation Division, and one of the lead investigators in the FIFA corruption case; Nicola Gratteri, Anti-Mafia Prosecutor and Winner of the 2014 Civil Courage Prize; Alanna Lavelle, former FBI special agent who led anti-human trafficking investigations in Central America and across the United States; Richard McLaren, lead investigator in the WADA inquiry into the Russian sports doping case; Declan Hill, international best-selling author and associate professor of investigations at University of New Haven; Tim Palmbach, former police officer, professor and expert in biological data and human trafficking; Matteo Civillini, head of the Italian Reporting Project, expert in organized crime and financial networks; Drago Kos, head of OECD; Adriano Mogos, independent journalist and winner of the CEI-SEEMO award, the Kurt Schork Award and the special Global Shining Light Award; Chris Rasmussen, Danish money laundering and match-fixing expert; Kim Manchester, managing director, Manchester CF, a provider of online financial intelligence training; Oxana Alistratova, a specialist in the fields of prevention trafficking in human beings and migration for development.

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Artigianato e Palazzo T

share crafts often at risk of dying out while helping to preserve the authenticity of Italian production. As every year, a “Mostra Principe”, or Main Exhibition, will spotlight a business or a cultural foundation that began as an artisan activity and then became successful on an international level. This year the Mostra Principe is dedicated to Leonardo da Vinci and the gold leaf production, and is set up in the Limonaia Piccola section of the Corsini Gardens. This exhibit within the exhibit is part of the celebrations of the 500th anniversary of Leonardo’s death and will tell the story of the Florentine company Giusto Manetti Battiloro, which has produced gold and silver leaf for over 15 generations using a production process combining state-of-the-art technology with traditional craftsmanship. Visitors will be able to retrace the various steps required to obtain a thin sheet of gold from a gold ingot.

Artigianato e Palazzo May 16–19 10 a.m.–8 p.m. Corsini Gardens 115 Via della Scala, Florence www.artigianatoepalazzo.it

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Democracy, European Elections, Rule of Law and Fake News

Artisan Festival Returns

he garden of the historic Corsini Palace in Florence will host the 25th Artigianato e Palazzo, the Florentine festival dedicated to Italian craftsmanship, from May 16 to 19. Promoting ‘Made in Italy’ works, mostly Florentine but also from other parts of Italy and Europe, the event focuses on handmade productions and consists of presentations from highly skilled craftsmen and displays of traditional guilds and age-old techniques. Artisan demonstrations allow the public to feel as though they are in actual workshops and, in some cases, audience members can even participate as assistants. In this way, visitors have the opportunity to discover how artisans create their objects by watching them work in the small workshops in the garden and orangeries of the Corsini Palace. Ceramics, bookbinding, mosaics, printing, inlay, jewelry, footwear, perfume and hat-making are among the many artisan crafts shared with the public, as is the art of working with materials such as bronze, iron, marble, wood and glass. Producers of fine foods are also on display. More than 9.000 visitors attended the festival last year. By inviting the public into the world of Italian and local artisans, Artigianato e Palazzo offers the chance to

Florence News 19

State of the Union conference returns May 2-4

he European University Institute hosts the annual State of the Union conference May 2-4. The conference will debate and reflect on the democratic functioning of the European Union, its member states and their capacity to respond to the aspirations and needs of future generations. Taking place a few weeks before the European Parliament elections, this year the conference will also feature a debate amongst the lead candidates for the office of President of the European Commission (the Spitzenkandidaten debate). Topics discussed will include democracy and the European elections, the rule of law and the legal powers of the EU, disinformation and fake news as well as immigration, the next generation of EU citizens, and a European single market. The list of confirmed speakers includes Klaus Iohannis, President

of Romania; Enzo Moavero Milanesi, Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs; Jean-Yves Le Drian, French Minister of Europe and Foreign Affairs; Ana Paula Zacarias, Portuguese Secretary of State for European Afairs; Riina Sikkut, Estonian Minister for Health and Labour; Antonio Tajani, President of the European Parliament; Frans Timmermans, First Vice-President of the European Commission; Federica Mogherini, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission; Vĕra Jourová, European Commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality; Cecilia Malmström, European Commissioner for Trade; Cécile Kashetu Kyenge, Támas Meszerics and Marietje Schaake MEPs; Sylvie Goulard, Deputy Governor of the Bank of France; Andrea En-

ria, Chair of the ECB’s Supervisory Board; Martin L. Weitzman, Professor of Economics at Harvard University, John Frank, Microsoft’s Vice-President for EU Government Affairs; Pasquale Tridico, President of the Italian National Institute of Social Security; Luigi Zingales, Professor University of Chicago; and Sonya Walkila, Finnish Ministry of Justice. On May 2, the conference will take place at the EUI’s Villa Salviati in Fiesole, home of the Historical Archives of the European Union. Several parallel sessions will be held, each devised by a member of the EUI with relevant scientific expertise, and the Spitzenkandidaten debate, co-hosted by the EUI and the Financial Times and broadcast across Europe, will be held in the evening. On May 3 participants will reconvene in the historic surroundings of the Palazzo Vecchio, the seat of Florence’s city council. The event will conclude on May 4 at Villa Salviati with an Open Day of cultural, leisure and art activities open to the public. This year a number of additional events have also been organised in and around the days of The State of the Union and in the framework of the Festival d’Europa.

Via Ghibellina 178/r • 055 www.ristoranterubaconte.it Via Ghibellina 178/r • 0552645411 2645411 •• www.ristoranterubaconte.it

Il Supermercato... da Gustare e deGustare

Sapori & Dintorni is the new way to do the shopping: in the heart of Florence there is a place where Food, Culture and Territory meet. Get in and discover the Big Supermarket to test and taste! Inside you will find many typical products of the Italian food tradition. Buy your favorite product and taste it within the tasting area.

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THE BIG SUPERMARKETS ARE OPEN: • Monday - Saturday: from 08.30 am to 9.00 pm • Sunday: from 09.30 am to 9.00 pm

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Florence News 21

CITY BEAT

Gilò: Dinner, Piano Bar and Jazz G

ilò springs from the dream of Gianfranco Lotti, a Florentine designer and leather craftsman creator of the homonymous brand established in 1968, of opening a space in Florence to enjoy the authentic atmosphere of an Italian piano bar. Its formula is one of live music, quality food and drinks until 1 a.m. Located on via dei Fossi, a few steps away from the Santa Maria Novella train station, Gilò is the place to spend an evening plunged

into an exclusive, cozy and relaxed style, where the essential mood of the piano bar turns into a high-end club created with a special attention to details with on the background the cheerful atmosphere of Italian music. With themed evenings staged by pianists and musicians of different styles, Gilò is a place where French bubbles sit alongside a thorough selection of Italian wines with the rarest vermouth, the most classical liqueurs and exclusive spirits.

