FLORENCE ART AND ARCHITECTURE -- PART 3

THE MOST VIVID PHOTOGRAPHY AND WRITING EVER PUBLISHED ON THE RENAISSANCE AND BEYOND

Florence Art and Architecture -- edited by Antonio Paolucci, the famed art historian and director of the Vatican Museums -- features more than two dozen chapters authored by some of the foremost architecture and art authorities in all of Italy.

Other contributors include luminaries such as Carlo Cresti, Angelo Tartuferi, Mario Scalini, Marco Chiarini, Elena Capretti, Annamaria Giusti, Clarissa Morandi and Silvestra Bietoletti.

Paolucci's chapter "Art and history in Florence: an overview of five centuries" opens the book with some astounding facts.

"In 1342, with 100,000 inhabitants, Florence was more populous than Paris. It had double the population of London and five times that of Rome,'' Paolucci writes.

"The gold florin (Dante's `lega suggellata dal Battistta' (the metal with the Baptist's form imprest  -- Inferno, Canto XXX) was the currency of the world's markets from Barcelona to Constantinople, from Bruges to Milan. Florentine finance, industry and commerce spearheaded the European economy..."

www.ullmann-publishing.com/en/homepage

FLORENCE Art and Architecture review 

continues tomorrow -- September 8

FLORENCE ART AND ARCHITECTURE -- PART 2

THE MOST VIVID PHOTOGRAPHY AND WRITING EVER PUBLISHED ON THE RENAISSANCE AND BEYOND

Photos of classic art leap off the page in vivid detail.

You be tempted to carefully tear out a full-page reproduction of a Botticelli classic and frame it for your office wall.

But don't deface this treasure.

Florence Art and Architecture Florence is why we sincerely hope that printed books are never killed by digital downloads.

Because nothing can compare to the sheer joy of thumbing through this monster of visual delight.

Although the book features hundreds of photos of priceless pieces of art from the Uffizi, Bargello, Ornimichele, Palazzo Pitti, Palazzo Vecchio, Palazzo Strozi and other world class repositories of Florentine creativity, it is far from being a simple coffee table publication.

www.ullmann-publishing.com/en/homepage

FLORENCE Art and Architecture review 

continues tomorrow -- September 7

FLORENCE ART AND ARCHITECTURE -- PART 1

THE MOST VIVID PHOTOGRAPHY AND WRITING EVER PUBLISHED ON THE RENAISSANCE AND BEYOND

Whether you have visited Florence just once, or stay in the fabled Italian Renaissance city annually, you remain overwhelmed by the amount of art and architecture.

Florence is not that big of a city, but its museums, cathedrals and ancient streets are repositories of hundreds of thousands of significant pieces of art and architecture.

No matter how many notes you took, no matter how many images you brought home on a digital storage card -- you return with a thirst for more information.

Florence Art and Architecture, an astounding 500-plus-page book published by H.F. Ullmann, truly is the only body capable of quenching your thirst for knowledge.

The book is huge -- nearly 10 inches by 12 inches in size and about five pounds in weight.

Its stock is beyond luxurious.

The pages feel almost like photo paper.

And the reproduction on that high grade stock is astounding.

www.ullmann-publishing.com/en/homepage

FLORENCE Art and Architecture review 

continues tomorrow -- September 6

THE WANDERER'S GUIDE TO LUCCA -- PART 8

THE BEST "STORY BEHIND THE BEAUTY 

AND HISTORY" GUIDEBOOK WE'VE SEEN

Lucca without walls would be like Florence without the Duomo.

The reinforced walls enclosing Lucca's historic center are some of the best preserved ramparts in Italy.

While many cities tore down their ancient walls in the name of progress, the Lucchese were wise enough to preserve theirs.

Defensive walls were first built by the Romans, who fled to safety in Lucca when Hannibal invaded Italy and defeated the Roman army in the Po valley in 218 BC.

A new, larger, medieval era wall was substantially completed by 1265.

It almost doubled the size of the city from about 90 acres to roughly 180, according to Lindquist.

The author estimates the population increased from about 10,000 to 15,000.

"In 1453, the Turks assaulted Constantinople with a barrage of cannon fire. The strongest walls in Eurpoe fell and at long last the Roman Empire fell with them," Lindquist writes. "The lesson of the effectiveness of artillery was transported to Italy when King Charles VIII of France invaded in 1494. His cannons easily dispatched any medieval wall they encountered."

Lucca started preliminary work on its Renaissance-era walls in 1513.

The new walls were completed in 1650 and they increased the size of the protected city within them to 270 acres.

"The new wall was a massive earthen structure, 100 feet wide at its base, 60 feet at the top, 23 in height," reports Lindquist, who notes there were only three gates into the city at that time.

He also reports that by the time of the Napoleonic wars, the walls no longer provided a viable military defense.

In the 1800's, the top of the thick wall was planted with trees and grass, turning it into a huge park.

Visitors and locals love to walk the perimeter of Lucca on top of the wall.

There are more than four kilometers of walls with six gates.

