Fresco painting
Mantegna and Guilio Romano make art and love in Mantova
April 9, 2012 | 
Author Andrea Mantegna 1431 – September 13, 1506
Andrea Mantegna came originally from the Isola di Carturo, near Padua, which was then part of the Venetian Republic. However many of his earliest artistic studies were of Florentine Art, as many Florentine painters of the early Renaissance, such as Paulo Uccello and Filippo Lippi also worked in Padua.
Through the influence of his master, Squarcione, to whom he was apprenticed aged only 11, he also became a student of Roman sculpture but he had moved on from Squarcione’s influence before he was 18 years old and by 1460 he was appointed as court artist, where he was paid the then huge salary of 75 lire a month, and was the first “artist in residence” to move with his family to live in the City.
Over Easter weekend I drove up from Florence to the beautiful historic town of Mantua (Mantova in Italian) to take a closer look at some of his famous work found in the town – such as the Camera del Sposi (Wedding chamber) in the Palace of the Dukes of Gonzaga.
This fabulous room certainly has the “wow” factor! You really feel you have entered another world as you come through the door, and see – and almost feel – these life size people and animals surrounding you in the bright colours of a Renaissance fresco.
The Marquis of Mantova, Ludivico di Gonzaga, who comissioned the work in the 1470′s is pictured making decisions about taking most of his family to Milan after receiving a note about the fatal illness of the Visconti of Milan for whom he had spent some time fighting as condottiero from 1446, although he had later spent time in the service of Venice in the league formed with Florence against Milan.
Mantegna himself had a rough ten years after this commission was completed and the Marquis and his wife died. Of interest to the City of Florence however, is that when he finally did receive new commissions after the election of Francesco 11 di Gonzaga Mantegna returned to his earlier interest and collected more Roman sculptures – and these were donated to Lorenzo de Medici when the Florentine leader visited Mantua in 1483. Some of these Roman busts were shown in January 2012 in an Exhibition held just outside the Uffizi called “Mai Visti” ( never seen) – they were well worth seeing!
The ancient walled City of Mantua itself is worth a visit for the architecture as well as the art work – do not be put off by all the evidence of industry outside the city walls – inside is a little haven almost surrounded (on three sides!) by water from artificial lakes, fed by the river Po, which were created during the 12th century.
Anyone visiting Mantua could do worse than stay in the central B&B we found called Casa Al Teatro – very clean and relatively inexpensive.
The other interesting painting in Mantua that also takes you into another world is the famous Mannerest monster painting in the Room of the Giants in the Palazzo de Te - not such a beautiful world as ancient Mantua, because these Giants, who were not very pretty in the first place, are being destroyed for their insurrection against Zeus by him hurling a hail of thunderbolts at them!!
Children were standing open mouthed at the spectacle but like so many of these Mannerist ceilings looking up at them does cause a pain in the neck!
Rather more elegant and beautiful creatures in the palace are the huge stallions at stud painted on the walls of the sala dei cavalli in the Palazzo del Te.
And whilst on the subject of studs – another famous room – the Camera di Amore e Psiche was painted by a friend of Titian, called Guilio Romano and was designed to arose passion in the visiting nobles!!
Okay – ‘Nuff said!!
Santa Felicita and Mrs Macabee – two tragic mothers
12.3.12
Santa Felicita and Mrs Macabee – two tragic mothers – and much confusion!
It seems to me a right old muddle – two grieving mothers – both suffering terrible losses of all their seven children in front of their eyes – but a lot of confusion for centuries about who was who!
Yesterday I visited the Santa Felicata Church in Florence – the nearest church to the Pitti Palace this church was the place of worship for the Medici Grand Dukes and Princes who sat in the Vasari Corridor attached -naturally shielded from view by a thick gate!
Santa Felicita encouring her children to martyrdom
As the name suggests the Church is dedicated to Santa Felicita – pictured above – she was a far from happy Roman lady about whom the only thing known for certain is that she was buried in the Cemetery of Maximus, on the Via Salaria on a 23 November after having died with her children.
