Old Counter, New Cinema

Almost everyone in Livorno has queued at the ticket counter of the La Gran Guardia theater: for a show or a movie, sometimes for a concert or even an opera. (Picture taken in April 2011)

The same counter, refurbished and respectfully modernized, now sits at the entrance of the new cinema.

See also: La Gran Guardia - The New Gran Guardia

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The New Gran Guardia

Our Odeon and Moderno cinemas are now parking silos, but part of the La Gran Guardia movie theater is reborn today.

The new cinema has two 150-seat theaters equipped with state-of-the-art 4K digital projectors.

A small space decorated with old posters and with two of the original seats of the old cinema.

See also: Cinema Odeon - La Gran Guardia - Cinema Moderno - Odeon Parking - Odeon Parking, Sardi Street - Red and Gold
External links: 4K resolution (Wikipedia)

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Palazzo Maurogordato

Giorgio (Zorzis) Maurogordato was a rich merchant of Greek origin living in Livorno. The Maurogordato (Greek: Μαυροκορδάτος) were a family of Phanariot Greeks that distinguished itself in the history of the Ottoman Empire, Wallachia, Moldavia, and modern Greece.

In the second half of the 19th century he bought one of the parcels resulting from the straightening of the Fosso Reale, a work undertaken by the architect Luigi Bettarini after the demolition of the city walls.

In 1856 he had the architect Giuseppe Cappellini design and build a Renaissance Revival palazzo for him and his family. The building was finished in 1864 and shows an extensive use of rusticated stone.

External links: Mavrocordatos family - Phanariotes (Wikipedia)

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Samar

“Samar” is a 77-meter luxury motor yacht designed by Laurent Giles, with interior styling by Joe Thome. She was built by Devonport Yachts in Falmouth, England, and launched in 2006. The yacht has a range of 6.000 nautical miles and is provided with a helipad.

Search labels: yacht

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Bus on Fire

Last Sunday a bus took fire in Via Magenta and this is what was left of its back.

In the early afternoon the bus was still waiting for removal...

... which happened just while I was passing by.

See also: Fire - Pilotina Due - Theme Day: My Street

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Modigliani in Venice

Plaque on the facade of a building on Fondamenta San Basegio, where Amedeo Modigliani had his studio in Venice in 1905. The quotation is from a letter to the Livornese painter and friend Oscar Ghiglia.

“Da Venezia ho ricevuto gli insegnamenti più preziosi della vita;
da Venezia sembra di uscirmene adesso come accresciuto dopo un lavoro..”
(From Venice I received the most valuable lessons of life,
on leaving Venice I feel like I am grown after a work..)

“Modigliani moved to Venice in the spring of 1903 and enrolled in the Scuola Libera del Nudo at the Accademia delle Belle Arti in May. All his life Modigliani made friends easily, and he was making contact with a distinguished group: Umberto Boccioni, the Futurist painter and sculptor, Fabio Mauroner, with whom he shared a studio in the San Barnaba quarter and whose interests would include sculpture, painting, the graphic arts, and art criticism; as well as artists Mario Crepet, Cesare Mainella, Guido Marussig, Ardengo Soffici, and Guido Cadorin. Such encounters with the cream of intellectual and artistic life in Venice suggest assiduous cultivation. Perhaps it was in Venice that Modigliani learned the pivotal rule for the up-and-coming young artist, the right cafés at the right moment. In Venice it was the Florian, which never closed. Meanwhile he occasionally went to life classes, relying on his eye and the lessons to be had by daily visits to the great museums, studying the Bellinis and Carpaccios with concentration.”

(Meryle Secrest, Modigliani: A Life, 2011)

External links: The Misunderstood Death of Modigliani (The New York Times) - Meryle Secrest (Wikipedia)
Search labels: Modigliani

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A Cross within a Cross

The church of Santa Maria del Soccorso has two external crosses: a large and hollow one above the facade and a smaller and simpler one on the top of its dome. There is only one point in Via Magenta from where we can see the two crosses one inside the other.

If you try to check this out be careful: the exact spot lies in the middle of the roadway.

