The mystery of Il Duomo
You’ll need an hour to watch this, but it is well worth it.
Every day spent in Florence
Is a good day.
Ah, Italia!
“He who hath lived in this country [Italy] can enjoy no distant one. He breathes here another air; he lives more life.”
Walter Savage Landor, Imaginary Conversations
Filippo Brunelleschi in 12 minutes
Did you know? Firenze
When looking through a photograph album at the Alinari archives, I was shown this photograph of the Duomo in Florence taken sometime before 1874 when the album was created.
When you zero in on the facade of the Duomo, things get very interesting. Instead of the brightly colored and highly embellished facade on the cathedral that one sees nowadays in Florence, this photograph reveals that the facade was left unfinished and unembellished after the Renaissance.
The following photo, of the Duomo today, shows the facade that was added to the building in the 1870s.
The reasons why Italian cemeteries are so interesting to visit
Wealthy middle-class Italians of the 19th century seldom established art collections as their counterparts did in Britain and Germany. Their most conspicuous expenditure on visual art was on funerary sculpture, on the creation of vast, ornate, often beautiful monuments to deceased members of their families.
Tomb of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Florence
The erection of these was traditionally a private matter even for public figures – the Venetian Republic did not provide them for its doges – except in the case of remote heroes such as Dante, who was awarded a dismal cenotaph in Florence’s Santa Croce in 1829.
The state concerned itself with public statues of heroic and exemplary men, works that could be seen not in a chapel or a cemetery but in the middle of a square.
Gilmour, David (2011-10-25). The Pursuit of Italy: A History of a Land, Its Regions, and Their Peoples (Kindle Locations). Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition.
San Miniato al Monte, a Gothic masterpiece
On one of the beautiful hills surrounding Florence sits this masterpiece of Italian Gothic architecture. It is perfect. Here are some pictures taken last winter. I’m a little late in getting posts written!
Not only is the hike to the church worthwhile, but the views of lovely Florence are breathtaking as well.
Did you know? Venezia
Sometimes I pick up the best information in the most off-hand ways. When I had a guided tour through the Alinari archives in Florence, I was shown this image dating to 1874 or earlier in Venice.
Look carefully at that gondola. According to my guide, gondolas were enclosed back in the day. Much more private than today, when anyone can see anybody in any gondola.
I would have liked to be in the olden days (but I am happy we have antibiotics now!).
Have you had your Aperol spritz yet today?
get back, lauretta! 
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