BLESSED (BUT NOT TOO MUCH)

This time I do not want to talk about a work, at least not directly, but about the story behind it.It was January 28, 1671 when Clement X, who had been elected to the papal throne a year before, with a “breve” proclaimed blessed Ludovica Albertoni, a Franciscan tertiary who lived at the turn of […]

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“THAT ONLY HIMSELF AND NOTHING ELSE RESEMBLES” VICINO ORSINI AND THE SACRED WOOD OF BOMARZO

In the context of late Renaissance gardens of the mid-sixteenth century, the Sacred Wood of Bomarzo occupies a position that is both eccentric and exemplary. The apparent contradiction is nourished by its being a unicum that moves the limit of artifice much further than its contemporaries dared to do (and does so, paradoxically, renouncing the […]

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A PIECE OF ITALY IN WESTMINSTER

In the heart of London, behind the menacing headquarters of MI5, there is Thorney Street. Looking for a guy with that name would be useless because Thorney was the name of the now forgotten island that once hosted that strip of land. It was on this island, probably for security reasons, that in the 1140s […]

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Rembrandt and doctor tulp

It must have been very cold that January 31 1632 in Amsterdam when Adrian Adrianeszoon, known in the slums as “Het Kindt”, was hanged for yet another robbery attempt. Adrian Adrianeszoon had behind him a respectable criminal career made of theft and violence and in the past the Dutch justice had already made him amputate […]

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THE IDEAL CITY OF THE RENAISSANCE

“Ho trovato una città di mattoni, ve la restituisco di marmo”Ottaviano Augusto in Svetonio, Vite dei Cesari, Aug., XXVIII, 3 “Quante Città vedevamo noi mentre eravamo fanciulli fatte tutte di asse, le quali hora sono state fatte di marmo?”Leon battista Alberti, De re aedificatoria, VIII, 5 The serene dream of the ancient, with its pacifying regularity, […]

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