See also: Santa Maria del Soccorso - Four Noses

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Baby Girl and Dog

Cesare Zocchi (Florence, 1851 – Turin, 1922) was a sculptor of some renown in the late years of the 19th century. He is the author of the monument to Giuseppe Garibaldi in Florence (1890) and of the statue of Vittorio Emanuele II in Pisa (1892).

A quite different work of the same sculptor, “Bambina su seggiolone e cane” (Baby girl in a high chair and dog), sits at the entrance of the “Biblioteca dei Ragazzi” (Children's Library).

See also: Biblioteca dei Ragazzi

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Lusben Bicycles

Service or courtesy bicycles inside the marina of Benetti Yachts.

Search labels: bicycle art
External links: Bicycle Art

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Biblioteca dei Ragazzi

The “Biblioteca dei Ragazzi” (Children's Library), in the middle of the park of Villa Fabbricotti, is a place I enjoyed when I was very young and had not yet gained access to real libraries. Sadly, like so many places in this town, it had been closed for a while for repairs that never seemed to happen. It has reopened only last summer after some extraordinary maintenance work carried on thanks to the donation of a private citizen, Professor Marco Di Giovanni of the Department of Historical Studies of the University of Turin.

See also: Villa Fabbricotti

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Sea Cloud II

La “Sea Cloud II”, technically a large barque, is a luxury vessel operated by Sea Cloud Cruises GmbH of Hamburg, Germany. She sails under the Maltese flag.

This modern sail ship was built at the Astilleros Gondán SA, in Figueras, Spain. After some delays during her construction the ship was christened in February 2001 in Las Palmas, Canary Islands.

With an overall length of 106 meters the ship can accomodate 96 passengers in 45 cabins of three different types. The 23 sails, made in Poland, provide the “Sea Cloud II” with a sail surface of 3000 square meters.

Search labels: cruise ship - tug
External links: Barque - Sea Cloud II (Wikipedia)

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Seven Spheres

Piazza Attias: hard to say if these are bollards, some kind of decoration or a work of art...

See also: Unwelcome Barriers

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Another Food Fair

Some shots from a food fair in Piazza della Repubblica:

Sicilian dried tomatoes

Pecorino al tartufo nero (Black truffle pecorino)

Filetti di alacce (Gilt sardine fillets)

An assortment of delicious things...

Search labels: food fair

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Vintage Railings

Rusty volutes of iron of the terrace railing of the Acque della Salute.

A detail of the rusty but still elegant ironwork of a balcony railing of the same complex.

A view of the whole balcony reveals the precarious state of the buildings.

Search labels: spa
See also: The Waters of Health - The Beauty of Decay - Parco delle Terme - The Waters of Health: Hallway - Spa Terrace - Hall of the Five Waters - Acquarium - Salubritatem aegris corporibus - Curator acquarum - Terme del Corallo

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Fan Window

Fan window at night, in Via Bernardina.

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Teeth

What do you think of this awning in Via Magenta? It seems that they whiten teeth there...

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Out of Stone

On Scali Saffi plants are growing out of the parapet stones of the Fosso Reale.

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Hapag-Lloyd

The slowly passing 270-meter container ship “Genoa Express” as background.

(Picture taken last September)

See also: Lisbon Express

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Veranda

“Veranda”, in Italian, is rarely a space at ground level: it is usually an enclosed and roofed balcony. This one in Via Bosi is a bit old fashioned: it is still made of wood and rests on a set of reinforced wrought iron supports.

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The Lighthouse

In 1305 Livorno was only a tiny hamlet, but we were able to trick the Pisans into building this 52 meter tall lighthouse for our harbor. Genoa helped, defeating Pisa in the Battle of Meloria (1284) and destroying the lighthouse once placed on the islet, just in front of Livorno. Gratefully, or mockingly so, we called it “Fanale dei Pisani”, which is literally Pisans' Beacon, but it was intended as Pisans' Lighthouse.

