Art Is a Disease

Another “Art is a disease” poster, this time with Jackson Pollock.

See also: Almost Bicycle Art
External links: Jackson Pollock

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Rose Window

The rose window of the Dutch Church: “traces” of pigeons are visible in the upper part.

To save this church you can still vote in The Places I Love census until October 31st.

Search labels: Dutch church
See also: Abandoned Church - Scali degli Olandesi - Chiesa degli Olandesi - Sad Preview - A lecture - Finale - A Ray of Hope - Falling to Pieces - Flying Rats - Another Collapse - Fenced Off - Piazza Poerio - The Places I Love - A Few More Votes - Rose Window - Second Place?
External links: Temple of the Dutch German Congregation (Wikipedia)
Facebook Group: “Salviamo la chiesa degli Olandesi a Livorno” (Save the Dutch church in Livorno)

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Seaborne

Will she be able to turn in time?

Obviously yes!

See also: Four Tugs
Search labels: tug

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Closed for Vacation

An original “closed for vacation” sign on the shutter of a tattoo studio in “Via Paoli”. The driving distance between Livorno and Vibo Valentia is 980 km (609 miles).

“Sono pieno di vaini e ho aperto uno studio a Vibo Valentia
Son laggiù a fare un 80 Euro di tribalino sul polso
Chiaro ci vo in Vespa
Chiaro ci vole 3 giorni di anda/rianda
Chiaro qui riapro martedì”

(I am full of money and I have just opened a studio in Vibo Valentia
I am there doing an 80-Euro tribal wrist tattoo
Clearly I am going on my Vespa
Clearly the round trip takes three days
Clearly the shop will reopen on Tuesday)

See also: Feel the Pain

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The Non-Bridge of Crocetta

The long excavation of the new canal in “Viale Caprera”, in the heart of the Venice quarter, is almost over after three years of works.A problem remains: there is no money now for the bridge (and the two footbridges) on the new canal, so the street still runs on a walled pile of dirt lined with dumpsters, with some exotic Jersey barriers as parapets. The real Venice will surely envy us for this technological and artistic achievement...

Search labels: new canal
The new canal: An Useless Dig - Canale dei Navicelli - Viale Caprera - Micropoles - New Venice - A New Canal - Crash - The Dig - Building the Canal - Venice's Canal - The Old “Cantina” - Along the New Canal - Under Construction - The Bomb - The Buried Bomb - The Wall - Modulblock
The bridges of New Venice: Ponte di Marmo - Ponte dei Domenicani - Ponte della Venezia - Ponte di San Giovanni - Ponte dell'Angiolo - Ponte del Luogo Pio

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Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II

Several views of “Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II”, now “Piazza Grande”, in the first years of the last century. You can enlarge this image more than the usual, up to 1600x1022 pixels.

(Postcards digitized from the collection of Antonio Cantelli)

See also: Viva VERDI

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Fishing in August

With a fishing rod on a pier, under the August sun, in the shadow of an improvised parasol.

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Bicycles and Boats

Bicycles and boats on the “Scali Rosciano”, at the corner with “Via delle Acciughe” (Anchovies Street).

Search labels: bicycle art
External links: Bicycle Art

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Alien Technology

Having lost my once-in-lifetime opportunity to document the arrival of alien beings in our town, I will try to make amend sharing with you the details of their space ship.Most of my fellow citizens aren't interested in any technological achievement beyond flip-flops, noisy scooters and expensive cell phones, so this jewel of alien knowledge lies already forgotten on a lawn.Alien science is clearly a fan-based thing, but it seems that a old VHS tape has an important part in it.

See also: Here We Are - Cico Cico on the Trees - Throwaway Art
External links: Pesce fresco (Stefano Pilato)

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Seven Seas Mariner

The stern of the “Seven Seas Mariner” near the “Canaviglia” bastion of the “Fortezza Vecchia” (Old Fortress). The 216-meter ship was launched for Regent Seven Seas Cruises in 2001, at the Chantiers de l'Atlantique in Saint-Nazaire, France.She was the first all-suite, all-balcony cruise ship and was “Ship of the Year” in 2002. The staff to guest ratio on board is 1 to 1.6. In 2009 she made the news for the dramatic rescue of an around-the-world-sailor from a crippled sailing yacht west of New Zealand.

