By Susanne Houfek – Unless you’re a medievalist you may not know Guillaume de Machaut was an important 14th century French poet and composer. Living from 1300-1377, he was prolific, innovative and influential, creating over 400 poems, 235 ballades, 76 rondeaux, 39 virelais and more, both secular and religious, in […]
By Patrizia Passerini – History of Fattoria de Celle Fattoria di Celle is an estate dating back to the 15th century, located in Santomato (near Pistoia) about thirty kilometres from Florence, in the heart of Tuscany. It represents a unique reality, where art, history and nature meet in an amazing venue […]
By Hilary Letwin – Sitting for one’s portrait is not the first thing one might expect to do in self-isolation during a global pandemic. But, that is precisely where I found myself on a recent gray Tuesday morning, posed on my balcony in Vancouver at 9 am, my morning coffee […]
By Andrea M. Gáldy – At the moment several exhibitions explore the many ways, in which the art and artists of the North influenced the production and style of particular works and collections as well as the direction of patronage. While the Duchy of Burgundy had played a major role in […]
By Andrea Gáldy – In sixteenth-century Florence, Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici succeeded his murdered predecessor Alessandro in 1537 and, even though the murderer was a close relative, knew very well what he needed to do to stay alive and in office. He had inherited a guard staffed by Italians […]
By Andrea M. Gáldy - Around the mid 1610s, Hendrick ter Brugghen (1588–1629), Gerard van Honthorst (1592–1656) and Dirck van Baburen (c.1592/93–1624) spent time in Italy, particularly in Rome, where they came face to face with Caravaggio’s work. Similar to what happened to Caravaggisti from other parts of Europe, the […]
By Andrea M. Gáldy – The art world likes to regard Leonardo as someone born a genius with pen and brush in his hands and plans for superlative works of art already forming in his brain. Nonetheless, Leonardo like everyone else had to learn his trade. He was apprenticed to a […]
By Andrea M. Gáldy – Leonardo is dead, but he has never been as popular as now. Almost exactly 500 years ago, he died in France. By then, Leonardo had long left his native Vinci, had been apprenticed to Verrocchio in Florence and had spent time working in Rome, Milan […]
By Andrea M. Gáldy – Thomas Kren with Jill Burke and Stephen J. Campbell (eds.), The Renaissance Nude, Getty Publications: Los Angeles 2018. The Renaissance Nude, The Royal Academy of the Arts, London, 3 March to 2 June 2019, organised by the J. Paul Getty Museum and the Royal Academy […]
By P. F. Sommerfeldt – When you are first driven through the park gatehouse for the Schlosshotel Kronberg nestled in the lower forested slopes of the Taunus Mountains of Germany above Frankfurt and see its grandeur of towers and steep roofs, it is fairly obvious it was originally a royal […]