Leonardo and Michelangelo: The 1504 Duel in Florence

The "duel" between Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo Buonarroti refers to a legendary artistic competition, when the Florentine Republic commissioned both masters to paint massive, opposing battle frescoes in the Palazzo Vecchio Grand Hall of the Five Hundred.

In 1504, Michelangelo Buonarroti was commissioned by Pier Soderini to complete a celebrative fresco depicting the Battle of Cascina, to be placed in the Florentine Room of the Great Council (or Salone dei Cinquecento) of Palazzo Vecchio while Leonardo da Vinci was commissioned to complete another painting on the opposite wall to celebrate the equally important Florentine victory at the 1440 Battle of Anghiari, effectively pitting the two rivals against one another.

Leonardo da Vinci | Study of a Warrior's Head for the Battle of Anghiari, 1504-1505 | Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest

Il Realismo Romantico di Lucia Sarto, 1950

Lucia Sarto è una pittrice Italiana, nata a Udine e nota a livello internazionale per il suo stile definito "Realismo Romantico" od impressionismo romantico.

La sua arte si distingue per la capacità di catturare la luce ed il colore in atmosfere sognanti, ispirandosi alla tradizione pittorica del sud Italia (come De Nittis) ed all'impressionismo americano.

Si è formata tra l'Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia (sotto la guida di Virgilio Guidi) e Torino.

Paolo Fiammingo | Mannerist painter

Pauwels Franck - known in Italy as Paolo Fiammingo and Paolo dei Franceschi (1540-1596), was a Flemish painter, mainly of landscapes with mythological and religious scenes, who was active in Venice for most of his life.

He was likely born c. 1540 but his birthplace is not known. He became a member of the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke in 1561.

He is recorded in Venice from 1573 but was likely an assistant in Tintoretto’s workshop there already in the 1560s.

He worked in Venice for the rest of his career.

Allegory of Music

The "Allegory of Music" is a classic artistic theme used to personify the beauty, harmony, and theory of sound.

Historically, these artworks often feature a female figure (sometimes a Muse like Euterpe or Polyhymnia) surrounded by various instruments, sheet music, and symbolic animals.

Historically, it is often depicted as one of the Seven Liberal Arts, representing the mathematical and harmonic ratios that govern the universe.

The theme remains relevant today; for instance, modern songwriters use allegory in lyrics to convey deep moral lessons or complex emotions through surface-level stories.

Francesco Trevisani (Italian Rococo Era painter, 1656-1746) | An allegory of music

Nicola Vietti, 1945 | Figurative painter

Nicola Vietti was born in Marseille to Italian parents emigrated from Apulia in France at the beginning of the century. Numerous solo and group exhibitions.

And 'present in catalogs and magazines. He currently lives and works in Milan, after a long period spent in Paris.

The figures of maidens Nicola Vietti, you can look on each side, three-quarter profile, facing away.

The style might defer to their fathers, that should not be forgotten at this point, as the International Botero and Bueno Nicola Vietti that offer a hint of a departure of style attempted with disenchantment.

Il gabbiano Jonathan Livingston, 1970 | Prima parte

Richard Bach: "Al vero Gabbiano Jonathan che vive nel profondo di tutti noi!"

"Il gabbiano Jonathan Livingston" (Jonathan Livingston Seagull) è un celebre romanzo breve di Richard Bach (1936).

Best seller in molti paesi del mondo negli anni settanta, diventato per molti un vero e proprio cult, Jonathan Livingston è essenzialmente una fiaba a contenuto morale e spirituale.

La metafora principale del libro, ovvero il percorso di autoperfezionamento del gabbiano che impara a volare/vivere attraverso l'abnegazione, ricordando il periodo del Rinascimento, il sacrificio e la gioia di farlo è stata letta da diverse generazioni secondo diverse prospettive ideologiche, dal cattolicesimo al pensiero positivo, l'anarchismo cristiano e la New Age.

Giorgio Conta, 1978 | Figurative sculptor

Italian artist Giorgio Conta was born in Cles and lives and works in Monclassico in Val di Sole (TN).

He grew up in an artistic environment where, being his father a well known artist, he came into contact with various personalities from the art and culture world, including the great pianist Arturo Benedetti Michel-angeli, close friend of the family, who expressed the wish to be his Godfather.

After having earned his high-school diploma he attended a sculpture school devoting himself to painting and drawing as well.

Giorgio Vasari: "Vita di Sandro Botticello - Pittor Fiorentino"

Ne’ medesimi tempi del Magnifico Lorenzo Vecchio de’ Medici, che fu veramente per le persone d’ingegno un secol d’oro, fiorì ancora Alessandro, chiamato a l’uso nostro Sandro e detto di Botticello per la cagione che appresso vedremo.

Costui fu figliuolo di Mariano Filipepi, cittadino fiorentino dal quale diligentemente allevato e fatto instruire in tutte quelle cose che usanza è di insegnarsi a’ fanciulli in quella età, prima che e’ si ponghino a le botteghe, ancora che agevolmente apprendesse tutto quello che e’ voleva, era nientedimanco inquieto sempre; né si contentava di scuola alcuna, di leggere, di scrivere o di abbaco; di maniera che il padre infastidito di questo cervello sì stravagante, per disperato lo pose a lo orefice con un suo compare chiamato Botticello, assai competente maestro allora in quell’arte.