Legend presents her as the mother of seven Christian martyrs whose feast is celebrated on 10 July. A devout Christian Felicita’s charitable works and unshakeable faith annoyed the pagan priests to the extent that she found herself facing the wrath of Emperor Marcus Aurelius. The Emperor tried in vain to persuade her and her sons to renounce Christ and follow pagan gods but even under pain of death for herself and her children she wouldn’t budge – her only request being to allow her to die last so she could exhort each of her children to keep the faith whilst they were killed. So this incredible woman went with each of her children to oversee their various grizzly deaths – sustained by the belief that this way they were going to a better place – before she too was martyred.
That’s not a nice story but one of the key paintings in the church of Santa Felicita is Antonio Ciseri‘s Martyrdom of the Seven Maccabees (1863), depicting a woman grieving over the bodies of her dead sons.
This painting could well be set in Rome with Marcus Aurelius looking on – but the Maccabees were actually Jewish martyrs in Syria in 166 BCE. A different group of seven sons also put to death one by one in front of their equally encouraging mother , variously known as St. Solomonia, Hannah or Miriam, for refusing to break God’s law and eat pork. Before their tongues were cut out for blasphemy and they were tortured to death each son made an impassioned speech to their persecutor the Syrian King Antiochus IV explaining why their preferred death to dishonour and they were only ”dead under God’s covenant of everlasting life”. Their terrible deaths inspired Jewish dissident Judas (the Hammer)Maccabeus, to lead the Maccabean revolt against King Antiochus.
These Holy Maccabees individual tortures are detailed in the book of 2 Maccabees, which is a deuterocanonical book of the Bible. They are recognized as saints and martyrs for their steadfast faith and as such can also be venerated by Catholics everywhere on their feast day of 1st August.
The Church literature was keen to admit to the confusion, particularly in the case of the painting of Santa Felicita by Neri di Bici (1419-92) in which the children depicted alive in the main painting with their mother Felicita are shown in the predella suffering the tortures described in the Jewish book relating to the Maccabees. Interestingly the faces of the torturers in these paintings have all been scraped off.
The problem of differentiation had continued for many centuries until the two groups where given different saint’s days to accentuate the fact that they were different ladies, in different places, who faced an equally terrible loss.
In the Middle Ages various mystery plays portrayed these Maccabean martyrs, and it is suggested that their terrible martyrdom could have led to the use of the term “macabre“, perhaps also derived from the Latin Machabaeorum.
I should add that the Church of Santa Felicita isn’t only about grieving mothers and death and dismemberment – it is well worth a visit and there are some beautiful early frescoes – particularly if you are lucky enough to get into the Gothic Chapter house and see the Giotto like faces on the 14th Century painting by Niccolo di Pietro Gerini - one of the first painters ever to sign their work ( below)
Oh dear, thinking about it – maybe I should add that it is a Crucification?
Museum di Stefano Bardini – Florence
12.2.12
Everyone knows and visits the Uffizi and Accademia in Florence – and there is so much to see they are always worth revisiting – but when you get the chance to spend more time in the city it is well worth venturing off the beaten track. This is especially true if you have any interest in the Anglo-American expats who settled in Florence after the unification of Italy – and some of the things of value that they brought or restored to the city – or in the Italian Bardini’s case – renovated and sold on to the appreciative Americans.
Stefano Bardini (1854-1922), originally came to Florence to paint at the Florence Academy - but like many artists faced with the genius of Renaissance Florence he gave up his own painting – except for restoration work – and in 1870 started to collect works that had been dismissed as passée in the frenzy of destruction and renewal that possessed Florence when it briefly became the capital of Italy.
Ultimately he became one of the most authoritative Italian antiquarians in Italy – collecting for his own pleasure and displaying them in what became the Palazzo Bardini, situated between Via San Niccolò and Via dei Renai. The Palazzo itself was an example of destruct and renew when he built it in 1880, sympathetically developing it from a collection of other buildings, including a 13th Century church, and unifying them with a new façade.
