Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 360,930 inhabitants in 2023, and 984,991 in its metropolitan area.
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, known mononymously as Michelangelo, was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet of the High Renaissance. Born in the Republic of Florence, his work was inspired by models from classical antiquity and had a lasting influence on Western art. Michelangelo's creative abilities and mastery in a range of artistic arenas define him as an archetypal Renaissance man, along with his rival and elder contemporary, Leonardo da Vinci. Given the sheer volume of surviving correspondence, sketches, and reminiscences, Michelangelo is one of the best-documented artists of the 16th century. He was lauded by contemporary biographers as the most accomplished artist of his era.
The Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze is an instructional art academy in Florence, in Tuscany, in central Italy.
The Villa Farnese, also known as Villa Caprarola, is a pentagonal mansion in the town of Caprarola in the province of Viterbo, Northern Lazio, Italy, approximately 50 kilometres (31 mi) north-west of Rome, originally commissioned and owned by the House of Farnese. A property of the Republic of Italy, Villa Farnese is run by the Polo Museale del Lazio. This villa is not to be confused with two similarly-named properties of the family, the Palazzo Farnese and the Villa Farnesina, both in Rome.
The Palazzo Vecchio is the town hall of Florence, Italy. It overlooks the Piazza della Signoria, which holds a copy of Michelangelo's David statue, and the gallery of statues in the adjacent Loggia dei Lanzi.
Francesco I was the second Grand Duke of Tuscany, ruling from 1574 until his death in 1587. He was a member of the House of Medici.
The Villa Farnesina is a Renaissance suburban villa in the Via della Lungara, in the district of Trastevere in Rome, central Italy. Built between 1506 and 1510 for Agostino Chigi, the Pope's wealthy Sienese banker, it was a novel type of suburban villa, subsidiary to his main Palazzo Chigi in the city. It is especially famous for the rich frescos by Raphael and other High Renaissance artists that remain in situ.
Villa del Poggio Imperiale is a predominantly neoclassical former grand ducal villa in Arcetri, just to the south of Florence in Tuscany, Central Italy. Beginning as a villa of the Baroncelli of Florence, it was seized by the Medici, became the home of a Medici princess, and a lavish retreat for a Grand Duchess with imperial pretensions. Later given to Napoleon's sister, it was reclaimed by the hereditary rulers of Tuscany before being finally converted to a prestigious girls' school. During its long history, it has often been at the centre of Italy's turbulent history, and has been rebuilt and redesigned many times.
Jacopo Ligozzi (1547–1627) was an Italian painter, illustrator, designer, and miniaturist. His art can be categorized as late-Renaissance and Mannerist styles.
Stradanus, Johannes Stradanus, Jan van der Straet or Giovanni Stradano was a Flemish artist active mainly in 16th-century Florence, Italy. He was a wide-ranging talent who worked as an easel and fresco painter, designer of tapestries, draughtsman, designer of prints and pottery decorator. His subject range was varied and included history subjects, mythological scenes, allegories, landscapes, genre scenes, portraits, architectural scenes and animals. After training in his native Flanders, he left his home country and ultimately settled down in Florence, Italy. He became a prominent court artist to the Medici during the second half of the 16th century and worked on the many decorative projects of the court. Stradanus also produced large altarpieces for the most important churches in Florence.
Giovanni Battista (Giambattista) Foggini was an Italian sculptor active in Florence, renowned mainly for small bronze statuary.
The Medici Vase is a monumental marble bell-shaped krater sculpted in Athens in the second half of the 1st century AD as a garden ornament for the Roman market. It is now in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.
The Basilica of San Giovanni dei Fiorentini is a minor basilica and a titular church in the Ponte rione of Rome, Italy.
The Medici villas are a series of rural building complexes in Tuscany which were owned by members of the Medici family between the 15th century and the 17th century. The villas served several functions: they were the country palaces of the Medici, scattered over the territory that they ruled, demonstrating their power and wealth. They were also recreational resorts for the leisure and pleasure of their owners; and, more prosaically, they were the centre of agricultural activities on the surrounding estates. In 2013, the Medici villas were added to UNESCO's World Heritage list.
The Biblioteca Riccardiana is an Italian public library under the aegis of the Ministry of Culture, located inside the Palazzo Medici Riccardi at 10 Via de’ Ginori in Florence, in the neighborhood comprising the Mercato Centrale and the Basilica di San Lorenzo. Its main feature is preserving books collected by members of the Riccardi family and making them available in the very same rooms that were originally dedicated to that purpose. So, still today the library boasts the magnificent bookshelves, neatly carved and gilded, that create the atmosphere of a late-seventeenth-century patrician library, whose main features have all been kept intact.
Siena is a city in Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the province of Siena. Siena is the 12th largest city in the region by number of inhabitants, with a population of 53,062 as of 2022.
The Medici lions are a pair of marble sculptures of lions: one of which is Roman, dating to the 2nd century AD, and the other a 16th-century pendant. By 1598 both were placed at the Villa Medici, Rome. Since 1789 they have been displayed at the Loggia dei Lanzi in Florence. The sculptures depict standing male lions with a sphere or ball under one paw, looking to the side.
Bryan McCormack, is a Contemporary artist who specifically deals with social subject matters. In the last fifteen years, Bryan Mc Cormack has had over 30 group and solo exhibitions. Currently he lives and works in Paris, France.
Agitu Ideo Gudeta was an Ethiopian Oromo farmer, entrepreneur, and environmentalist who immigrated to Italy after experiencing conflict due to her political activism against land grabbing by the military for international corporations. She established a goat farming operation using the indigenous breed Pezzata Mòchena to produce dairy and beauty products. Gudeta became a national symbol of environmentalism and successful refugee integration into Italian society by the press and politicians. She was assassinated in December 2020; Adams Suleiman, a Ghanaian seasonal worker she had hired, was charged with raping and murdering her.
The Altoviti are a prominent noble family of Florence, Italy. Since the medieval period they were one of the most distinguished banking and political families appointed to the highest offices of the Republic of Florence, friends and patrons of Galileo Galilei, Vasari, Raphael, and Michelangelo. They had a close personal relationship with the papacy. Through a predominant endogamous marriage policy they established alliances with dynasties of principal and papal nobility as the Medici, Cybo, Rospigliosi, Sacchetti, Corsini, and Aldobrandini.
