This rather attractive painting appears in Florence’s Neo-classical railway station. The station building itself was completed in 1935 at the height of the Fascist Era in Italy and looks to me rather tired and scruffy from the outside these days. However inside it is a pleasure of light and space, the glass that looks so grimy on the outside looks beautifully illuminated on the inside. Of course there is some art involved, and above is an example of some of the very interesting mural paintings close to the platform for our train back to Pescia.
Darren recently enjoyed a trip to Florence to take a tour around the Vasari corridor. The Vasari corridor is a part of the Uffizi museum where most of the major Florentine art is stored. The ‘corrodoio’ was built in 1564 by Cosimo 1 de’Medici to a design by the painter architect Giorgio Vasari. The Medicis wanted to move freely from the main public buildings in the centre of Florence to their palace on the south side of the city without having to mingle with the common people below so they built a corridor that ran through and spanned several buildings, including the Uffizi palace and the Ponte Vecchio.
The corridor is also a gallery of self portraits by many of the worlds most famous artists, including Raphael and Rembrandt.
Here in Vellano we have much rain to contend with still. Mists and showers seem to come from nowhere just when you think the sun may shine for a while and you put out the washing with a certain but misplaced expectation! But when we do get a sunny day the air can still be warm and we have eaten lunch outdoors one day this week.