Year: 2024

Jan 21, 2024

Orsanmichele reopening after 400 days

After 400 days of construction and a €1 million investment, the Orsanmichele complex reopens to the public in a new garb. The Orsanmichele complex in Florence will reopen to the public on January 19, 2024, in a completely refurbished garb, following a total of 400 closure days: the museum closed on December 12, 2022, and the church closed January 16, 2023. The restoration, safety, museum reinforcement, and access improvement projects have cost 1.135,026.43 euros in total.

Jan 20, 2024

Bartolomeo Ammannati and “I’ Biancone”

Benvenuto Cellini is believed to have reacted on the noble's decision as follows: "Wretch marble, if with the Bandinelli you had happened badly, with the Ammannati you had happened one hundred times worse". Cellini accused Ammannati of destroying the beautiful marble, and his phrase is being passed down in Florence today. The monument represents Neptune, the Roman god of the rivers and seas, flanked by satirists, tritons, Giambologna's bronze Nereids, and four horses.

Jan 19, 2024

Michelangelo’s Crucifx

Michelangelo was hosted in the monastery of Santo Spirito in 1492, at the age of seventeen, following the death of his protector, Lorenzo Il Magnifico, who had hosted him during his artistic studies in the enormous family building in via Larga (now Palazzo Medici Riccardi). In this convent, thanks to Piero de'Medici's intercession and the prior's permission, he was able to analyze the corpses from the convent hospital to study anatomy, and it is also because of this experience that Michelangelo became one of the most capable of representing the human body in every smallest detail.

Jan 18, 2024

150 years of St. Ambrogio Market

Based on ideas drawn from the Halles Centrales market in Paris and the Covent Garden and Hungerford markets in London, Poggi proposed a system of covered marketplaces with a huge central market bordered by several smaller local markets. The new central market will be located in San Lorenzo's Camaldoli neighborhood, with additional sites in Sant'Ambrogio and San Frediano (now defunct). The construction of the San Lorenzo market was unpopular since many densely populated, decrepit buildings had to be expropriated and demolished, but this was not the case for the other two markets, where the chosen locations were primarily covered in vineyards or vegetable and flower ga

Jan 17, 2024

Queen Elizabeth’s Salty Secret

The history of commerce is often hidden in plain sight, tucked away within the salt shakers on our dining tables. A fascinating English parchment dated November 16, 1564, reveals a unique privilege granted to a Florentine gentleman named Tommaso Baroncelli.

Jan 16, 2024

Ex St. Paul Hospital in Florence

On the other side of the Basilica of S.M.Novella, we may view the vast edifice with the loggia of the former S. […]

Jan 15, 2024

Palio of Cocchi in Florence

Since the Middle Ages, the square has been the site of festivals, rides, and other races. In 1563, Grand Duke Cosimo I […]

Jan 14, 2024

Miracle’s broth of San Frediano

All this to introduce the famous Sanfrediano broth broth. What does the tripe broth have to do with it? It has to do ... it has to do with why, the only antidote for the above was the nourishment. This black hole in the food space was soothed by the hand of a saint: San Brodo di Trippa. Why San Brodo di Trippa? Well ... I am jokingly say this but, behind ... behind it is not a great petty thing this definition, since, if we consider saint who has made miracles and given love for others during his life, I am not so much outside if I call saint A substance, which gave all this

Jan 13, 2024

Orsanmichele best church in Florence

Talking about Orsanmichele is usually reductive… The stories that pervade this structure, and the symbols that are sprinkled throughout it, are so many that an entire volume may not be sufficient to describe them. In the seventh century, a tiny church dedicated to San Michele Arcangelo was built on the site of the former female monastery dedicated to San Michele, which had huge plots of land cultivated with vegetable gardens.

Jan 12, 2024

Andrea del Castagno was a killer?

We can be sure of one thing: at Vasari Andrea del Castagno was not nice, just at all. In his "lives of the most excellent architects, painters and Italian sculptors", in the chapter dedicated to Andrea del Castagno, Vasari indulges himself: he speaks of the bad character of the painter, calling him "...

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