On Tuesdays, one of the most affirmed musicians in Florence, pianist and singer Gabriele Mori, performs live Italian songs with an original jazzy mood. From Wednesday to Friday, on stage is Andrea Caciolli, who performs a refined and elegant repertoire of Italian and international music. Wednesday night is also the night of the Jazz Aperitivo at Gilò, from 8 to 10 p.m. On Saturdays, Caciolli proposes a repertoire of latin song together with singer Yoli Garcia. The drinks surprise with their variety of labels and creativity of combinations, while the cuisine is a mix of research and tradition based on fresh season fragrances. At Gilò, sitting and enjoying a late dinner is a subtle pleasure, not only for unconditional nighthawks.

Gilò Live Jazz (Wednesday 7:30 - 9:30 p.m.) Piano Bar (every night from Via dei Fossi 44r

Heroes - Bowie by Sukita

Exhibit runs at Palazzo Medici Riccardi

“Seeing David Bowie on stage opened my eyes to his creative genius. He was different from any other rock star, he had something special that I felt I had the duty to photograph.” These words by Japanese photographer Masayoshi Sukita are perhaps the best to introduce the exhibition currently running at Palazzo Medici Riccardi, in which 60 photos by Sukita – some of which have never been shown before – are on display. The pictures retrace the relationship between one of the most revolutionary artists of the 20th century and a great master of photography that lasted over 40 years, since the

early 1970s. “It was in 1972 that I started looking for David Bowie. And I still am now,” Sukita said. There will be events and concerts during the three-month exhibition. The exhibit bookstore will sell books on the two artists. The exhibit runs until June 28.

Heroes - Bowie by Sukita Palazzo Medici Riccardi Until June 28

#MANGIA #EAT #BEVI #DRINK

#ASCOLTA #LISTEN

#INCONTRA #MEET #SCOPRI #DISCOVER

everyday 07:00 am - 12:00 am PIAZZA DELLA STAZIONE 50 FIRENZE - ITALIA @fabbricatoviaggiatori

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reaking barriers between different styles of music is DJ’s Leo Martera formula for his Saturday night at Rex bar. The idea came when Martera noticed that one-musical-theme nights were beginning to bore people after a while. Thus came the intuition to mix not just songs, but also styles of music. And it worked, making Saturday nights at Rex one of the most appreciated nights in Florence. With the advantage of dancing in a bar and not in a club, the atmosphere is far more easy-going and the night more dynamic. This formula proved successful also because on Saturdays Rex does not mix just different styles of music, but also different kinds of people. For more than ten years Martera has been djing and playing drums

in the most popular Italian and European clubs and parties, such as those organized by Luisa Via Roma with AZEALIA BANKS and CRIS CAB. His live dj-set is a mix between djing and drumming, which interact to create a show of great impact, with sonorities ranging from deep house to the more typical electronic grooves of clubbing. Martera is supported in his productions by some of the most acclaimed deejays in Europe. For more information on Leo Martera check the website leomartera.net.

House’n’Roll

Rex Firenze Saturday night Via Fiesolana 25/r www.rexfirenze.com

CITY BEAT

A Factory of Ideas: Fabbricato Viaggiatori

Rex Hosts Martera’s House’n’Roll

Florence News 23

New outdoor space opening

new space called Fabbricato Viaggiatori recently opened inside the central railway station of Santa Maria Novella. The name of the place – located on the Palazzina Reale, a historical building created in 1935 and designed by the Gruppo Toscano of architects, among whom was the renowned Giovanni Michelucci who created the Florence train station – recalls the concept of travelling. Fabbricato Viaggiatori is in fact a special space open to anyone that welcomes travellers to and from Florence while also helping introduce them to the city. It has a restaurant, open all day long from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m., for breakfast, lunch and dinner, that serves food made with traditional Italian products but also opened to

an ‘international taste’. The food served is made with seasonal, fresh, and organic and eco-sustainable ingredients. A wide selection of wines is also available as well as a cocktail bar and a coffee shop. The place is colorful and decorated with a variety of green plants, with a design enriched by a vintage feel, from furniture to lights. Fusing tradition and innovation, Fabbricato Viaggiatori also has a sort of American-style to the sophisticated waiting area for Florence’s main train station. It has free Wi-Fi connection, a selection of books, music, movies and documentaries, events and vernissages, tastings, master-classes and concerts. This new waiting area is awaiting your visit.

Fabbricato Viaggiatori Piazza della Stazione 50

MONDAY•Smoove MONDAY•YAB Smoove WEDNESDAY•UnYversal WEDNESDAY•Mucho Mas FRIDAY•Jam FRIDAY•Lovers & Friends SATURDAY•YABber SATURDAY•YABber Via dei Sassetti 5/r • 055 215160 • www.yab.it • yab.official@gmail.com Facebook:YAB -Official

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Florence News 25

CITY BEAT Italian dance Teatro della Pergola Florence | IT, Florence • May 18, 2019 19:00 FLOOR ROBERT / INQUANTO TEATRO FIREBALL1 Theatre PARC Performing Arts Research Centre Firenze | IT, Firenze

• May 10, 2019 19:00 LIAN GUODONG | LEI YAN I DIDN’T SAY ANYTHING International dance PARC Performing Arts Research Centre Firenze | IT, Firenze • May 10, 2019 19:30 OHT_LITTLE FUN PALACE TALK WITH FABIO CIARAVELLA / studio ++ Projects PARC Performing Arts Research Centre Firenze | IT, Firenze • May 10, 2019 21:00 WU HUI THE GREAT WAVE International dance PARC Performing Arts Research Centre Firenze | IT, Firenze • May 11, 2019 17:00 BODY, IDEOLOGY, CONTEMPORARY FOCUS ON YOUNG CHINESE CHOREOGRAPHERS/Lecture Conferences / meetings

PARC Performing Arts Research Centre Firenze | IT, Firenze

• May 11, 2019 17:30 TIAN TIAN YONG 2 and PEAR GARDEN International dance PARC Performing Arts Research Centre Firenze | IT, Firenze

• May 12, 2019 17:00 EXCHANGE OF PRACTICES WITH YU YANAN AND JACOPO JENNA Performance PARC Performing Arts Research Centre Firenze | IT, Firenze

