Italia magazine Tuscany & Florence Guide 2016

what is a cathedral?

Since the advent of Christianity, cathedrals have been important not just for religious purposes and for the faithful, as one would suppose, but also in a secular sense. They were a spectacular display of the city’s power and wealth where they are located. There are many churches in every Christian city, but only one cathedral. The cathedral is a church of the highest rank; it is where the bishop has his seat. Indeed, the name cathedral derives from the Greek word kathedra (in Latin, cathedra), meaning chair, seat, or throne. The cathedral is the main central church for a diocese. The other churches in a city are parish churches (responding directly to the cathedral administration and run by a parish priest and some clergy), or connected to a specific monastic or…

the rape of the sabines

GIAMBOLOGNA (1529-1608) WAS FOREIGN, from Douai in northern France, which was then part of Flemish territory. Jean Boulogne became Italianised to Giambologna, as was the fashion, when he made the Italian peninsula his home. He arrived in Florence via Rome, where he had spent two years after finishing an apprenticeship in Antwerp. Giambologna went to Rome to study and learn from the great masters, both living and from the past. He studied the ideal beauty in the ancient statues and the energy and emotion of the works by Michelangelo, who held artistic court at the time and was revered more than anybody else. In Rome he was lucky to meet a patron in the Florentine wealthy banker Bernardo Vecchietti, who subsequently provided him the introduction needed to enter the artistic circle…

gourmet guide to florence

Someone once told me that to live a happy life I should surround myself with beauty. Well, if I was to take up that advice seriously I would move to Florence. Florence exudes and breathes beauty. Let me rephrase that: Florence is beauty. Many theorists, dating back to Plato, saw beauty as “a property of an object that produces a pleasurable experience,” and, of course, with pleasure comes hedonism. Florence really is a place for those who believe in hedonism because it’s not a place to focus on a career of business but a collection of artists, philosophers, musicians, bourgeoisie and people who like to create or admire. Let me give you an example of why this city allows you to be, or even makes you, hedonistic. Ice cream is renowned around…

luca della robbia – showing his true colours

IN THE EARLY 1400S LUCA DELLA ROBBIA created a new artistic decorative option for sculptural and surface decoration: coloured tin-glazed terracotta, and it was a hit! It could be produced more quickly than sculpture in marble and stone, was less costly, and the glaze over the terracotta made it durable enough to weather the elements, and so compatible for internal altarpieces and external decoration. This technique was the ingenious response to an increasingly sophisticated and economically rich lifestyle concerned more and more with man’s earthly existence, external appearance and secular beauty. How? Firstly, since the 13th century, many Italian city states and urban centres had been experiencing renovations due to the increase in trade, production and wealth. There existed great civic rivalry amongst these centres, all of them vying to be…

christian mosaics

MOSAICS DAZZLE IN CHRISTIAN BUILDINGS due to the luxurious splendour created by the gold tiles and the brilliance from the rich colour glass. The individual square-shaped tiles are called tessarae (pl.) from the Greek meaning four-sided. The gold tessarae were made by sandwiching 24 carat gold leaf between two slabs of glass which were then melded together in the kiln. Often the mosaics on the walls and ceiling were ungrouted, unlike those on the ground, so as to maximise the penetration and reflection of light generated from the surface. Moreover, the dazzle factor was, and still is today, often compounded by laying the tesserae at slightly different angles to the surface so as to really catch light from all angles. Christian mosaic decorative cycles were often in highly closed spaces and…

the high life

Built in 1880 and set on the banks of the Arno river, this former old Florentine leather factory was acquired in 1999 by the renowned architect Claudio Nardi, who is responsible for the interior design in arguably the most fashionable shop in Florence – Luisaviaroma – and who for a number of years now has created interiors for the likes of Valentino and Dolce & Gabbana in New York and Milan. Nardi occupied the site for six years, using it both as work and living quarters before he returned to the city centre. While he was there he decided to divide the formerly utilitarian space into nine selfcontained studios ranging in size from 300 to 1,000 square feet. This is Riva Lofts. In Riva Lofts, Nardi, with his hostess daughter Alice, has…