Giovanni Fattori

If you happen to visit the Gallery of Modern Art at Palazzo Pitti, in Florence, you can see in a room corner the small bronze model of the “Ritratto di Giovanni Fattori” (Portrait of Giovanni Fattori) by Valmore Gemignani, actually in a small square off Piazza della Repubblica.

See also: Portrait of Giovanni Fattori - Fattori in Florence - Piazza della Repubblica.
External links: Gallery of Modern Art - Palazzo Pitti (Wikipedia)

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Artusi's Minestrone

Pellegrino Artusi (1820-1911) was an Italian businessman and writer, best known as the author of the cookbook “La scienza in cucina e l'arte di mangiare bene” (Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well). He was not a cook, but his merit was in codifying and classifying Italy’s great tradition of domestic cuisine, the result of so many regional and local varieties. His cookbook, often embellished with detailed prose about daily life and historical trivia, should be considered a unifying tool of sorts for the gastronomic and linguistic patrimony of our country.

Bust on the grave of Pellegrino Artusi, by Italo Vagnetti
Porte Sante Cemetery
San Miniato al Monte, Florence

“Of particular interest is the story told by Artusi himself regarding a bad experience which occurred during the summer in Livorno in 1855, when Artusi came in contact with cholera, the infective disease that in that era took many lives in Italy. Once in Livorno, Artusi went to a restaurant to have dinner. After eating minestrone, he decided to rent a room in the building belonging to one Domenici. As Artusi would later recount, he spent the whole night suffering from horrible stomach pains, which he blamed on the minestrone he had eaten. The next day, returning to Florence, he got the news that Livorno had been hit by cholera and that Domenici had been a victim. It was only then that he realized what had happened: it had not been the minestrone that made him ill, but the early symptoms of the disease. The event inspired Artusi to write an excellent recipe for minestrone.”

(The case of minestrone and cholera, Wikipedia)

External links: Pellegrino Artusi (Wikipedia) - Artusi's Minestrone Recipe (About Food)

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Clet in Florence #2

More variations on a no-entry sign by Clet Abraham, still on his home turf in Florence. By the way, this afternoon we will be back in Livorno.

Via del Campidoglio, Via de' Brunelleschi

Piazza del Mercato Centrale

See also: Clet Abraham - On the Trail of Clet - Via dell'Olmo - Clet's Studio - Clet in Florence
External links: Thirty smile an hour zone: Cheeky artist changes road signs with stickers... (Daily Mail)
- The language of the street signs by Clet Abraham (Abitare)
Search labels: Clet Abraham

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Félicie de Fauveau

Félicie de Fauveau was a nineteenth-century French sculptress who was born in Livorno in 1801 (some sources say 1799). She spent her childhood in Florence and studied painting and sculpture in Paris. Her studio was frequented by artists such as Paul Delaroche and Ary Scheffer, who also painted her portrait.

In 1834 Félicie de Fauveau, a dedicated Legitimist, joined her mother in voluntary exile in Florence, where she spent the rest of her life.

This is sepulchral monument honoring the artist's mother (1859), Anne de la Pierre, in the cloister of Santa Maria del Carmine, in Florence.

Still in Florence, on the upper loggia of the first cloister of Santa Croce , you can see the burial monument for the seventeen-year-old Louise de Favreau (1854).

External links: Félicie de Fauveau - Ary Scheffer - Santa Maria del Carmine - Santa Croce (Wikipedia)

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Fattori in Florence

This bust of Giovanni Fattori, by the sculptor Fosco Tricca, is part of a monument to the Livornese painter on the wall of the Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze (Academy of Fine Arts of Florence), in Via Battisti.

Since 1869 Fattori taught at the Accademia, where one of his late students was Amedeo Modigliani.

External links: Giovanni Fattori - Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze - Amedeo Modigliani (Wikipedia)
See also: Chili Pepper & Macchiaioli - Cisternino di città - Mazzini & Fattori - Portrait of Giovanni Fattori

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Clet in Florence

Variations on a no-entry sign by Clet Abraham, this time on his home turf in Florence.

Piazza Santa Croce / Via Torta

Via delle Seggiole / Via dei Pandolfini

See also: Clet Abraham - On the Trail of Clet - Via dell'Olmo - Clet's Studio
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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Piazza del Duomo

A Christmas tree decorated with Florentine lilies in Piazza del Duomo (Cathedral Square) in Florence.

External links: Piazza del Duomo - Florence Cathedral (Wikipedia)

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Christmas in Florence

Our friend Karl of Bolzano Daily Photo asked me yesterday how I was going to celebrate the anniversary of this blog. My answer was: not posting about Livorno for a few days. Welcome to Christmas in Florence!

A simple nativity scene in in Piazza del Duomo (Cathedral Square), on the left of Santa Maria del Fiore.

Another nativity scene, with also a waterfall. It is set in what once was the Cemetery of Plaona, on the right side of the Basilica of Santa Maria Novella, and it is seen from the entrance of Via degli Avelli.