• May 11, 2019 18:00 YU YANAN PING PONG International dance PARC Performing Arts Research Centre Firenze | IT, Firenze • May 11, 2019 19:30 ER GAO POLLI D’ALLEVAMENTO International dance PARC Performing Arts Research Centre Firenze | IT, Firenze • May 11, 2019 21:00 LIAN GUODONG | LEI YAN I DIDN’T SAY ANYTHING International dance

• May 12, 2019 17:00 TEMPO REALE DATAMIGRATION_1 Music Teatro del Maggio Firenze | IT, Firenze • May 12, 2019 20:00 GIOVANFRANCESCO GIANNINIGIUSEPPE CHIARI. LA LUCE Italian dance PARC Performing Arts Research Centre Firenze | IT, Firenze • May 17, 2019 20:45 MK PARETE NORD

• May 19, 2019 19:00 FLOOR ROBERT / INQUANTO TEATRO FIREBALL Theatre PARC Performing Arts Research Centre Firenze | IT, Firenze • May 21, 2019 21:00 GOBLIN PARTY SILVER KNIFE International dance Teatro Cantiere Florida di Firenze | IT, Florence • May 22, 2019 21:00 OLIMPIA FORTUNI DO ANIMALS GO TO HEAVEN? Italian dance Teatro Cantiere Florida di Firenze | IT, Florence • May 23, 2019 21:00 FRANCESCO SGRÒ COLLAPSE Italian dance Teatro Cantiere Florida di Firenze | IT, Florence • May 24, 2019 19:00 COMPANY BLU SEA RANT Italian dance

PARC Performing Arts Research Centre Firenze | IT, Firenze • May 24, 2019 21:00 ALEXANDRE FANDARD QUELQUES-UNS LE DEMEURENT International dance Teatro Cantiere Florida di Firenze | IT, Florence • May 24, 2019 22:00 MARCO CHENEVIE QUINTETTO Italian dance Teatro Cantiere Florida di Firenze | IT, Florence • May 25, 2019 19:00 COMPANY BLU SEA RANT Italian dance PARC Performing Arts Research Centre Firenze | IT, Firenze • May 25, 2019 21:00 COMPANY BLU SEA RANT Italian dance PARC Performing Arts Research Centre Firenze | IT, Firenze • May 30, 2019 20:45 COMPAGNIA VIRGILIO SIENI LA NATURA DELLE COSE Italian dance Teatro della Pergola Florence | IT, Florence • May 31, 2019 20:45 COMPAGNIA VIRGILIO SIENI LA NATURA DELLE COSE Italian dance Teatro della Pergola Florence | IT, Florence

26 Florence News

CITY BEAT

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Basketball for Life

Meet Simone Berti, captain of All Food Fiorentina Basket JULIA DOWD

s the captain of the basketball team All Food Fiorentina Basket, Simone Berti has great pride in representing his home city playing the sport he loves. Although he was a former player for the Serie A2 league, the second-tier profession-

al Italian basketball league, it was an easy decision for him to play for this third-tier league because his role was not as important then as it is now, Berti said. Having reached his goals in his career, it was the best thing to do for his family. “When they called me to play for Sana Basket of Siena [at 14-yearsold], I understood that maybe I had

found my way in my life, and I did it,” Berti said. “[Basketball] is my work, it is my passion and now my life.” With soccer being the most widely supported sport in Italy, basketball has less importance in the European sports realm compared to American basketball. But that has not stopped it from expanding.

Photo credits: Fabio Bernardini, Firenze Basketblog

One major difference from soccer to basketball is the importance of integrating cultures. Having played with other American players in Serie A2, Berti was able to learn English and the language was a way of bringing the players together. It was important for them to stay together and understand one another whereas Italian soccer players and coaches speak soley Italian, neglecting the cultural integration, Berti said. It is a dream for many Italian basketball players to play for the American professional league, but it is a big life choice and requires great talent and skills to pursue this dream, Berti said. For him, it was important that he stay in his home country to be close to his wife and two children while continuing his basketball career. “I am very important to this project [of elevating Fiorentina Basket] and it is my goal to build this team to be able to reach the second league in three years,” Berti said.

It is a huge honor and challenge for him to be the captain. Everyone is looking at him to represent the pride and good name of Fiorentina Basket. He wants to build a positive future for this team because of his love for the program and his teammates, Berti said. Fiorentina Basket has allowed Berti to remain close to home so when he is not playing basketball, he enjoys spending time with his family and friends. He has also been studying to coach the Euroleague for several years now and hopes to eventually become a coach. Not only is he a role model for the fans and local Florentines, but his teammates have a deep respect for this veteran player. Salvatore Genovese, a fellow Fiorentina player, described Berti as “his heart, my captain.” Fiorentina won their last game at home against LTC S. Giorgio su Legnano 79-68. Their next home game is on Sunday, March 31 at 6 p.m. at San Marcellino Palace.

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Florence News 27

LITERATURE

Dante’s Commedia Misconceived by Dan Brown LEE FOUST

he theme of the Book of Revelations, like the Old Testament Book of Daniel upon which it was based, is thlipsis—a Greek word meaning tribulations. Consequently, our whole Judeo-Christian concept of God’s judgment in the afterlife stems from how we morally react to life’s tribulations. Since Revelations recounts mostly the retributions meted out to the enemies of Christianity and other evildoers at the end of time, a lacuna of early Christian theology was the knowledge of what happens to the souls of the faithful in the interim between death and the last judgment. Into this gap stepped the Vision of St. Paul, an apocryphal biblical text that spawned a considerable but little-read medieval genre of visions recounting journeys into a moralized Christian land of the dead—there are about 100 such texts written in Europe between the 2nd and 14th centuries and it is from them that we take most of our common modern images of hell and heaven, as well as the entire concept of Purgatory. Dante Alighieri’s tripartite epic poem, The Commedia (“Divine” was added to the title later, by Giovanni Boccaccio), is one such encyclopedic, late-medieval account of how the unrepentant are

punished in Hell, how the repentant are cleansed in Purgatory, and how the blessed celebrate their salvation in Heaven. It is the last of the medieval visionary tradition—a text too exhaustive, poetic, and influential to top. As alluring as a descent into the infernal regions at first sounds, however, the poem has nothing at all

to do with any medieval plagues, nor with the threat to anyone’s life, and its villain is a chained-up, non-speaking, and totally ineffectual Satan. Neither the poem’s focus on morality, nor its lack of an active villain, is compatible with the modern thriller genre. We saw it in the film Se7en’s weak Dantesque references, we saw it in

