Imaginary Conversations – with due respect to Walter Savage Landor – Artemisia Gentilischi chats with Plautilla Nelli

Imaginary Conversations – with due respect to Walter Savage Landor – Artemisia Gentilischi chats with Plautilla Nelli

by | 19 Jun, 2020 | Advancing Women Artists AWA, Artemesia Gentileschi, Books, British Royal family, Florentine History, Footnotes from Florence, Italian Law, News, Plautilla Nelli, poets and poetry, Social History, Women artists

A.G. “Is that really you Plautilla? It is so difficult to recognise you when the only image of you that I have is a blanked out face in the corner of one of your frescos”. Whatever were you trying to say about yourself when you painted that? Plautilla...
Emilio Santarelli, who sculpted Michelangelo and grew a garden full of camelias

Emilio Santarelli, who sculpted Michelangelo and grew a garden full of camelias

by | 9 Apr, 2017 | Florentine History, Florentine money, Garden tours, Italy and the American Imagination, Michelangelo, News, poets and poetry, Renaissance Art, Sculpture, Social History, Tuscan gardens, WW1

Emilio Santarelli,(1801–1886) was the Florentine artist who sculpted the vigorous and sympathetic sculpture of Michelangelo Buonarotti for one of the most prominent niches in the Uffizi.  He was an important Florentine artist,...

D.H Lawrence – a villa in Florence for £25 a year – that was the time to be an expat in Italy!

by | 7 Feb, 2015 | Books, Films, News, poets and poetry, Social History, St Mark's English Church Florence, UK Activity

David Herbert Lawrence -(1885- 1930) On 15th May 1926 D H Lawrence wrote to his friend, the aristocratic socialite and painter Dorothy Brett, from Villa Mirenda in Scandicci to advise her that he and his wife Frieda von Richthofen   had taken the top half of the Villa...