Here are details of the fantastic Last Supper by Castagno. See yesterday’s post for overview and information. More coming tomorrow.

In roughly the center of Florence stands what is currently known as the title above, a small museum space in what used to be a 14th century convent. This little museum holds a major landmark of Italian Renaissance painting, Andrea del Castagno’s Last Supper fresco. Amazingly, Badari seems not to know of this work in his Lives if the Artists. That’s probably because it was housed in a female only convent and relatively unknown before the convent was suppressed in the 1860s.

The reason my photos in this post are not edited from my iPhone is because they were taken in Live mode and…it’s a long story. See my previous post entitled True Confessions.

The room conserved is the former refectory of the convent, which harbors the well-conserved The Last Supper, as well as Castagno’s Dead Christ Supported by Two Angels, originally above a door in the convent. The small museum also displays other fresco designs and works by Castagno, Neri di Bicci, Paolo Schiavo, and Raffaello da Montelupo.

Here are some pictures I took of these artworks and the museum in late 2019 while living in Florence.

I recently had some troubles with my laptop which necessitated a visit to the Apple Store. I will do just about anything to avoid going there. I’d rather go to the dentist.

But I went and got my issues resolved and, while there, signed up for a bunch of classes on all my devices. I’ve attended 2 so far.

The first class I went to was about taking photos on the iPhone. I do this every day of the week, every week of the month… I take a lot of pictures on my phone and I think, if I do say so myself, that I get some pretty outstanding shots.

However, I’ve never understood certain things about my photos on iPhone or the app. And, doggone it, the class cleared up those questions! Who’d a thunk it!

Live Photos. What are they? Why do I get them sometimes accidentally and other times I don’t. This was one of my questions. I learned the answers and also found out that the 3000+ Live Photos I’ve been storing on my devices and in the cloud was taking up a lot more space than my non-live photos. The Apple people recommended I save my Live Photos as regular photos, delete the original Live Photo, and save space while still having the image.

So, that’s what I’ve been spending a lot of time doing this month. It’s time-consuming, but I feel its necessary.

And, guess what! By so doing the above, I’m coming across a lot of photos I intended to post here but never did because it was the final months of 2019, pre-Covid, and I was traveling around Italy a lot and taking a ton of photos (some of them inadvertently Live), and never did anything with them. Even when Covid hit and I was locked in my apartment in Florence and bored. I shoulda done this then. Hindsight.

So, I’m going to be writing many posts over the next few weeks having to do with sights I’ve seen in Italy and France over the past few years. I hope you enjoy looking at them. I enjoyed living them, even if I am doing a lot of administrative work now to get them sorted!

I don’t know. But, I’ve always loved it since I was in elementary school, trading paper Valentines with classmates.

I’m celebrating the day with a cup of tea. This tea has an astringent taste but a beautiful color!

Forced this winter, I’ve enjoyed every moment of watching these energetic little bulbs spring up and blossom. I like playing around with editing the flowers and so, here’s one last look before they fade away. Spring is coming!

If you stay tuned to this pretty and informative video of Paris’s Palais Royale, you’ll hear the history of the restaurant as well as anecdotes about the French Revolution. Also some tips about a zoom lens! Corey Frye provides it all!

At the 27 minute mark in the video, you’ll hear a very short but interesting history of restaurants.

In 1952, photographer Ruth Orkin was on her way back to NYC from a photo shoot in Israel. She stopped in Europe and while in Florence, Italy, she met another young American, Jinx, and together they took some random shots around the city. The one above is without question the most famous of the series.

While I adore the picture above, I equally love this one:

As a woman who spent a lot of time looking at and loving the city of Florence in her 20s, I can relate to both of the pictures above.

And then there is this one, which tells the opposite side of the coin:

https://www.orkinphoto.com/photographs/american-girl/

Boy, can I relate to the exhaustion portrayed. Looking at art and wandering the city produces profound exhaustion! And Stendhal Syndrome as well.

When I first visited Florence in the late 1970s, the beaded curtains still served as “screens” keeping flies and sunlight out of store interiors. The same as above, the shot taken in 1952. You don’t find that anymore.

Below are 2 informative videos that will capture the moment for you.