The original tower lasted more than six centuries: it was blown up in 1944 by German sappers. After the war the lighthouse was faithfully rebuilt, mostly using stones from the wreckage, and went back in service in 1956. Its look has recently changed, but we will see this another day...

External links: Fanale dei Pisani (Museo Galileo)

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Mak Π 100

Mak Π 100 is a sort of prom, but typical only of military schools: in this case the Accademia Navale (Naval Academy) of Livorno. Looking at this 1917 postcard, the young officers seem happy to leave the school and even happier to embark on a battleship to take part in the First World War.

(Postcard digitized from the collection of Antonio Cantelli)

External links: Prom (Wikipedia)
Search labels: cartolina

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The Marble Book

A book and the Capitoline Wolf, details of the monument to the Count of Cavour, in his namesake square.

See also: Cavour - Piazza Cavour - Cavour at Night - Record Temperature
External links: Capitoline Wolf - Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour (Wikipedia)

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Wicker Tricycle

An eye-catching tricycle outside a recently opened food shop in Via Magenta.

Search labels: bicycle art
External links: Bicycle Art

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Cinematografo

“Cinematografo” was the original Italian word for movie theater, now usually shortened in “cinema”. This faded old sign is painted on a wall visible from the “Parco delle Terme”.

See also: Parco delle Terme

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Swan

The 60-meter “Swan” by Benetti, with an unusual blue hull, was designed by Stefano Natucci. She can accommodate 12 guests in six spacious cabins, her interior design was by Pierre-Yves Rochdon.

Her structure has been reinforced to support a touch-and-go helipad.

External links: 60m Swan for Sale (Camper & Nicholsons) - Benetti (Wikipedia)
Search labels: yacht

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Via delle Lastre

Black and white with patches of color, Via delle Lastre.

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Modì's Heads

In 1909 Amedeo Modigliani, back in Livorno from Paris, was testing his skills as sculptor working on some stone heads. His friends weren't enthusiasts of the results and made fun of him: legend has it that the angry artist threw his works in the waters of the nearby Fosso Reale (Royal Canal).

In 1984 Livorno was in the process of commemorating the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Amedeo Modigliani, when it was suggested to dredge that part of canal to see if the above mentioned heads could be recovered and eventually put on display.

[Photo by unknown author]

After a few days of work, three crudely sculpted heads were found in the canal and the story made the news around the world. Noted art historians recognized the sculptures as authentic and our city basked for a while in the glory of the recovery of these lost masterpieces.

[Photo by unknown author]

Then three students said that they had carved one of the heads with a Black & Decker, while a dockworker released a video showing that he was the author of the other two. The whole world laughed, Pisans had a field day, and real heads rolled. The fake ones quietly found their way into some warehouse.
Now some brilliant minds want to waste 45.000 Euro of public money to display the three fakes and the story of the hoax. Evidently, it would not be enough to put them in a room somewhere with a simple explicative panel.

External links: Modigliani Dredgers Find 2 Heads in Canal (The New York Times)
- The Modigliani Practical Joke of Livorno (Best Hoaxes and Pranks)
- Fake Modigliani heads get a Museum of their own – thirty years after the controversial hoax (ArtIsLife)

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Clet's Studio

The studio of Clet Abraham in Via dell'Olmo, in Florence, with plenty of new and old creations on display.

With so many different kinds of works, we could really spend some time looking around...

Clet was also so kind to pose for us next to his self-portrait.

See also: Clet Abraham - On the Trail of Clet - Via dell'Olmo
Search labels: Clet Abraham
External links: Clet Abraham (Wikipedia, in French) - The language of the street signs by Clet Abraham (Abitare) - Interview with Clet (Daily Inspiration)

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Almost Camouflaged

An almost camouflaged sparrow on the breakwater of the Porto Mediceo.

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Theme Day: Heights

Maintenance crew using rope access techniques on the “Grattacielo” (Skyscraper) in Piazza Matteotti.

With its 26 floors and 91 meters it is more a high-rise, but it is still the tallest structure in town.

(Pictures taken in October 2012)

Click here to view thumbnails for all participants

See also: Piazza Matteotti - Acrobats at Work

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