For his internal restoration Bardini used a variety of old treasures he found in and around Florence and like the other antiquarians collecting in Florence at the time Sir John Temple Leader , Arthur Acton, Herbert Horne and Frederick Stibbert, he decorated his own home with these wonderful artefacts.
When Bardini died he left his collection to the City of Florence and for some time the museum has been closed for restoration. Somewhat amusingly one of the things that has been restored is the colour of the walls – Bardini had chosen a bright blue, which the Florentine’s considered rather poor taste and repainted in beige – however when the work was completed they realised that the stone and terracotta didn’t stand out as well as it had against the blue – so they have put the original colour back…….and with my poor English taste I think it looks rather lovely!
The Blue Wall - as Baldini intended it !
One of the most beautiful things in the collection is this painted terracotta depiction of the Virgin – post Annunciation – dressed as a fashionable early 15th Century Sienese teenager – obviously taking the news very seriously.
Annunication - virgin dressed as a Florentine maiden
Below – from the same Sienese school at around the same period there is another painted terracotta Madonna – this time dressed in Mary’s traditional Royal Blue.
More traditional Mary image - in painted terracotta
And whilst we are admiring beautiful women – this bust of another contemplative lady with golden hair is one of the most striking I have ever seen.
Lovely lady with golden hair
Bardini is also known in Florence for his garden adjacent to the Boboli gardens – with it’s famous flight of baroque steps this Bardini legacy has also been restored and reopened last year and was one of the places we visited during our garden tour in May 2011.
Testamatta – my heads in a whirl!
7.2.12
Another visit to Vincigliata – Sir John Temple Leader’s mock medieval castle! - but although today it was so bitterly cold our welcome was as warm as ever!
Lions at Vincigliata
These days this splendid castle is usually only opened for weddings and courses where in the summer I am sure it is a fantastic venue for such events.
We were fortunate – because it is winter they took our booking for a small group on a private visit including wine tasting – and it went down very well!
The castle itself is stuffed with statues and various eclectic items added to the castle when it was rebuilt over 18 years in the 1850-60′s – as this included the period when Florence was reinventing itself as the Capital of the newly combined country of Italy - Sir John Temple Leader got lucky in his search for quirky historic items partly because – as one of my group commented- there was a lot of treasure to be found in the skips in those days!
Some of these items are original gargoyles and statues that were replaced in the “new” Florence – and as such – although well weather worn – they are probably more valuable than those that they were replaced with!
Another feature within the castle is the contract of sale – literally made in stone – and sadly not very photogenic but if you look closely you can see the Temple Leader coat of arms – now displayed on the wall in one of their rooms.
Contract of sale of Vincigliata to Sir John Temple Leader
Above – the Contract of sale of Vincigliata to Sir John Temple Leader
We also visited the mock medieval tower of the castle that Temple Leader lovingly reconstructed to make his castle look the part. It was from the original tower that young bride to be, Bianca , waited for her lover to ride down from a nearly castle and take her to wife. Unfortunately her family were like the Montagues of Verona – and not keen that their daughter should consort with a rival family – so this poor “Juliet” had full view of her “Romeo” being cut down off his steed and slashed to pieces by her own brother – overcome with grief and despair the young girl threw herself off the tower – and now legend has it that her grieving ghost still walks the castle – and is a good omen if you see her as she offers her protection to other impossible love matches.
Exit from tower to viewing platform
The Tower exit alone was a challenge for our group – not a exactly as model of health and safety design – but the view over Florence and across Tuscany – especially when it is warmer – is worth the effort – and quite a thought that escaping Allied prisoners of war had to make their way through these forests to – hopefully – meet up with the partisans and get guided to the Swiss border.