Order the book at www.lindquistguides.com

 For $31.40, including shipping by U.S. Mail, the guide comes with a huge, fold-out, full-color map that lists hundreds of sites detailed in The Wanderer's Guide to Lucca.

THE WANDERER'S GUIDE TO LUCCA -- PART 7

THE BEST "STORY BEHIND THE BEAUTY 

AND HISTORY" GUIDEBOOK WE'VE SEEN

Whether one is visiting for a day, or staying for a month, one of the best things to do in Lucca is to walk its narrow streets and get lost in their beauty.

Lucca is an ancient place, but it is very much alive and breathing -- and not just with tourists.

Lucca is a functioning town of some 85,000 -- not a Tuscan Disneyland with a train stop.

The birthplace of Giacomo Puccini, of La Boheme and Madame Butterfly fame, has beloved music fests (we saw more posters for pop/rock shows than classics during our 2012 visit.)

Cool shoe stores, bakeries and artisanal shops abound.

Bookstalls still exist.

Lindquist dedicates only a half dozen pages to Lucca's streets -- but only because they are dominated by the more than 100 combined churches and palaces that he explores in the other sections of his 370-page guidebook.

"Via Fillungo -- this is Lucca's Main Street, the shopping center and the thoroughfare for Sunday passeggiata," the author writes of the best place to take an evening stroll to socialize with neighbors and friends.

"In Roman times, Via Fillungo was the Cardus Maximus, the central north-south street. It ran straight north from its intersection with the Decumanus Maximus to the north gate and then angled northeasterly up to the bridge across the Serchio," he writes (Decumanus Maximus being the major east-west road in a town laid out by the Romans.

Lindquist says Via Fillungo gives a glimpse into the medieval world with "an array of high, wide, ground floor archways, today filled with glass storefronts, but which in the Middle Ages were open to the street."

"Do not pass by Caffe di Simo without going in," the author says of #58, Via Fillungo. "Puccini liked to spend time there with his friends and it is still the most pleasant place for afternoon tea. The hot chocolate is famous; it provides a remarkable jolt of energy."

Order the book at www.lindquistguides.com

The Wanderer's Guide to Lucca review 

continues tomorrow -- September4

THE WANDERER'S GUIDE TO LUCCA -- PART 6

THE BEST "STORY BEHIND THE BEAUTY 

AND HISTORY" GUIDEBOOK WE'VE SEEN

Lindquist dedicates about 30 pages to the stories of 40 prominent Lucca families.

"The patricians of Lucca valued ancient roots even more than wealth; the most prized status was to be declared an original citizen," the author writes.

The face of Lucca, powerful silk-trading city-state with trade partners all over Europe and suppliers in Asia, changed with a 1308 law that banned most of the old guard from serving in government.

Although the rules changes down the road and wealthy families ran the republic, the 1308 decree sent prominent families packing -- many settling in Venice.

"It was the end of Lucca's monopoly on the silk trade," the author observes.

Lindquist profiles the Fatinelli family as being most famous for having been the employers of Santa Zita in the 1200s.

Zita became a servant for the Fatinellis at age 12 and served them until she died at age 60. 

The patron saint of maids and domestic servants, her biographers have said the diminutive servant was unjustly despised, overburdened, reviled, and often beaten by her employers and fellow servants for her hard work and obvious goodness.

She eventually was put in charge of all affairs at the house and is portrayed holding keys (that is why she is invoked when someone loses keys.)

Her body was exhumed in 1580, discovered to be incorrupt but since become mummified. 

St. Zita's body is on display for public veneration in the Basilica di San Frediano in Lucca.

As for the Fatinellis, they tried to make amends to their miracle-performing maid by paying for her tomb and building a chapel around it.

Order the book at www.lindquistguides.com

The Wanderer's Guide to Lucca review 

continues tomorrow -- September 3

THE WANDERER'S GUIDE TO LUCCA -- PART 5

THE BEST "STORY BEHIND THE BEAUTY 

AND HISTORY" GUIDEBOOK WE'VE SEEN

Palazzi (palaces in Italian) are as remarkable as the food in central Italy.

Some evolved out of Medieval towers that were constructed for protection, not status.

Most palazzi, though, are status symbols that have stood the test of time.

While Americans tear down buildings barely a quarter century old, the Lucchese preserve centuries-old palaces.

Some become museums, others converted into offices but many still serving as residential showplaces for wealthy merchant families.

Lindquist's book details nearly 100 palazzi, including the Palazzi Guinigi, a pair of gothic palaces.

One even features a 130-foot-tall tower with oak trees growing on top of it, the Torre Guinigi, which you can climb for a bird's eye view of the city.

"Both palazzi were built about 1375. The one on the east probably was built first, by Francesco Guinigi, 'padre della patria,' on the foundations of medieval buildigns and the Roman wall," the author writes of the palace-owner honored as "father of the fatherland."

The palazzo with the tower remained in one branch of the Guinigi family all the way to 1956, when it was purchased by the town.

Order the book at www.lindquistguides.com

The Wanderer's Guide to Lucca review 

continues tomorrow -- September 2