Pallabazzer recommends seeing the historic center of Florence at different times of the day. In the early morning, you'll get to experience it "without noise and the pressing pace of crowds." Midday brings droves of visitors, but the destination is "bathed in sunshine." In the evening, "the lights of the street lamps stretch out over the Lungarni [the streets along the Arno River], creating a truly magical effect."
Marciari brought me to a very different place: the luxurious, languid heat of late-summer Rome, in one of the final years of the 16th century. There, an ordinary boy has been made to hold a heavy basket of fruit for far longer than he'd like in a hot, airless studio, and a young, unknown painter is on the precipice of greatness.
A previously unknown drawing by the German Renaissance artist Hans Baldung Grien has been rediscovered in a wooden box belonging to the family of the woman who sat for the portrait 500 years ago. Drawings by Baldung are extremely rare, with only a handful known in private collections. One with a direct-line provenance by descent from the original sitter is an unprecedented find.
Some of the garments on display appear to recall details from individual works at the Pinacoteca. A cluster of dark garments with white accents, including a black-and-white sequined suit and a velvet tailcoat adorned with a floral brooch, emphasise the chiaroscuro dramatism of Caravaggio's Supper at Emmaus (1606). Nearby, mannequins in sand-coloured blouses and cotton trench coats recall the veiled Muslim women kneeling in Bellini's vast St. Mark Preaching in Alexandria (1504-1507).