Search labels: cruise ship
See also: Canaviglia - Fortezza Vecchia
External links: Seven Seas Mariner - Regent Seven Seas Cruises - Chantiers de l'Atlantique (Wikipedia)
Round the world yachtie rescued off NZ (Television New Zealand Limited)

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El Greco

The Spanish Renaissance master El Greco in “Viale Caprera”
(Effetto Venezia 2012)

Search labels: Effetto Venezia
External links: El Greco - Spanish Renaissance (Wikipedia)
“Portrait of a Man” by El Greco (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)

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Here We Are

We were out of town when, on July 14th, three aliens landed in “Piazza Mazzini”: they made a speech without any sense for the lucky bystanders and then got away, leaving behind their space ship.This is “Eccoci” (Here We Are), a work by Stefano Pilato and Valerio Michelucci, the authors of the funny “Cico Cico on the Trees”.

See also: Cico Cico on the Trees - Throwaway Art
External links: Pesce fresco (Stefano Pilato)

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The Old Synagogue

The facade of the old synagogue of Livorno, destroyed during Allied air raids in the Second World War.The tebah, the pulpit from where the Torah was read. Part of the balauster was salvaged and was used for the same purpose in the new synagogue.The Torah ark, which contained the Torah scrolls of the synagogue.A frontal view of the tebah, you may compare it with this 1850 painting by Solomon Hart.

(1905 postcards digitized from the collection of Antonio Cantelli)

Search labels: synagogue
See also: Synagogue of Livorno - Inside the Synagogue - Moses Montefiore
External links: Tebah - Torah ark

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Zahir

“The Zahir” (El Zahir) is a short story by the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges. The zahir is a frequent thought, an uncontrollable obsession that insinuates itself slowly in the mind until it comes to posses a person completely. (Picture taken on April 25th)

External links: The Zahir - Jorge Luis Borges (Wikipedia)
The Zahir (Borges, A Personal Anthology, p. 128)

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My Name Is 5074

“Noi abbiamo dei diritti diversi dagli altri perché abbiamo dei bisogni diversi che ci mettono al di sopra della loro morale”

(We have different rights from the others because we have different needs that put ourselves above their moral standards)

Fifty Seventy-Four, a “street artist” who uses a numeric alias, is advertising himself with posters of an unaware Modigliani. Perhaps Amedeo should sue, but obviously can't and probably wouldn't.

External links: 5074 (official space) - 5074 (In Italian)

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Maria Callas

The New York born soprano Maria Callas in “Piazza XX Settembre”
(Effetto Venezia 2012)

Search labels: Effetto Venezia
External links: Maria Callas

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Carnival WaterWorks

The 300-foot (91 m)-long corkscrew water slide of WaterWorks,the water park on board the “Carnival Breeze”.

“Splash into some fun aboard the new Carnival Breeze's WaterWorks”

Search labels: cruise ship
External links: Carnival Breeze (Wikipedia)

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Hilfiger's Dog

I just saw a new dog in the window of the Tommy Hilfiger store in “Via Ricasoli”.The other, a camouflaged one, has been there for the last few months.

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Fortress from the Sky

Here is the “Fortezza Nuova” (New Fortress), a structure sadly closed to the public since January 2009. Below, we can barely see on the left the “Canale dei Navicelli” and, facing the larger basin, “Palazzo Stub”. On the right we have the polygonal dome of the church of “Santa Caterina”. On the left side of the fortress the “Scali delle Cantine” lead us to Garibaldi square, flanked on its right by the larger “Piazza della Repubblica” with the statues of the Two Grand Dukes. Just above lies the picturesque turn in the canal featured in the first picture of Cloudy Day.

See also: Flying over Livorno - Over the Porto Mediceo - Cargo Port

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Livornese Summer

Livorno July-August 1910 Celebrations for the inauguration of the Livorno-Cecina railway and the expansion of the port

Livornese Summer 50% Discount on Railway Tickets (1932)

(1910 and 1932 postcards digitized from the collection of Antonio Cantelli)

Search labels: postcard

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Three Men (Still) in a Boat

After a good look at the superyacht “Valerie”, our friends continue their tour inside the “Porto Mediceo”.