the over-romanticized video game Dante’s Inferno, and we see it yet again in Dan Brown’s mostly pointless attempt to exploit Dante’s poem in his recent thriller, Inferno. Just as modern-day romance plays no part whatsoever in the poet’s spiritual salvation as granted him by the figure of an allegorical, unknown woman who is called “Be-

atrice” because the name signifies that she is a miracle from heaven, “a blessing,” (as I discussed in last month’s article) so the episodic and poetic invocation of divine justice after death presented in the Commedia has no secular stakes—no ticking bombs or terrorist plots. It just doesn’t fit the thriller mold, and that’s why Dan Brown’s Inferno, for me, fails by choosing Dante’s epic as a platform—it grafts two incompatible species of tree together too haphazardly. The basic plot—a mad genius biologist cooking up a virus to save the world from human overpopulation—is interesting enough, but all of the half-baked information regarding the Commedia, Dante’s life, and his love for Beatrice, is needless, awkward, and often just plain wrong. Without it, the novel might also have clocked in at a more readable 250 pages instead of its tedious 462. For a really interesting take on Dante’s epic poem—and some awesome Godfather, Goodfellas, and Sopranos-style gangster shenanigans—try Nick Tosches’s In the Hand of Dante (No Exit Press, 2002). Tosches’s novel juxtaposes the medieval poet’s struggle to complete his poetic vision of Paradise with the bloodbath produced by modern-day gangsters fighting over the newly discovered original manuscript of the Commedia in the poet’s own hand. Now that would be a find worth fighting over!

ENOTECA POZZO DIVINO

Wine-Tasting in a 13th-Century Cellar For 15€ ◆ Via Ghibellina, 144r (near Santa Croce) • 055 24 66 907 www.pozzodivino.eu

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Florence News 29

FOOD&WINE

The ‘New’ Diner

Between change and tradition

Gluten Free

San Gimignano Saffron Ravioli A Recipe by Casanova di Pescille

For pasta: 450 grams of flour, 150 gr egg yolks, 150 gr tomato concentrate 1 cup of extra virgin olive oil from Tuscany, 1 pinch of salt For the stuffing 500 gr sheep’s cottage cheese, 200 gr fresh spinach bacon It sucks enough, Enough nutmeg, 50 gr of Parmesan cheese For pecorino fondue 200 gr mature pecorino cheese, 200 gr fresh cream 0,20 gr Saffron of San Gimignano Method For pasta: knead flour, egg rises, tomato concentrate, oil and salt in a planetary hook. Once ready to rest for about 30 minutes. With the help of a matematello spread the compound in rectangles. For filling: thoroughly crush the spinach and combine with the previously privately-owned ricotta of whey, then add all the other ingredients and mix the compound Once the sheet is laid out, form filling pans and close them by taking care to remove the air. For the fondue: cut the pecorino to cubes and put it in a saucepan with cream and saffron, let it soften for a few hours, then put everything to bake to bath Maria until the cheese is loose. Cook the ravioli in plenty of salted water and season with the cheese fondue www.casanovadipescille.com

nown for being the first American diner to open in the city, since 2004 The Diner has been the place in Florence where you can find a real American hamburger. This spring the restaurant, which has recently changed its ownership, will be introducing some important novelties such as new typical Italian dishes and a new selection of craft beers produced by some of the most renowned local breweries. Among the dishes that will be on the new menu is a hamburger made of 70% beef and 30% pork, topped with fresh cheese and caramelized onions, with fennel seeds inside. Other novelties include the strengthening of the Wifi and TV placement and the introduction of Sky to provide a wide range of sports coverage including baseball, basketball, and soccer, to cater to the needs of guests looking for a place to unwind. The restaurant’s upper floor can become a

study room for students, a quiet space to catch up on work all while in easy reach of comfort food that may serve as a quick reminder of home. The Diner also supports local markets that bring their produce to the restaurant fresh every morning. The restaurant, which is located on Via dell’Acqua 2 and is open from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. every day, is also planning on a more entertaining nightlife to attract local and foreign students alike.

The Diner Via Dell’Acqua 2 Facebook: TheDinerFirenze Tel.: + 39 055 29 07 48

ating out can become an unpleasant experience for those who suffer from food allergies. One of the most common food allergies in the world is celiac disease. Thanks to the commitment of its owners, who have attended the courses organized by the Associazione Italiana Celiachia (the Italian Association specialized in celiac diseases), alongside a traditional menu the restaurant Trattoria Da Garibardi offers a special gluten free menu with pasta, bread, pizza, as well as many other dishes. The restaurant has a very large kitchen and special tools that allow to prepare gluten free food without any danger of contamination. Thanks to this special background and commitment, the typical, tasty Tuscan cuisine is now accessible even to those who suffer from celiac disease.

Trattoria Da Garibardi Piazza del Mercato Centrale 38/r Tel.: + 39 055 212267 www.garibardi.it

THE V

Tusc

NEW

I’ GIRONE DE’ GHIOTTI

Tuscan Panini, Artisanal Beers and Wine Tasting NEW SANDWICH FOR LEONARDO’S 500TH DEATH ANNIVERSARY!

Via dei Cimatori 23/r (near Piazza Signoria)

30 Florence News

TUSCANY

A Journey Through Human Cruelty

he Torture and Death Penalty Museum displays more than 100 tools designed to torture and kill. Some of these tools are extremely rare, dating to the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. They include the notorious ‘iron maiden,’ the guillotine, rack, torture chair and the chastity belt. Also on display are lesser-known sophisticated devices, such as the ‘heretic’s fork,’ the ‘noisemaker’s fife,’ the ‘Spanish spider’, and flaying instruments.

Via San Giovanni, 82 & 125 San Gimignano Open daily: 10 a.m.-8 p.m. 0577-940526, 055-940151 Tickets: Full €10 Concessions: €7; Groups: €5 www.museodellatortura.it

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Galleria Gagliardi Presents Cipriani

Helmut Newton’s Photography T

he Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in San Gimignano presents the exhibition Helmut Newton. San Gimignano until Sept. 1. The exhibit showcases 60 photographs that account for Newton’s art from the beginning of his career in the 1970s until the end of the 1990s. The oldest photography, a portrait of Andy Wharol made for the magazine Vogue, dates 1974. The most recent, a Leni’s Riefenstahl’s portrait, was made in 2000. Among the portraits of famous personalities on display are those of Gianni Agnelli (1997), Catherine Deneuve (1976), Anita Ekberg (1988), Claudia Schiffer (1992), and Gianfranco Ferrè (1996). A high-fashion photographer born on Oct. 31, 1920 in Berlin, Germany, Helmut Newton’s subversive approach to subject matter brought an edge to his editorial spreads. Underlying his bold images is a decadence and cruelty woven into complex stories of sex and power. It is this quality to his art that endures and has left its mark on the history of fashion photography. “There must be a certain look of availability in the women I photograph; I think the woman who gives the appearance of being available is sexually much more exciting than a woman who’s com-

pletely distant. This sense of availability I find erotic,” Newton said of his models. Due to his Jewish heritage, Newton had to flee his home country during the Nazi rise to power. In the 1940s, he settled in Australia, where he set up a studio. Throughout his career, he photographed models such as Cindy Crawford and Charlotte Rampling for several well-known magazines, including Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Playboy, and Elle.

