Loading...
The botanical details of a masterpiece by Vittore Carpaccio, the Portrait of a Knight now in Madrid, have many secrets to divulge.
The author, a landscape gardener and botanical investigator of great artworks, shows us recondite vegetal details of renowned masterpieces.
Lucian Freud’s plant portraits, only recently brought into the spotlight and associated with the renown of his celebrated portraits of people.
Hyperrealistic cacti, painted in oils and garish hues on gigantic canvases by the South Korean artist Lee Kwang-Ho.
The botanical festoons frescoed by Giovanni da Udine in Rome’s Villa Farnesina, which include species then newly brought over from the New World.
The Masonic park of the Villa Durazzo Pallavicini in Pegli (near Genoa), conceived as a theatrical spectacle.
The tropical welter of vegetation painted in the cloister of the Mexican monastery of Malinalco bears witness to the encounter (and clash) of cultures.
An overview of the Oratorio di San Lorenzo in Palermo, with a special focus on Serpotta’s stuccowork.
Stunningly refined portraits of botanists done by Gaetano Gandolfi for Bologna’s “Pinacotheca Bassiana”.
Glassblowing and photography bring within our eyeshot the marvels that Nature has concealed in the depths.
The collection of jewelry by René Lalique assembled by his friend and patron Calouste Gulbenkian.
Japanese folding screens from the Edo period upon which other foldings screens are painted, bedecked with magnificent garments.
Recollections and travel notes from a journey through the lovely Christian religious centers of Oaxaca.
Roger Caillois’s collection of stones and Giovanni Pratesi’s collection of Arno river rocks and pebbles.
The procession of the Queen of Sheba as illustrated by Josep Maria Sert in a hall of the Wendel family’s Hôtel Particulier, now at the Musée Carnavalet.
The deeper and less obvious meanings of the series “Primitive Humanity,” painted by Piero di Cosimo in the Florence of the Medici.
Hearst Castle’s Roman Pool, a sumptuous creation by Julia Morgan, serves as a metaphor for the spirit of California.
The Casa Madre dell’Associazione Nazionale fra Invalidi e Mutilati di Guerra, designed by Piacentini, houses works by Wildt and Sironi, among others.
A touching article by Giovanni Mariotti, written in a single burst without punctuation, offering us a portrait of the Macchiaiolo painter Silvestro Lega.
A manuscript with an adventuresome background takes us to Eastern lands colonized by Europeans in the sixteenth century.
Pietro Portaluppi's collection of antique sundials, now housed at the Museo Poldi Pezzoli in Milan, presented in a magnificent display.
Magnificent tables of marble and inlaid stones made in Rome in the second half of the sixteenth century.