Views from Vincigliata tower
So onto the wine tasting , which to be honest was a relief after the cold of the castle tower , the castle is now owned by the family of Bibi Graetz - who have entered into the wine making market in the past twelve years – and have created some wonderful wines – one of which, Testamatta ( head spin!) was given a 98% approval rating by the Wine Spectator for their 2006 wine – not bad for beginners!!
Happily my group enjoyed the wines very much – we had some excellent canapes with the tasting and some supplies were purchased for future enjoyment.
I am already looking forward to my next visit in April!
Posted in Fresco painting, Renaissance Art, Social History, Tuscan gardens, Wine tasting, WW2 | 
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Ho passato il pomeriggio a Prato
14.1.12
For three years now I have declared an intention to visit Prato to see the frescos of Fra Filippo Lippi in the Duomo – and finally this afternoon I found the right Cap bus and managed to get myself over there.
Like lots of things in life which we put off in case it is difficult it all turned to be remarkably simple – one bus between the cities and reasonably easy to find the Cathedral – which although pretty seems really small when faced with the inevitable comparison with the gigantic Duomo in Florence.
Prato Cathedral
Inside the Cathedral I found the most famous frescoes of Fra Fillippo Lippi, painted between 1442 and 1460, showing stories of St. John the Baptist and St. Stephen - actually hidden from the congregation at the front of the church because they are in the choir behind the altar.
These, include the wonderfully lithesome figure of Salome dancing, a forerunner of the mysical works of Sandro Botticelli, who was Lippi’s apprentice at the time, ( notice the strange phantom figures behind her ) and the gruesome beheading of St John the Baptist.
The frescos on the left of the Chapel include the scene showing the ceremonial mourning over Stephen’s corpse shown below.
In the Cathedral booklet they claim the man in black looking boldly out at the public second from the right of the fresco is a portrait of the painter, but to me it looks as if he used himself as a model for many of the mourners – including the older women!
Below is a known self-portrait of Fra Filippo!
It was in 1458, whilst working in Prato on a picture for the convent chapel of S. Margherita of Prato, that Fra Fillippo was able to use a reluctant novitiate Nun, called Lucrezia Buti, as his model for the Madonna wearing the special belt that was Margherita’s gift to the city. Lucrezia was already looking for a way out of the convent life and easy prey for his notorious winning ways and so became for some years his “quasi” wife – living with him together with her sister Spinetta in his house and bearing his two children, Filippino and Alessandra, before returning, perhaps in despair of fidelity, to the convent – but who knows? – there are so many versions of this love story, including a suggestion that Fra Fillippo was actually poisoned by Lucrezia’s family in preference to the shame of her marrying him!
What is certain is that Lucrezia had a beauty that transcends time and she was a lot prettier as a model than Fillippo was!
In the museum “I Tesori della Citta” there are other paintings of the Madonna in which Lucrezia was clearly the model, and Filippino probably the baby Jesus, – including the Nativity with St George (without dragon) and Anglo-Scottish saint Vincent Ferrer - (whom i doubt be delighted to have the English Patron Saint in situ without St Andrew?!)
Another feature of this painting barely visible on this picture is the Domeni cane – a small dog with the sheep near the Virgin’s head, which symbolises the Dogs of God order that St Vincent was part of.
Of particular interest is the recently restored painting from the chapel of S.Margherita of Prato that began the relationship between Fra Filippo and Nun Lucrezia.
Also in this picture, kneeling with four other “good men” of Ceppo is the donor, the Merchant of Prato – Francesco di Marco Datini – made famous again in the 20th Century through the book of his letters edited by Iris Origo, whose home in Val d’Orcia, La Foce, we hope to visit again in our next garden tour in May.
As befits a gentleman who changed the fortunes of the City of Prato, – Datini is also celebrated on a plinth in the centre of the City.
But perhaps the most surprisingly miraculous piece of work that I found in this Museum of Mural Painting in Prato was originally painted by Lucretia and Filippo’s son Filippino Lippi – shown below.