Helmut Newton Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea Via Folgore 11, San Gimignano Open from 10 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Until Sept. 1 Entrance €9 (reduced €7) Sangimignanomusei.it

n Federica Cipriani’s painting the flock, following an abstraction process from the form, becomes a fluid harmony in movement filling each piece with a different meaning. On display at the Galleria Gagliardi in San Gimignano, Cipriani’s paintings are, in fact, a constant search of the artist’s own state of harmony: colors, shapes, repetition, emptiness, chaos, and order. In her creations, made of hundreds paper butterflies or birds suspended in nails of different heights and arranged on different composition levels, the paper is the main material, perfect tradeoff between resistance and frailty. Founded by Stefano Gagliardi back in 1991, the gallery today bears no resemblance to the original building apart from a section of the floor made up of oak boards, covering a hole which once enabled repairs to the under-

Meet Vernaccia

ante Aligheri, Giovanni Boccaccio, Pope Martin IV, Lorenzo the Magnificent, Michelangelo, just to name a few of the greats that praised the most famous wine produced in San Gimignano. A delicious white wine, that is even referenced in Dante’s legendary “Divine Comedy.” First mentioned in tax documents from 1276, Vernaccia is not only one of Italy’s most esteemed wines, but also one of its oldest. The wine boasts a bold straw-yellow color and a flavor that delicately combines floral and fruity. Perfectly suited for fish and white meats in particular, Vernaccia can be enjoyed even more when combined with complimenting cuisine.

Wine Tour Chianti Classico (Every day, transportation included)

TRUFFLE HUNTING WALKING TOUR VIA FRANCIGENA ART AND FOOD IN VOLTERRA 3393817394 www.spreadyourwings.it www.palagetto.it

side of cars and machinery in the absence of a ramp. This work of art was created by the previous owner, Dino Conforti, and has been left in his memory. Since 1991, the exhibition area of the gallery has been extended and the gallery has now become a cultural reference for the promotion and sale of contemporary art. Every work is chosen directly from the studios of artists who constantly experiment new solutions through their research, renewing their approach and skills.

Federica Cipriani Galleria Gagliardi Via San Giovanni 57 San Gimignano Open every day until 7:30 p.m. galleriagagliardi.com

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Florence News 31

TUSCANY

Gelato Classes with a World Champion

San Gimignano Prepares Harvest Festival Fiera delle Messi returns June 14-16

ormer Gelato World Champion, Sergio Dondoli, offers gelato classes for adults and kids alike in his hometown San Gimignano, in the very heart of Tuscany. Gelato was invented in this region thanks to the famous Florentine architect Bernardo Buontalenti, who in 1500 amazed the Medici family with gelato made from fruit and zabaione before Caterina de’ Medici, who was married to King Henry II, and introduced this precious Florentine dessert to the Royal French Court. From here, gelato spread across all of Europe.

Dondoli opened his famous Gelateria di Piazza in San Gimignano in 1992. In 2011, his Gelateria was the only Gelato-shop mentioned by Lonely Planet among the ten “Best Gourmet Places in the World.” In his career as a gelato-maker Dondoli has earned many prestigious awards, including the Master of Art & Craft Living National Treasure Award in 2016. Since last year, he offered his knowledge and creative energy to whoever, from all over the world, is willing to learn the secrets of preparing real Gelato.

Each class consists of an introduction to Gelato History and to its ingredients. It follows the preparation of a Fiordilatte Gelato made with raw milk and seasonal fruit. The best part of these classes is the end, when groups can eat the gelato they prepared. Via del Castello 15 San Gimignano www.dondoligelatoclass.com +39 393 5448969

modern version of the Harvest Festival of the Middles Ages, in which towns of central Italy celebrated the harvest season with music, dances and jousters, every year on the third weekend of June the festival recreates the magic atmosphere of the happiest moment of the year. Organized by the Cavalieri di Santa Fina – an association that gets its name name from Fina dei Ciardi, patron of the city, and that has the goal of celebrating the past of San Gimignano – the event begins on Friday, June 14 at 9:30 p.m. in Piazza Duomo and goes until 11 p.m. with dances, drums and knight exhibits. On Saturday festivities start at 4 p.m. with a reproduction

of a military camp in the Rocca di Montestaffoli. A colorful costume parade will arrive in Piazza Duomo at 4:30 p.m., marking the start of other attractions and events that wil end at night with music and dancing in the piazza. The festival begins at 11 a.m. with a medieval market in the Piazza delle Erbe. In the afternoon there is a parade with more than 500 men dressed in handmade costumes, and a joust and a flag-thrower show. At 7 p.m. the Joust of Bastioni will reward with a gold blaze the knights of the best of the four borough’s contrade. The festival will end on Sunday at around 7:30 p.m. with a circle dance involving all participants and visitors.

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32 Florence News

TUSCANY

300 Years of Chianti

A guide to understand Chianti Wine

hree hundred years ago, on a Saturday, Cosimo III, Grand Duke of Tuscany, issued a decree for which Chianti wine could only be that produced in the Chianti region between Florence and Siena. By that day, the attempts of rival producers to imitate Chianti and even use its label had already been too many: something had to be done, and that something was creating the first legally enforceable wine appellation. Over the centuries, Tuscany’s land and cli-

mate had combined with methods of production typical only of the region at the base of the quality of the wine. In no place other than Chianti could such a good wine be produced. And for this reason, the Medici gave Chianti the label that our wine bears to this day. The decree defined the 175.000-acres of what still today is Chianti Classico, the area of wine pilgrims that today produces some 35 million bottles of wine per year, 80% of which exported all over the

world. Since 1716, Chianti has escalated in power and prestige to become one of the best types of wine produced all over the world. Or perhaps, the best, at least according to most Tuscans still today so proud of their most renowned product. However, the decree of the Medici was not enough to avoid some sort of brand confusion which producers have never ended battling between geographically restricted wine and the less distinguished simple Chianti made in other parts of Tuscany. In the early 20th century, when the fame of Chianti wine was increasing year by year and its production territory was no longer able to meet a growing national and foreign demand, wine began to be made outside the Chianti zone delimited in 1716, which was also called “Chianti” or “Chianti-style” wine. To defend their own wines, in 1924 makers of the original Chianti founded the Consortium for the Protection of Typical Chianti Wine and its Mark of Origin. The trademark chosen was the Black Rooster, historic symbol of the Chianti Military League and depicted by famous painter Giorgio Vasari on the ceiling of the Salone dei Cinquecento at Palazzo Vecchio in Florence. In 1932, a specific ministerial decree was issued to distinguish the Chianti made in its zone of origin by adding the adjective “Classico.” Since then, Chianti wine produced outside the geographical area has been called “Chianti” while Chianti Classico is the wine made within