External links: Piazza del Duomo - Florence Cathedral - Basilica of Santa Maria Novella (Wikipedia)

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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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Via dell'Olmo

Still on the trail of Clet Abraham in the San Niccolò neighborhood, part of the Oltrarno area of Florence.

This fishbone arrow shows us that we are closing in on our objective...

In fact, there he is, just under the sign, standing on the doorstep of his studio.

See also: Clet Abraham - On the Trail of Clet
Search labels: Clet Abraham
External links: Clet Abraham (Wikipedia, in French) - The language of the street signs by Clet Abraham (Abitare)

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On the Trail of Clet

Prepare yourself for some familiar objects caught out of our usual jurisdiction...

We were coming down from the basilica of San Miniato al Monte (St. Minias on the Mountain), when we saw this on the corner of a street with the improbable name of Via dell'Erta Canina (Street of the Canine Slope).

Just before the city walls, still along Via del Monte alle Croci, we saw this “Cross Like an Egyptian” and we knew we were approaching Clet Abraham's territory: he lives and works here, in Florence, after all.

See also: Clet Abraham
Search labels: Clet Abraham
External links: Clet Abraham (Wikipedia, in French) - The language of the street signs by Clet Abraham (Abitare)

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Four Horses

Luckily none of these statues is in Livorno, or they would have already fallen to pieces, but most of them had something to do with our city. In 1587 Ferdinando I de' Medici commissioned to the sculptor Giambologna an equestrian statue of his father, Cosimo I de' Medici, the first Gran Duke of Tuscany.

The large bronze statue (1598), now in Piazza della Signoria, was the first equestrian sculpture in Florence. After the Romans, no surviving monumental equestrian bronze was cast in Europe until Donatello's statue of Gattamelata (1450) in Padua and Verrocchio's statue of Bartolomeo Colleoni (1488) in Venice.

The statue was such a success that Giambologna received other commissions for similar sculptures: the first was from Ferdinando I de' Medici himself and the result was the impressive monument in Piazza della Santissima Annunziata, in Florence. The work, after the death of the sculptor in 1608, was completed by his assistant and disciple Pietro Tacca, the author of Livorno's Four Moors.

Pietro Tacca also completed the monument to Henry IV of France (1613), commissioned by his widow Maria de' Medici. The sculpture had not an easy life: like its commissioner the statue sailed to France from Livorno, but it was temporarily lost at sea in a shipwreck. After being salvaged it reached Paris and was placed on the Pont Neuf, but it was destroyed during the French Revolution. It was replaced only in 1818 with a copy by the sculptor François-Frédéric Lemot obtained from a surviving cast of the original.

[Picture from Wikipedia]

The last of the Giambologna's commissions, the statue Philip III in Madrid, was a present from the Grand Duke of Tuscany to the King of Spain. This work was also completed by Tacca (1616) and shipped by sea from Livorno. Originally placed in the Casa de Campo, in 1848 the monument was moved to its actual location in Plaza Mayor.

See also: Four Moors - Sea Monsters - Marie de' Medici
External links: Giambologna - Pietro Tacca - Cosimo I de' Medici - Ferdinando I de' Medici - Henry IV of France - Philip III of Spain

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Florentine Walk

Tired to walk in Livorno, we took a train for a day trip to Florence. Here is the “Basilica of Santa Maria Novella”, just outside the main railway station bearing the same name.The first courtyard of “Palazzo Vecchio”, with a porphyry fountain by Battista del Tadda. On the left “Samson and Philistine”, a work by Pierino da Vinci.The “Basilica di Santa Croce” (Basilica of the Holy Cross) is the burial place of some of the most illustrious Italians: Michelangelo, Galileo, Machiavelli, Foscolo and Rossini rest inside this church. On the left a statue of Dante Alighieri by Enrico Pazzi.Giotto's Campanile in “Piazza del Duomo” is the free-standing bell tower of the “Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore” (Basilica of Saint Mary of the Flower), the cathedral church of Florence.The central part of the “Ponte Vecchio” (Old Bridge).

More Walks

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Sea Monsters

The monument to Ferdinando I and the Four Moors was finished in 1626 and had to be completed with two fountains representing sea monsters, modeled by the same sculptor of the moors, Pietro Tacca from Carrara, a disciple of Giambologna. Legend says that the Grand Duke Ferdinando II liked so much the two bronze fountains that he wanted them in “Piazza Santissima Annunziata”, in Florence. So the beautiful fountains ended up near another monument to Ferdinando I, by the same Pietro Tacca, already in the square since 1608. In the 1950s Giorgio La Pira, mayor of Florence, had a copy of one the fountains cast as a present for the city of Livorno. A few years later, Livorno paid for another copy. At last, in the 1960s, the fountains were placed in Piazza Colonnella, not far from the intended location near the Four Moors.One of the Florentine fountains, in background the “Ospedale degli Innocenti” (Foundling Hospital), by Filippo Brunelleschi.One of the copies in Livorno, no Brunelleschi in background...The other Florentine fountain, in background the “Basilica della Santissima Annunziata” (Basilica of the Most Holy Annunciation).
The other copy with a genuine “Livornese” background...

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