Celebrating Your Inner Italian
Treasures of Florence fly to Bucks County on the wings of angels.
Imagine possessing so many gems that there’s no more room in your jewelry case for a flawless gold and radiant-cut diamond necklace. You’re forced to stow it in a box in the attic.
No space, either, for the marquise-cut ruby bracelet. Upstairs it goes.
Those pear-shaped sapphire ear drops set in silver filigree? No spot for them in the case. A shame they’re out of sight.
Sandro Botticelli, (Florence 1445-1510), Madonna with Child (Madonna della loggia), circa 1466-1467, oil on panel, Collection of the Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy.
By Walter Sanders
So how, you might ask, did the Michener Art Museum in Doylestown, PA manage to snag “Offering of the Angels,”one of the most prestigious exhibitions of the new millennium?
The triumph involves the Association of Museums Conference, an empty bus seat, and a fortuitous question.
Bruce Katsiff, the Director/CEO of the Michener related at the media launch event, at the Italian Consulate in Philadelphia, how a chance meeting with a representative of Florence, Italy-based Contemporanea Progetti led to this exciting exhibit coming to Bucks County.
“There was one empty seat left on a bus going to a special event at the Getty Museum in LA three years ago,” said Katsiff. “I introduced myself to the woman next to me and we talked a little. I eventually learned that she was seeking four U.S. museums to host a spectacular exhibition of Italian art from the Uffizi in Florence. She told me that she had already booked three of the museums.”
“Does the exhibit include a Botticelli?” Katsiff asked.
“Yes,” she replied.
Katsiff jumped at the opportunity and the brilliant result is the Michener hosting the exhibit which will run from April 21 through August 10, 2012. This will be the only venue in the northeastern United States. (Look for a future post about the works in the exhibit after SimpleItaly attends the preview.)
From left, Bruce Katsiff, Director/CEO of the James A. Michener Art Museum, Dottore Luigi Scotto, Italian Consul General, Philadlephia, and Jerry Lepping, Executive Director of Visit Bucks County, announce the "Offering of the Angels" exhibit.
Renaissance Italian art lovers, rejoice! An incredible exhibit and value priced at $15 per ticket which includes the exhibit, an audio tour and parking.
Story and Photographs by Melinda Rizzo
The Palazzo Vecchio, the town hall of Florence.
Florentines are accustomed to waiting.
From Michelangelo to Botticelli, DaVinci to Galileo, Florentines have cultured their passions into pearls, like a single grain of sand nestled deep inside an oyster and emerging over time to become a gem of the sea.
This year was my 30th, or Pearl, wedding anniversary.
To celebrate this milestone, my husband and I opted to take a trip to Florence, the heart and breath of Italy’s Tuscany region.
In January, we made the decision to travel to Italy at the end of November. Planning and executing this trip—one in which we’d invited a cousin and were traveling with our 12-year-old son—took time and patience. Patience, you might say, of the Florentines.
I’ve never considered myself a patient person.
Cathedrals take time to build, often centuries, still Florentines seem content to wait knowing their labors are never in vain.
The Dome of Santa Maria del Fiore Cathedral, commonly know as The Duomo.
As Carl Jung, a 20th century Swiss psychiatrist would contend, any work with purpose regardless of its nature, ultimately provides satisfaction and even pleasure for the worker.
Prosciutto crudo (air dried and cured pork) from Parma and arguably the pride of its area, can take as long as two years from start to finish to be ready for consumption.
Two years for a ham and cheese sandwich, but what a sandwich it makes! Prosciutto for me, and my son, is porcine transcendence.
Does anyone ordering a prosciutto focaccia pressed and toasted, consider the amount of time it took to create the ham? A moment of mastication melts these buttery mouthfuls, and they are gone.
Florentines linger over osteria menus . . . along alleyways . . . and outside the windows of leather shops.
Street performers sing operatic arias. They pump life into an accordion’s complication.
They strum a guitar or play the love theme from Florentine Franco Zeffirelli’s 1968 film Romeo and Juliet in the Piazza Signoria, where I rented our apartment. They spend time and care honing their musicianship. For those who love music, they offer kinship without translation.
Street performers share their art in exchange for spare change dropped into a basket poised at their feet. Skilled musicians bear witness to patience and waiting.
Witnessing the patience of Florentines: to execute a 17-foot-tall statue of David in marble, paint the mythological birth of Venus over the ocean waves or slice tissue thin prosciutto from the seasoned hindquarters of a pig, taught me a thing or two about this most elusive of virtues.
Consider the amount of time it takes for someone to carve mounds of
Nutella, vanilla or tutti fruitti gelato, into tempting, irresistible towering creations
decorated with fruit slices, nuts or plump, glistening blackberries and shiny
currants.