Lilliana Comes | Magic realism painter

Daughter of an artist -her father was a sculptor, painter-, Lilliana Comes graduates from Istituto d’Arte di Napoli “Filippo Palizzi”, where she studies under sculptor Lelio Gelli and painter Enrico Cajati.

She has her works displayed in many exhibitions, both individual and collective, in places such as Copenaghen, Berlin, Bern, London, New York, and at the International Boat Show of Qingdao (China) with the Mediterranean series.

History of Poetry

Poetry is one of the oldest forms of human expression, predating literacy and evolving from oral traditions used to preserve history, genealogy and law.

The word "poet" originates from the Greek poiētēs, meaning "maker".

The Echo in the Cave

The first voice wasn't a voice at all, not really.

It was a rhythm.

In the dim coolness of a limestone cave, millennia ago, Elara, a woman of the Clan of the Whispering Winds, beat a steady pulse on a stretched animal skin.

Enheduanna's head - celebrated as the earliest known named Author in world history | Morgan Library / The Penn Museum

Modern Masters of 20th Century | Art Quotes

Salvador Dalí:

• "The first man to compare the cheeks of a young woman to a rose was obviously a poet; the first to repeat it was possibly an idiot".

"Il primo uomo a paragonare le guance di una giovane donna a una rosa era ovviamente un poeta; il primo a ripeterlo era forse un idiota".

Salvador Dalí | Couple aux têtes pleines de nuages, 1937

Paolo Troubetzkoy | Sculptor of the Belle Époque

The Italian sculptor and painter Paolo (prince) Troubetzkoy / Павел Петрович Трубецкой (1866-1938), born on the shores of Lake Maggiore, was the illegitimate child of a Russian diplomat and an American pianist and singer, living under an assumed identity until he was acknowledged with his brothers at the age of five.

He would succeed in transforming the circumstances of his birth into assets that would lead to a dazzling international career.

Boccaccio Boccaccino | Early Renaissance painter

Boccaccio Boccaccino (1467-1525) was a painter of the early Italian Renaissance, belonging to the Emilian school. He is profiled in Vasari's "Le Vite delle più eccellenti pittori, scultori, ed architettori" (or, in English, Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects).

He was born in Ferrara and studied there, probably under Domenico Panetti.

Few facts of his life are known.

Giuseppe De Nittis | Impressionist painter

Giuseppe De Nittis (1846-1884) - printmaker, painter and draughtsman.

Born in Barletta in Apulia, De Nittis received his first artistic training from Giambattista Calò, a local painter, before moving to Naples in 1861 to attend the Istituto di Belle Arti.

He was expelled in 1863 for failing to conform to academic practice.

At that time, De Nittis' main interest was in experimenting with plein air painting.

Moses Levy | Post-Macchiaioli painter

Moses Levy (Tunisi, 1885 - Viareggio, 1968) was born in Tunis of a British father and an Italian mother.

His son is the Tunisian-based painter Nello Levy.

Moses trained in Italy - in Lucca, Florence and the studio of Giovanni Fattori - and was subsequently active in Viareggio.

He spent almost the whole of his life in Tunisia, but continued to travel frequently between the northern and southern shores of the Mediterranean.

He was a member of the Group of Four in Tunis in 1936, and the Group of Ten in 1947.

Silvestro Lega | Macchiaioli painter

Italian painter Silvestro Lega (1826-1895) was one of the leading artists of the Macchiaioli and was also involved with the Mazzini movement.

Lega was born in Modigliana, near Forlì, to an affluent family.

From 1838 he attended the Piarist College, where his skill at drawing became evident.

From 1843-1847 he attended the Accademia di Belle Arti, Florence, studying drawing under Benedetto Servolini (1805-79) and Tommaso Gazzarini (1790-1853), then studying painting, briefly, under Giuseppe Bezzuoli.

Antonio Ermolao Paoletti | Genre painter

Antonio Ermolao Paoletti (Venice, May 8, 1834 - Venice, December 13, 1912) was an Italian painter, mainly of Venetian genre scenes, recalling Bamboccianti life of children and women, as well as sacred fresco work for churches in the Veneto.

Antonio's father, Ermolao Paoletti, was a well known scholar and writer of Venice.

He wrote a much cited expansive guide to its architecture, monuments, artistic works, and customs.

Happy Valentine's Day 💕 | La storia di San Valentino 💕

Saint Valentine, officially known as Saint Valentine of Rome, is a third-century Roman saint widely celebrated on February 14 and commonly associated with "courtly love".

At least three different Saint Valentines, all of them martyrs, are mentioned in the early martyrologies under date of 14 February.

One is described as a priest at Rome, another as bishop of Interamna (modern Terni), and these two seem both to have suffered in the second half of the third century and to have been buried on the Flaminian Way, but at different distances from the city.

Cesare Maggi | At least there's fire! / Almeno c'è il fuoco! 1898

An early work by Italian divisionist painter Cesare Maggi (1881-1961), "At least there's fire!" - signed and dated "Firenze 1898"- was one of two exhibited by the artist, not yet eighteen, at the fifty-second annual exhibition of the Society of Fine Arts in Florence (1898-1899).

Silvia Cordedda, 1991 | Fractal Garden

Italian artist Silvia Cordedda was born in Carrara, Italy.

Cordedda attended Chemical Engineering in University of Pisa and took Japanese lessons in her free time.

She creates extraordinarily beautiful fractal flowers that look like they could only exist in our dreams or in a wonderfully magical world.

She has been fractalist since January 2012.