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Posted on Jun 3, 2013 in Masterpieces | 0 comments

Villa Valmara ai Nani: Tiepolo’s frescoes in an enchanting setting

Near Vicenza, high up in the Berici hills, the upside-down keel shape of the Basilica Palladiana stands out in the city’s outline, the symbol of the historic center, which has recently been restored to its former glory. Palladio is the most recognized name in the area, after the artist that transformed architecture in the 1500s, giving rise to the model that bears his name and characterizes an entire region. UNESCO has included the Palladian villas in Veneto in its list of world heritage sites. Just a short distance from La Rotonda, the most celebrated of Palladio’s villas, you will find Villa Valmarana ai Nani. It was built 100 years later, when Giustino Valmarana commissioned Francesco Muttoni to design it. The name derives from the seventeen dwarves carved in stone that adorn the perimeter wall. There is a legend telling of a dwarf princess that lived alone in the villa, surrounded by her dwarf servants, who, after glimpsing a handsome prince wandering in the garden one day and becoming aware...

Posted on May 30, 2013 in Masterpieces | 0 comments

Buonconsiglio Castle: the Cycle of the Months in Eagle Tower

Buonconsiglio Castle in Trento has immense charm and fascination, rising just beyond the city walls that date back to the 1200s. The complex was the residence of the Prince-Bishops of Trento for nearly six centuries. One of its towers, known as Aquila, or Eagle, holds one of the most important fresco cycles from the International Gothic art movement in Europe: the Cycle of the Months. Even as you approach it, through a narrow passageway straight out of a fairy tale, the tower seems to want to separate the visitor from the rest of the castle and the world, to prepare him or her for a site that evokes ages past, that recounts tales of courtly and rural life in the years spanning the 14th and 15th century. The castle was commissioned by the Prince-Bishop George of Liechtenstein who entrusted it to an artist (mounting evidence points to Maestro Venceslao from Bohemia), proving himself to be an educated humanist and a refined expert on courtly life at the beginning of the 1400s....

Posted on May 29, 2013 in Bergamo | 0 comments

Places to visit in Bergamo: discover them with the App about the city

Smartrippin, the first touristic app to discover the places to visit in Bergamo, offers the opportunity to know a charming city with a dual personality: its modern and dynamic lower part and its unmissable artistic and architectural upper part. Towards the end of the Nineteenth Century, the citizens of Bergamo needed a fast way to link the two parts of the city. In 1887 the solution was made: the cable car. The altitude gap is 85 meters and the maximum slope reaches 52%. The route lasts a few minutes but it is worth the effort. Beside the cable car, Bergamo has a great number of paths that link the Lower City and the Upper City. This ways offers a wonderful view of the city and fascinating glimpses. Thanks to the staircases it is possible to reach some part of the city in a short time, walking through rural background, sorrounded by bare stones, wildflowers, cultivated terraces, gardens. Piazza Vecchia is the point from which you have to start in...

Posted on May 21, 2013 in Masterpieces | 0 comments

Sacred and Profane Love: the secrets behind Titian’s masterpiece

A walk to the Pincian Hill, in Rome, sets out before you one of the most celebrated vistas in the world. People like to look out over it and point to a monument, a silhouette, a cupola and say, “Oh yes, now I understand where it is”. At the back of the scenic overlook, surrounded by an expanse of holly oaks, chestnut trees, evergreens, statues and marble busts, is Villa Borghese, one of the largest parks in the country’s capital, which houses the Borghese Gallery. This was once Cardinal Scipione’s residence and today conserves priceless artistic masterpieces, including a number of works by Caravaggio and Bernini. But today we will focus our attention elsewhere, on an equally renowned milestone in Italian art, Sacred and Profane Love by Titian. One of the many gifts that art offers us is that of forcing us to follow the significance of the work, to puzzle over the meanings that are hidden behind a painting, the mysteries and ideas that the artist wanted to...