Florence and Art: 5 Things You Didn’t Know

As an artistic center and cultural hub, few cities rival Florence – and for nearly 300 years, it was unmatched in the array of media it produced. Florence examines this astounding work of this period, from 1300 to 1600, within the context of the major political, social, economic, and cultural events of the time.

Guest Post: Patricia Palao – Promotions Designer

This week we met with one of our in-house designers, Patricia Palao. Here she explains her role as an in-house designer and what sort of things she designs for Cambridge and what she has learned during her years in the book industry and at Cambridge.

Stradivari Offers “Juicy Details”

Owning a Stradivarius is actually quite precarious/Let me tell you, honey, they cost a lot of money/But as violins go they’re the very very best. Stewart Pollens‘ Stradivari featured on The New Yorker’s Book Bench Blog!

Ravenna in Context: Where Kings and Emperors Once Lived

In Ravenna in Late Antiquity, Deborah Mauskopf Deliyannis looks at one of the most important cities of late antique Europe over the course of 350 years – tracing its expansion as well as its artistic growth. Many remarkable works of art and architecture from this late ancient world still survive today.

With this weekend’s Wall Street Journal, scholar Stuart Ferguson puts the unique legacy of Ravenna in context – and calls Ravenna in Late Antiquity “fascinating and dense” – “both a narrative history of the city’s ruling elites and a survey of its architectural and artistic treasures. . . . [treasures] worth pausing over.”

The Gypsy’s Guide: William Wallace

Angela Nickerson of travel blog The Gypsy’s Guide, and author of A Journey into Michelangelo’s Rome posted a fine interview with Michelangelo author William Wallace.

Eight Questions for William Wallace

When I was researching and writing A Journey into Michelangelo’s Rome, I read thousands and thousands of pages — books, articles, interviews, journals — and one name kept popping up in my research, that of Dr. William Wallace.

AKN: You have devoted most of your academic research to the study of Michelangelo. How did you come to choose him as your subject?

William Wallace: I first traveled to Italy as a junior in college. I was an art history major, but on that three-week trip I realized “this is it!” I had read The Agony and the Ecstasy. I thought it was a pretty good read. But on that first trip I had that experience that so many people have when traveling in Italy. No matter how often great works of art are reproduced, that moment when you walk into the Sistine Chapel for the first time is so dramatically different. My breath was taken away.