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19.9.2018
A bit of a Bellini
book bonanza at the moment. Lives of Giovanni Bellini
is a palm-size but comprehensive and plushly-illustrated
compilation of roughly contemporary writing about Bellini by
Vasari, Ridolfi and Boschini, with the letters between him and
Isabella d'Este as a bonus. It's edited and introduced by the
Getty's Davide Gasparotto and looks like an ideal stocking-filler for
the Bellini fans in you life. Giovanni Bellini: The Art of
Contemplation by Johannes Grave is a much more major
career survey. I'll be reviewing both soon. And then there's
the Mantegna and Bellini exhibition in London in prospect, in
connection with which I'm going to a one-day talk and a
two-afternoon course. I strongly doubt that you can have too
much Giov Bellini, but I think that I'm going to find out, one
way or the other.
16.9.2018
Florence and Arezzo
11.8.2018
Searching
for something fresh in the fiction line to read on my upcoming
trip to Florence (and Arezzo) I'm not getting any anticipatory
frissons, I have to admit. There's a new
Philip Kazan, called
The Phoenix of Florence - we like him but it's not
published until next February. Fiction set in Florence
featuring Leonardo is far from rare, as are novels where
conspiracies are uncovered, crimes committed and members of
the Medici family murdered. Also Florence and feminism and
female artists is a definite thing. So a series that mixes up
all of this stuff, called the Da Vinci's Disciples series,
should be no surprise. It features a team of female painters
secretly trained by Leonardo and the books look to be dark and
tasty, but it takes a lot to make me forgive the making of the
heinous Dan Brown mistake of using Da Vinci as a surname, as
regular readers will know. There is a new
Marco Vichi out while I'm in
Florence, but I haven't read his previous one yet. So maybe I
will.
22.7.2018
Leeds and York
1.7.2018
On a quiet
Sunday afternoon, with the temperature nudging 30 in London,
nothing warms the cockles of a webmaster like the discovery
that his site has been cited and linked to
on the Tate Gallery's website
and on
another page
on the same site
The Churches of Venice is cited to
contradict the previous misidentification of a doorway!
25.6.2018
Nancy
9.6.2018
In Venice fiction news: an email arrives from Christopher
Jones, the author of
White Phantom City which I read and liked a while back.
He's been re-writing it and tightening it up, it seems, and it
has just been republished as The Breath of the Zephyr. If you
missed it first time round...
6.6.2018
Bologna
5.6.2018
I'm just back from a week
in Bologna, and my trip report will follow.
But while I
was away news broke that John Julius Norwich had died - a sad
day for fans of Venice and for the readers and lovers of his
many special books on his favourite city. He revealed his
innermost passions to this very website
on this page.
more news here |
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September 2018
Lives of Giovanni Bellini
Venice
Florence and Arezzo
Trips
August 2018
Marco Vichi Death in
the Tuscan Hills
Florence
June & July 2018
Leeds and York
Trips
Nancy
Trips
Bologna
Trips
April &
May 2018
Claudia
Caramanna et al
Paintings
from Murano by Paolo Veronese Venice
Tristan Palmgren
Quietus
Florence
March
2018
Donna Leon
The Temptation of
Forgiveness Venice
Philip Gwynne Jones
Vengeance in Venice
Roberto Tiraboschi
The Eye Stone Venice
Siena
Trips
February
2018
Gregory Dowling
The Four Horsemen Venice
Imogen Hermes Gowar The Mermaid and Mrs
Hancock
London
Lincoln
Short trips
November
&
December
2017
Vienna
Trips
Norwich
Short trips
Glenn Haybittle
The Way Back to Florence
Giovanni Boccaccio
The
Decameron
Florence
September
& October
2017
Magdalen
Nabb
Death
of a Dutchman
Florence
Padua & Verona
Trips
David Adams Cleveland
Time's Betrayal Venice
August
2017
Vaughan Hart and Peter
Hicks Sansovino's Venice
Dublin
Trips
June
&
July
2017
Diana Gisolfi Paolo Veronese and
the
Practice of Painting in Late Renaissance Venice
Judith Mackrell
The Unfinished Palazzo
Venice
Richard Russo Trajectory
Venice
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