Italian Art for Travelers
Your passport to culture, history, and art

A krater, an amphora, and a marble sculpture tell the story of the illegal art trade in Italy. The Italian art squad nabbed the culprits an

A better title for this post is “How My Wife Ended up with a Fifth Century Mosaic Tattooed on Her Foot.” It’s an odd connection between...

How would you like to be remembered? That selfie you took on vacation, a wedding photo, or image from a family gathering? We consciously...

If you visit Italy you can’t miss the frescoes. Fresco paintings decorate castles, Roman villas, public buildings, and of course,...

Michelangelo began working on St. Peter's at age 71. The last 17 years of his life were devoted to St. Peter's.

April 6, 2020 marks the 500th anniversary of the death of Raphael (1483-1520), Renaissance artist extraordinaire. Italy planned grand...

The hidden history of women artists continues with Artemisia Gentileschi, the most studied and famous of the sixteenth and seventeenth...

St. Peter’s is a showcase of seventeenth century Italian art and the two personalities who put a defining plan in place to finish it. What P

Approximately six million people visit the Sistine Ceiling and Vatican Museums each year. Who made these treasures possible? Two popes from

Trastevere embodies an old world atmosphere with narrow cobblestone streets and a dynamic neighborhood. Literally meaning across the...

Roman political views vacillate equally between complaining and throwing their hands up as a lost cause. Manefestazioni and scioperi...

The Etruscans were the homegrown Italians, the native peoples inhabiting Etruria, just north of Rome to Northern Tuscany. Etruscan culture i

Caravaggio’s life was as dramatic as his art. He was equally known in Rome as an artistic innovator and trouble maker. Until recently, his d

Seventeenth century Roman art is one of surprises, contrasts, and drama. No one style predominated. Paintings could be evenly lit or have...

Fascists cherry picked iconic images as the perfect foil for disseminating concepts of cultural purity and superiority. The role of Fascism

How Vincent van Gogh and a Roman Missal led me to study art history. From the graceful ornate elegance of the 1400s, to the classic figural

As I left the exhibit at the Met, a little overwhelmed, and took a taxi back to the hotel, my thoughts turned to three questions...

Michelangelo was active as an artist for some seventy years and the exhibit brought together works from his earliest teenage years to drawin

Four Renaissance masters. Individually they were artistic geniuses. Collectively their bodies of work are considered the epitome of the...