Part of a painting by Filippino Lippo destroyed by Allied Bombs in 1944 and restored in 1953
Like many works of art throughout Italy it was reduced to a pile of rubble during WWII and having seen the photos of the ruins it seems truly miraculous that restorers were able to piece together this jigsaw puzzle of broken pieces and reconstruct these delicate frescos – but somehow this labour of love makes the work doubly precious – and my afternoon in Prato truly well spent.
New Year’s Eve 2011 – target 2012 – to still be in business New Year’s Eve 2012
31.11.11
At the end of a very happy year filled with the pleasure of meeting many new people and making new friends in Florence and the UK, I would like to say thanks for the successful collaboration with new experts in their field who have provided activities in Florence in addition to the my longstanding ( or should that be long suffering? ) friends who have continued to support me trying to start a luxury holiday business during a global financial crisis!
To start with the new activities – Thanks go to:-
Alan Lawson for 2 sessions of oil painting- and a 2 days of watercolour up at the Hotel Villa le Rondini. It has been an inspiration just to watch him at work and we all learned a huge amount from his tuition.
Scott and I painting with Alan Lawson
And thanks also to Francesca Reale for providing the extraordinary view over Florence for us to paint – and to singer Sandro Romano for introducing me to her and providing the musical entertainment at my parties for the past 4 years! I do hope we have plenty more of these painting classes up at the hotel in 2012.
Scott and Alan and the view
Thanks also Riccardo Luci and all the team at Alberto Cozzi for paper marbling lessons and patience with my small group size – I do hope we brought you extra business through all the people who came in to watch the process.
It has been a great privilege to work with Dr Katie Campbell and listen to her inspirational explanations about Italian gardens and how they were reinvented in the late 19th /early 20th Century by the Anglo-American Exiles who chose Florence as their new home.
The gardens themselves have also been a delight to see and visit in spring and summer plumage! Thanks also to Filipppo Fattori and his team for driving us to all these places for garden and wine tasting tours. Shown below is part of our first garden tour group who visited Iris Origo’s La Foce in May.
Katie and group at La Foce
Thanks also to Diane Venturini for some great photos of that day!
La Foce
Further thanks to Diane and Andrea for suggesting that I work with their father when I have guests who need a good meal – I remembered Andrea’s father Antonio, bringing us a mouth-wateringly delicious frittata made with fresh vegetables from his garden which he cooked up and brought back to one of our earlier watercolour painting classes . Lured back from retirement he certainly hasn’t lost his touch and he is once again running one of the best restaurants in Florence – Trattoria San Lorenzo is already ranked in the top 25 in the City and only opened in May 2011!
Other restaurants that have looked after and amused my guests include Santo Bevitore, where ace waiter Michel delights us in almost every language we try to catch him out with, and Ristorante di Dino where Lesley and her family look after us all – especially young Barnie the pomeranian – so well!
Rensa and Barnie enjoy a pre-tidbit cuddle!
And a huge vote of thanks also to lovely Lisa Banchieri who has provided inspirational cookery classes in Florence at Amor di Vino - now renamed Pinocchio restaurant. Thanks also to Paulo Zoppi for letting us use his facilities.
Paulo with Lisa and Cookery group May 2011
Lisa has also come over to London twice to share her secrets of Tuscan Cookery with some friends , and you only need to look at the commnets on my various posts to see what an inspirational job she does! I hope to see some of them in Florence as well in forthcoming years and in this respect my special thanks to Kay Lundy who has brought so many of her friends , and her lovely daughter Harriet , to my classes this year and acted as a great advocate through Facebook.
Kay and her friends also introduced me to The Re-invention Diva - enthusiastic on-line magaizine journalist Sharon Simpson, who enabled me to share my first ever Podcast- a fascinating experience – and my thanks to Sharon for that.
With all these new contacts I don’t want to forget old friends who have been in this act from the beginning – especially watercolour portraitist Glynis Barnes Mellish for her regular watercolour workshops – including our recent one in October.