MAY www.florencenews.it the original production zone, the one known since 1716 as “Chianti.” Following is a guide to understand the distinctions between the various Chianti.

Chianti

Bottles simply labeled as Chianti are made from a mix of grapes from several regions in the Chianti region. The main difference with generic Chianti and the rest, is that the minimum percentage of Sangiovese allowed is 75%, with the rules permitting white grapes to be blended in. Adding white grapes to a red wine isn’t as crazy as you might think! The French have been adding Viognier to their Syrah in the Rhone region of France for decades. The reason they do so is to

soften the tannin in the Syrah, and to add what they call “aromatic complexity”. The addition of white grapes into the Sangiovese mix however, is less about romance and

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more about cutting costs. As with all Chianti’s, there are some minimum rules set, i.e. the minimum alcohol level in regular Chianti is 11.5%, and grape harvest yields are “restricted” to 4 tons per acre.

Chianti Classico

The Chianti Classico region is central to the region and arguably the most famous. In 1996 it was awarded DOCG (Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita) status, in an effort to raise its perceived quality. All Italian DOCG wines are actually tasted and analyzed in a lab in order to meet government approval. Kind of like SAT exams for wine. If the wine passes, it will receive an individually numbered governmental seal across the cap or cork. Chianti Classico bears a black rooster on the neck of the bottle. This is a conglomeration of Chianti producers whom have setup the Consorzio Chianti Classico, in a bid to improve the quality and reputation of the region. The minimum percentage of Sangiovese allowed in Chianti Classico is 80%, with only red grapes permitted to make up the rest of the blend. Producers can of course choose to make their wine up to 100% Sangiovese, but it’s the exception and not the rule. The alcohol content must also be at least 12%, and the wine must spend at least 12 months aging in oak barrels. The Chianti Classico region covers an area of around 100 square miles, and the grape harvest is restricted to no more than 3 tons per acre.

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Vin Santo

Vin Santo (literally meaning “holy wine”) is a style of Italian wine dessert typical of Tuscany. Vin Santo wines are often made from white grape varieties such as Trebbiano and Malvasia, though Sangiovese may be used to produce a rosè style known as “Occhio di Pernice” or eye of the partridge. Vin Santo is described as a straw wine since is often produced by drying the freshly harvested grapes on straw mats in a warm and well ventilated area of the house. However several producers dry the grapes by hanging on racks indoors. Though technically a dessert wine, the wines can vary in sweetness levels from bone dry (like a Fino Sherry) to extremely sweet.

TUSCANY

Discover Colle Val d’Elsa

‘The Italian Way of St. James’

Chianti Riserva / Classico Riserva

If you guessed that Riserva is Italian for Reserve you would be correct! Riserva on a bottle of Chianti is your first clue that the bottle of Chianti you’re holding, stands head and shoulders above the rest. Riserva is a term that can be applied not just to Chianti, but to plenty of other Italian wines such as Brunello and Barolo. Of course, just to make things difficult, it has various meanings, but Riserva on a Chianti just means that the wine spends a minimum of two years (in oak) and three months (in the bottle) aging. The alcohol content must also be at least 12.5%. Chianti Riserva is also a great candidate for additional bottle aging, depending on the producer and vintage.

Florence News 33

Via Francigena, among ancient routes and modern “pilgrims”

ver 25,000 people, half of whom are Italian, walked at least a part of the Via Francigena last year. Compared to the number of people who walked that stretch in previous years, this is encouraging — an improvement due to the increasing number of bed & breakfasts along the route and to the efforts to promote the route made by the region of Tuscany who has been trying to transform it in a sort of Italian version of the Spanish Way of St. James — but that could, and should, be improved in the future. It was this the conclusion of Italian newspaper Il Fatto Quotidiano that recently published a reportage on the route. According to Il Fatto, the potential of the route are huge and, if well exploited, could make it the Italian version of the St. James Way. First documented as the Lombard Way and then the Frankish Route in 725, according to the travel records of Willibald, Bishop of Eichstätt in Bavaria, the route was named Via Francigena in 876, given its crossing with French territories (Francia, in Italian) at the Abbey of San Salvatore al Monte Amiata in Tuscany and was used

throughout the Middle Ages by pilgrims headed to Rome from the North, particularly from France. Nearly 400 kilometers of the Via pass through Tuscany, accounting in part for the development of a number of the region’s historic settlements and trade and religious centers. Today, tourists and history buffs can enjoy the cultural mecca that is Via Francigena by following one or all of the 15 Tuscan legs, beginning with the journey from Passo della Cisa to Pontremoli and ending with the route from Radicofani to Acquapendente. The Via passes through San Gimignano and its Fortress of Montestaffoli. Originally a castle for the Lombard Astolfo and later a Dominican Convent, the fortress took on a defensive role in the 14th century while under the threat of attack from Siena.

To book a trip to the Via Francigena: www.spreadyourwings.it

ts name means “Hill of Elsa Valley”, where “Elsa” is the name of the river which crosses it. Today, Colle di Val d’Elsa is internationally renowned for the production of crystal glassware and art (15% of world production), largely produced in the industrial lower town. The area was settled by man from at least the 4th millennium BC, but first mentions of the city are from the 9th century AD. In 1269 it was the seat of a famous battle during the wars of Guelphs and Ghibellines and in 1479 it was besieged by Neapolitan troops. From the 14th century it was a possession of Florence and the Grand Duchy of Tuscany until the unification of Italy in 1860. In the 20th century it became

an important industrial center. During World War II it was bombed by Allied aircraft. The oldest part of the town is the “colle alta”, the higher part, with a well preserved medieval center. The town developed along the river from the 11th century onwards, building an artificial canal to power various industrial activities, such as wheat mills and paper factories. The city is also famous as the birthplace of sculptor and architect Arnolfo di Cambio.

