The Clonmacnoise monastic site, located on the banks of the River Shannon, and always conquers the heart of its visitors. Today, the site today consists of seven ruined churches and three high crosses, an cathedral and two round towers. At the end of the 9th century, the Vikings targeted these settlements. An Irish bishop, was the founder of this place …
Read More »THE IRISH BALLAD – Tom Leher
Tom Lehrer– The Irish ballad > About a maid I’ll sing a song, sing rickety-tickety-tin, about a maid I’ll sing a song who didn’t have her family long, not only did she do them wrong, she did every one of them in, them in she did every one of them in. One morning in a fit of pique, sing rickety-tickety-tin, …
Read More »THE DRIVING IRISH FORCE – William Butler Yeats: my arms are like the twisted thorn
THE FISHERMAN, by William Butler Yeats > Although I can see him still, the freckled man who goes to a gray place on a hill, in gray Connemara clothes, at dawn to cast his flies. It’s long since I began to call up to the eyes, this wise and simple man. All day I’d looked in the face what I …
Read More »THE WILD IRISH GIRL – Romance, by Sidney Owenson
You can read this novel, is an partly epistolary novel written by Irish novelist Sydney Owenson. Is a romance set in Ireland, pages where you can find wild landscapes and ruins. The story involves a young Englishman, a kind of prodigal son who is banished to his aristocratic father’s Irish estates. In this setting and among these characters Horatio learns …
Read More »BENOZZO GOZZOLI /1421/1497), ITALIAN PAINTER – Not only the most fascinating fresco cycles of 15th-century Florence
THE MAN CALLED BENOZZO – Trained as a goldsmith, he will become painter
BENOZZO GOZZOLI 1/3 – Benozzo Gozzoli he was an Italian Renaissance painter from Florence, best known for a series of murals in the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi depicting festive processions (in fresco-painting he used the methods of tempera), with fine attention to detail. The art of Gozzoli is pre-eminently attractive by its sense of what is rich, winning, lively and abundant in …
Read More »WITH THE EYES OF BENOZZO – A virtual trip that can become real, through the lands where the Italian Renaissance was born
The year 1420 (MCDXX) was a leap year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar, but someone special was born. Benozzo Gozzoli was born in 1420, near Florence (the city where they worked Fra Angelico, Filippo Lippi and Paolo Uccello, Domenico Veneziano and Piero della Francesca), which is associated with the Guild of Painters. At age 18 he is in …
Read More »ROMAN LANDSCAPES – Stunning views of the city and poignant images of the Roman countryside
ROMAN LANDSCAPES PAINTINGS
Landscape painting is the depiction in art of landscapes (such as mountains and valleys, trees, rivers and forests), with its elements inside coherent composition. The history of Roman painting is essentially a history of wall paintings on plaster, and it is thanks to the ancient Roman city of Pompeii that we can trace the history of Roman wall painting. Until …
Read More »ROMAN GUITAR – Song, by Bruno di Lazzaro
Under a blanket of stars Roma looks beautiful to me. Lonely my heart, disillusioned of love, wants to sing in the shadow. A fountain wetsuit, and a balcony up there, oh Roman guitar, you accompany me. Plays, plays my guitar, letting crying my heart, without a home and without love, only you remain to me. If the voice is a …
Read More »ROMAN MUSIC
When your geographical horizon extends – for business or pleasure – you have the wonderful opportunity to hear you inside, like the perfectly proportioned man (created by Leonardo da Vinci), correlating the symmetry of human anatomy to the symmetry of the universe. What you see, hear, eat and feel, it’s all inside the Vitruvian approach to life. Ancient Roman Music …
Read More »MARCUS AGRIPPA SON OF LUCIUS, HAVING BEEN CONSUL THREE TIMES, MADE IT –
The word “Pantheon” is a Greek adjective, meaning “honor all Gods”. The Roman Pantheon is the most preserved and influential building of ancient Rome. It is a Roman temple dedicated to all the gods of pagan Rome. The exact composition of the material is still unknown and appears to be structurally similar to modern day concrete. The 16 massive Corinthian …
Read More »EATING RIGATONI AND ABBACCHIO – Hosteria Pantheon, Rome: astounding view, while you sit and have a cold glass of wine
We visit Rome every year for a few days, and our first port of call is always Hostaria Pantheon: the food is gorgeous, the view is astounding while you sit and have a cold glass of wine, but above all the staff are brilliant (Franco, Nico and the rest of the staff make you feel so welcome). They want that …
Read More »MASTERPIECES OF ART IN THE CENTURIES / ROME – Michelangelo: The Sistine Chapel
The “Sistine Chapel“, dedicated to Our Lady of the Assumption, is one of the most famous cultural and artistic treasures of the Vatican City, inserted in the path of the Vatican Museums. The chapel was built in 1479 under the direction of Pope Sixtus IV, who gave it his name. The location of the building is very close to St. …
Read More »CARLO ALBERTO SALUSTRI, ALIAS TRILUSSA – The cynical Roman version of La Fontane: three sonnets
Among the Roman dialect poets, Trilussa (1871/1950), is by far the most well-known and appreciated outside his own hometown. His mature work falls broadly into two types (sonnets and fables), however, it wasat the poetic fable that Trilussa truly excelled, developing a distinctly cynical Roman version (of the genre of Aesop and La Fontaine). Among his many artistic merits, he …
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