Thanks also to Franz and Isle Moser for producing the Opera at St Mark’s that so many of my customers have enjoyed over the past 4 years. It is so marvellous to have an evening cultural activity so close to home that is unfailingly appreciated by the audience – and the productions are just getting better and better! Long may they hold their position as No 1 on Trip Advisor for “Things to do in Florence” - preferably through me of course!!
Franz explaining the plot of the Opera
Love and thanks to Debs Gray for letting us use her kitchen and spread pasta flour over her lovely house in December and for all the friends that she encouraged to join us there – and for generously lubricating the evening so liberally.
My accountant Haseeb Hassan of Rocliffe Accounting – who is never failingly patient when I call and ask how to fill in my on-line expenses whenever i do them ( not often enough!) and even brought me back a lovely – and very useful- pasmina from his recent trip home to Pakistan.
Thanks for the support of all the members of our local Book Club who come to my UK cooking classes and even regularly come to the painting classes and party that I hold in Florence every October despite the fact that my reading list - whilst still extensive – seems to have been devoted exclusively to a particular part of Tuscany for the past three years!
Final special thanks to Tina Bycoski founder of BBT Webmasters, who adapted my website to this new magazine formula so I have been able to post Blogs and send Tweets and generally maximise my audience through social media such as Linked-IN, Twitter and of course Facebook.
Below Tina at Beaded Lily - where we did bead and bracelet making for the first time during her visit in July.
All of my social media activity has increased my visitor traffic by an incredible 900% since we went live – on-time and under budget in May 2011. If you are looking for someone to develop or rework your website at a reasonable price – look no further – but hopefully you won’t have to make her work overnight as I did this year when fundamentalists hacked into my site and converted the home page to a row of brandished scimitars – Not funny!
I know there are lots of people I also need to mention and i will update this to include them – but now I have to go and paint my face so I don’t disgrace my long-suffering and super tolerant husband at the New Year’s Eve party tonight. …multiple thanks have to go to him for letting me do this venture so far away from home in the first place….!!
Buon Nuovo Anno a Tutti – Tanti auguri e tanti baci per 2012 xxxx
Fresco a Firenze with Beyond the Yalla Dog!
Learn how to paint your own Fresco with Beyond the Yalla Dog in Florence
Alan Pascuzzi in his fresco ( and sculpture!) studio
Find out for yourself what it is like to apply natural pigment to intonaco (fresh plaster) – Go Beyond looking at Masaccio and recreate a masterwork!
Enjoy an informative and interesting experience in fresco painting using the same materials and techniques as the Renaissance masters.
Beginning with a brief explanation of the history of fresco and the materials involved, students will then move on to paint a true fresco using the same method as such artists as Giotto and Michelangelo.
After making a preparatory cartoon we then use the “spolvero” technique to transfer their image onto a panel with damp plaster and proceed to paint a copy of a Renaissance fresco using the same natural pigments and animal-hair brushes as those used by the masters.
Mia with her painting of Baccus
A trip to the Brancacci Chapel or Santa Maria Novella to see some of the old masterworks in situ takes on a whole new dimension after you have tried the technique for yourself.
All students will take away their own true fresco painted in Florence.
Cost for half day £64/€75 – for a souvenir to keep and treasure.
About your tutor Dr Alan Pascuzzi
Dr. Alan Pascuzzi is a former Fulbright Scholar, professor of Renaissance Art History and Fine Arts, and a painter and sculptor living and working in Florence, Italy.
As an art history professor, Dr. Pascuzzi teaches a wide variety of subjects ranging from Renaissance drawings, frescoes, artistic anatomy and Greek, Roman and Renaissance sculpture.
As an artist, Alan works in the ancient drawing, painting and sculpting techniques of the Renaissance masters including fresco, marble carving, modelling and working in bronze.
He has executed numerous commissions in painting and sculpture throughout Italy including several permanent works in fresco, marble, terra cotta and bronze in the city centre of Florence.
We are looking to put in an extra session in June 11th or 12th – contact Penny if you are interested in what could be an evening class.
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