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Ten Commandments For Tourists

group of 50 local tour guides transcribed a series of rules for tourists in Florence, which hit the headlines of local media last month. The initiative, called “l’Armata pacifica” (literally, The Peaceful Army), came last year shortly after Mayor Dario Nardella took measures to prevent tourists from picnicking and camping in front of the city’s iconic churches

by hosing down their steps. Summer, perhaps due to the severe heat, is surely the period of the year in which tourists most frequently misbehave. We have thus decided to take inspiration from this idea and rearrange the ten rules into commandments. Respectful tourists should obey them strictly, as if they had in fact come from the mouth of the almighty Lord above.

Thou shalt not crowd around the street vendors. Thou shalt not feast barbarically by the churches, basilicas, or other sacred grounds. Thou shalt not abandon your masses of rubbish on the streets. Honor the sidewalks and streets with strolling, not with your luggage. Thou shalt not ask for canals in Florence, for thou shalt not find them. Honor the que for the taxi. Thou shalt not gratuitously indulge in selfies in front of Palazzo Vecchio or other monuments . Thou shalt not use the sidewalks as toilets or urinals. Thou shalt not use the fountains as a shower. Thou shalt not shout aggressively - even if intoxicated.

Cooking Classes In Tavola aims to spread the rich food and wine culinary traditions of Italy and the Tuscany region through an incredible variety of dishes and recipes to all interested in learning the secrets behind the traditional Italian kitchen. With this intent to promote their knowledge, In Tavola organizes several opportunities for professionals and beginners to participate in cooking and baking lessons with the guidance of professional Chefs in an individual or group setting.

Florence News 35

CITY GUIDE

Campaign Encourages Tourists to Respect Florence

he City of Florence has launched a campaign called #EnjoyRespectFirenze that promotes sustainable tourism to preserve the heritage of Florence by respecting the city and its inhabitants. Following are the main points of the campaign: • Remember you are not allowed to eat food, drink, or lie down on the street or staircases. If you wish to eat something or rest be sure to use proper benches and tables. • Don’t climb the monuments. • Vandalizing monuments, doors, or walls is a serious crime punishable by law. • It is forbidden to be drunk in public. • It is forbidden to litter. Please dispose of any garbage or recyclables in their proper containers. • It is forbidden to eat or drink on the steps of monuments and churches. • Don’t write on churches or works of art • Don’t swim in the fountains • In public places and establishments be sure to wear a shirt. Going shirtless or wearing a swimsuit is not considered enough coverage. • Don’t engage in any behavior that would endanger you or others. • In places of worship, short dresses, shorts, and tank tops generally aren’t allowed. If you plan on visiting any of Florence’s many churches, be sure to dress conservatively, making sure your clothing goes past your knees. • Beware of counterfeit goods. Just a few days ago I saw a scammer trying to sell a single watch on the street, claiming it was a Rolex. Always buy your goods from stores that are clearly marked. Abusive sellers are punishable by law, but you are too if you buy from them. • When it comes to your noise level, please be considerate, especially from midnight to 7 a.m. Don’t disturb the peace with excessive shouting or loud musical instruments. • If you need to relieve yourself, always use a public toilet. Urinating in public and exposing your private parts is strictly forbidden. • There are four information points in the city: Piazza Stazione, via Cavour, Bigallo (piazza Duomo) and at the airport. • In Florence there is fresh water available to the public. Be sure to carry a reusable water bottle.

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A Guide to Florence Gardens Piazzale Michelangelo The perfect place for a panoramic view of the city, especially great for sunsets. Transportation: Take bus line 12 or 13 from the Santa Maria Novella station.

Opening hours: Every day from 9 a.m. until sunset.station.

Giardino dell’Orticoltura Built in 1879 by Giacomo Roster for the Tuscan Horticultural Society. Transportation: Take bus line 2 from Santa Maria Novella station. Address: Via Vittorio Emanuele II, 4 Information: 055 20 06 62 37 (Tue afternoon or Fri morning)

Bardini Gardens

Giardino delle Rose (Rose Garden) A green terrace with different sort of roses from all around world below Piazzale Michelangelo, overlooking the historic center of the city. Transportation: Take bus line 12 or 13 from S.M.N station Address: Viale Giuseppe Poggi 2 (near Piazza Michelangelo)

On the hills near Piazza Michelangelo is one of Florence’s best kept secrets. Visitors will see camellias, viburnum, hydrangeas, glycines and rose trees of various species. Full ticket: €10 Address: Costa San Giorgio, 2 Information: 055 200 66 206

Botanical Gardens Giardino dei Semplici Established by Cosimo dei Medici in 1545, this is one of the oldest parks in the world. It is currently maintained by the University of Florence and boasts a collection of carnivorous plants. Transportation: Take bus line 14 from Santa Maria Novella to bus

Florence News 37

CITY GUIDE stop ‘Ghirlandaio’. Address: Via Micheli Information: 055 27 57 402

from train station S.Maria Novella to bus stop Gioia Address: Via Federigo Stibbert, 26 Info: www.museostibbert.it/en or call 055 47 55 20

Cascine Park

Giardino Torrigiani (Torrigiani Garden)

A daytime hotspot for outdoor activities, much loved by Florentines. Every Tuesday the park hosts the city’s largest open-air market, with a very good offers on local specialties such as cheese, vegetables and honey. Transportation: Take the tram line from the Santa Maria Novella station to the Cascine stop

Frederick Stibbert Villa Transformed from a simple Italian park to a romantic English garden by Giuseppe Poggi, this outdoor space features temples, rock caves, fountains and a mysterious Egyptian temple. Entrance to the garden is free; closed only on Thursdays. Transportation: Take bus line 4

The widest privately owned garden in the city boundaries within Europe. The land was inherited by Marquis Pietro Torrigiani in the early 19 th century. He transformed the park into the ‘english style’ as fashion of the time. The garden still known as a botanical garden with great wealth of plant and tree from all around the world. It can be visited if one of the owners will accompany the visitors during their tours. Transportation: Take the bus line 11 from Piazza San Marco to bus stop ‘Campuccio’. Adress:Via dei Serragli 144 Information: www.giardinotorrigiani.it or call 055-224527

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38 Florence News

CITY GUIDE

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MUSEUMS & MONUMENTS Cappelle Medicee The Old Sacristy, the New Sacristy, with architecture and sculpture by Michelangelo, and the Chapel of the Princes, decorated with inlaid marble and hard stones. P.zza Madonna degli Aldobrandini, 6 Tel: +39.055.294883 Hours: 8.15-17.00 Closed: 2nd, 4th Sunday; 1st, 2nd, 5th Monday of month

Galleria degli Uffizi Open since 1591, the Uffizi hosts one of the most important collections of art of all time, classical sculpture and 13th to 18th century paintings Loggiato degli Uffizi Tel: +39.005.294883 Hours: 8.15-18.50 Closed: Mondays

Palazzo Vecchio Quartieri Monumentali Residence of the Priors, the Signoria and the Medici. Paintings, sculpture, furniture and hangings. Piazza della Signoria Tel: +39.005.2768224 Hours: Sept: 9-24 - Thursdays 9-14 Oct: 9-19 - Thursdays 9-14.