See also: Three Men in a Boat - Valerie

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Stalin's Bicycle

An oleander hedge, a bicycle and a Stalin's fan (“W Stalin” is long live Stalin).

Search labels: bicycle art
External links: Bicycle Art

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Deconsecrated Church

The “Luogo Pio” (Pious Place) deconsecrated church seen from “Viale Caprera”. It was once known as “Chiesa dell'Assunzione della Vergine e di San Giuseppe” (Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary and of St. Joseph).

See also: Luogo Pio

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Caisson

A boatload of tourists is passing a crew in the process of closing the small dry dock with its caisson, just after the “Numptia” went in.

See also: Numptia

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Το ελιξίριο της αγάπης

With last Sunday “Effetto Venezia” is finally over, at last. It usually ends mistreating an opera in “Piazza XX Settembre”: in 2010 we had a “Caballeria Rusticana”, a production of the Mascagni's opera with the action set in Spain instead of Sicily, while last year's “La Traviata” was lucky to be left in Paris, because the theme of “Effetto Venezia” 2011 was France.The story of “L'elisir d'amore” (The Elixir of Love) by Gaetano Donizetti traveled from a hamlet in the Basque Country to a Greek seaside village, becoming Το ελιξίριο της αγάπης (an uneducated guess of mine).In Dulcamara's “Udite, udite, o rustici” (Listen, listen, o peasants) they even made a clumsy effort to make the Greek setting more believable changing the price of the quack's concoction from “scudi” (shields) and “lire” (pounds) to drachmas. They missed the fact that a “scudo” was three “lire”, so the price at the end of the aria fluctuates erratically, but I was probably the only one who noticed.On Saturday, the night before the representation, I watched part of what would have been the dress rehearsal, but, as you can see, the costumes weren't obviously there. Opera is born for theaters and the poor acoustic of the square was enhanced quite badly with the use of electronic amplification. This didn't bother much the audience at the actual performance: most of the presents clapped hands frantically at every possible occasion and this says more of the kind of operagoers we have than of the execution (a perfect term) of the opera itself.

See also: Caballeria Rusticana
External links: The Elixir of Love - Gaetano Donizetti (Wikipedia)
Search labels: Effetto Venezia

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The Fox and the Grapes

Last year the same guys built a Moulin Rouge around a window to celebrate France, now they have put a temple-like facade on their front door to honor Greece. By the way, the name of the place, “La volpe e l'uva” (The Fox and the Grapes), comes from one of the most famous Aesop's fables.

Search labels: Effetto Venezia
External links: The Fox and the Grapes - Aesop

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Under the Table

A few days ago checks on eight restaurants at “Effetto Venezia” have found 22 workers “paid under the table”, some of then minors. Fines amounted to 55 thousand Euro and five businesses were immediately shut down. Four of them were able to reopen after paying up front a first fine of 1500 Euro.

Search labels: Effetto Venezia
External links: Effetto Venezia, scoperti 22 lavoratori al nero (Il Tirreno, in Italian)

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Maurizio

Maurizio is a computer technician I have known for at least twenty years. He has followed us from the early 286/386 to the almost incomprehensible machines of today. He is often our last hope and rarely fails. When he was younger he has rowed in the “Palio Marinaro” and “Coppa Risi'atori”. His only fault: he works for a Pisan firm.

See also: Walk... on Water - Cantina of Maurizio and Luciano

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Almost Bicycle Art

“Art is a disease”, a mural and two bicycles in “Via Santa Caterina”.

Search labels: bicycle art
External links: Bicycle Art

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Norwegian Spirit

This 268-meter cruise ship was built in 1998 for Star Cruises at the Meyer Werft shipyard, in Germany. She was christened as “SuperStar Leo”.In 2004 the vessel was transferred to the Norwegian Cruise Line and, after a short refit, became the “Norwegian Spirit”. She has a quite tormented history of small incidents.

Search labels: cruise ship
External links: Norwegian Spirit - Meyer Werft - Star Cruises - Norwegian Cruise Line (Wikipedia)

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Theme Day: Numbers

The numbers of the bus lines stopping in “Via Cairoli”. The new bus stop signs are illustrated with some of the landmarks of Livorno, in this case the nearby Synagogue

Click here to view thumbnails for all participants

See also: Via Cairoli - Synagogue of Livorno
Search labels: synagogue

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