Galleria dell’Accademia Michelangelo’s masterpieces: the David and the Slaves. Sculpture, paintings and casts by various artists. Via Ricasoli, 60 Tel: +39.005.294883 Hours: 8.15-18.50 Closed: Mondays

Museo del Bargello Residence of the Captain of the People, of Justice and ancient prison. Masterpieces of painting and sculpture, plus minor arts. Frescoes by the school of Giotto in the Chapel. Via del Proconsolo, 4 Tel: +39.005.294883 Hours: 8.15-17.00. Closed: 2nd, 4th Sunday; 1st, 3rd, 5th Monday of month.

Battistero di San Giovanni Romanesque temple dedicated to St. John the Baptist, patron saint of the city. Outside, the doors by Ghiberti. Piazza San Giovanni Tel: +39.055.2302885 Hours: 11.15-18.30 - Sundays, 1st Saturday of month 8.30-13.30.

Campanile di Giotto Famous bell tower, a masterpiece of Gothic architecture by Giotto, built between 1334 and 1359. Piazza del Duomo Tel: +39.055.2302885 Hours: 8.30-18.50. Closed: Easter.

Galleria d’Arte Moderna Paintings and sculptures related to the art in Tuscany from the late 18th century to the period between the two world wars. Temporary shows of contemporary art. Piazza Pitti Tel: +39.055 294883 Hours: 8.15-18.50. Closed: Mondays.Fri, Sat, Sun 9.00 18.00. Thur 9.00 - 14.00.

Cupola di Brunelleschi The masterpiece of Brunelleschi. Frescoes of the Last Judgement by Federico Zuccari. Suggestive itinerary to the top of the dome with breathtaking views over the city. Piazza del Duomo Tel: +39.005.2302885 Hours: 8.30-18.20 - Saturdays 8.3017.00pm. Closed: Sundays and Easter day.

Galleria Palatina e Appartamenti Reali The Palatine Gallery occupies the whole left wing of the first floor of the Pitti Palace, which was the residence of the Medici grand-dukes. In 1828, when Tuscany came under the rule of the Lorraine, the most important paintings in the Palace, most of which had been collected by the Medici. Piazza Pitti Tel: +39.055.294883 Hours: 8.15-18.50 Closed: Mondays

Giardino Bardini These beautiful gardens, recently restored, contain many rare plants and specialised areas, such as Italian and English gardens, as well as a fine Baroque staircase, statues, fountains, a small amphitheater and panoramic views. Entrances: Via dei Bardi, 1 r and Boboli Gardens. Info and reservations: Tel: +39.055.294883 Hours: 8.15-18.30 Closed: 1st and last Monday of month.

Museo delle Porcellane Collections of porcelain from reigning royal families. Palazziana del Cavaliere, Boboli Gardens, Piazza Pitti, 1 Tel: +39.055.294883 Hours:8.15-18.30 Closed: 1st and last Monday of month

Museo degli Argenti Summer apartments of the Grand Dukes. It contains vases in hard stone that belonged to Lorenzo the Magnificent, and the jewellery that belonged to the Electress Palatine. Piazza Pitti Tel: +39.055.294883 Hours: 8.15-18.30 Closed: 1st and last Monday of month.

Museo Novecento Italian art of the 20th century, in a journey backwards from the Nineties to the first decades of the century. Piazza Santa Maria Novella Tel: +39.055 286132 Hours: Oct to March- Mon, Tue, Wed, Fri, Sat, Sun 9.00 - 18.00. Thur 9.00 14.00.

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Florence News 39

CITY BEAT

Benheart Launches New Boutique

A Florentine Gift

new one is about to open in America at the beginning of the next year. The clothing and accessories are crafted entirely by hand, the treatment of which is taken from the traditions of Ben’s native town. Customized pieces are also available if you visit one of their locations in Florence.

isconti is an authentic Florentine company which manufactures pens, watches, and other accessories. The company was founded October 20, 1988 by Luigi Poli and Dante Del Vecchio, who shared a passion for high quality pens. The luxury of the work shows in the uniqueness of each piece and the special manufacturing process. If you are looking for a memorable souvenir stop by Pinart, located at Via de’ Guicciardini, 2r, 50125 Firenze, located near Ponte Vecchio.

Benheart Via della Vigna Nuova, 97/r Via Cimatori, 25/r Via Calzaiuoli, 78/r www.benheart.it

PINART

Bring Home Organic Cotton Y

ou can get clothing made from organic wool at the MP shop located on via dei Pilastri 22r. Organic wool is not genetically modified, so it is more environmentally friendly. The growing process allows the soil to remain fertile, and it reduces the need for toxic fertilizers, making organic wool a good choice for the eco-conscious consumer.

enheart is opening a new shop on Florence’s most central street, Via Calzaiuoli. The new shop is part of an expansion that encompasses some of the most important cities in Italy (Florence, Rome, Milan, Verona and Lucca), as well as other around the world (Strasbourg, Kuwait City, and Riyad). The story of this young stylist by the name of Ichan is quite literally derived from his heart. It was after a heart transplant, in fact, that Ishan woke up with a new perspective on life, realizing that he now had the best chance to express his emotions through his hands. That’s why Benheart is synonymous to

‘son of the heart’ - the distinctive logo imprinted on all his leather goods: shoes, bags, jackets and belts. Along with his heart, Ichan takes inspiration from the American way of living, which he describes as vivacious, happy, full of hopes and fueled by dreams. “We look at quality first: quality is our brand’s identity. Then, of course, all our products have to fit and look beautiful when you wear them,” he told us. The first Benheart store opened Florence seven years ago. Since then, he has expanded to nine stores: five of which are in Italy, and one of which is in Tokyo. Soon there will be seven boutiques, as a

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