The art and architectural details of Roman churches seem to outdo each other especially in the baroque refurbishments. Note the fleur-de-lis in golden mounts. The eyes of the viewer are invited always to raise their gaze up to the ‘heavens’ as they sit or wander around the churches.
The Palazzo Pitti is a large villa museum built in 1458 for a Florentine banker near the river Arno, in the heart of Florence, Tuscany, Italy, and is sumptuously laid out with antique furnishings and priceless works of Italian paintings and sculptures. It contains nearly 500 Renaissance and baroque frescoes and masterpieces by Artemisia Gentileschi, Raphael, Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese, Fillipo Lippi, Perugino, Correggio, Peter Paul Rubens, Andrea del Sarto, Fra Bartolomeo, il Rosso, Canova, Verrochio, and Pietro da Cortona, among many many others. I am writing a piece about these incredible collections, accompanied by photographs, and the background of some of the most important and beautiful works to see if you can visit. It’s highly recommended for serious art or palazzo fans.
Surveying the grand grounds and estate from a distance as visitors have admired the beauty and harmony of the Boboli Gardens for centuries. The house and land were bought by the de’Medici’s in 1549 and they filled it with their incomparable art collection, second only to their nearby famed Uffizi Gallery and residence. Napoléon even used this as his main living headquarters in Italy in the late 18th century. 
The exterior courtyard where horses and carriages would draw up. 
Paris and Helen of Troy.
Themes of alchemy and the occult mingled with myths of classical antiquity in the natural caverns decorated to enhance an atmosphere of enchantment.
Far away seashells and coral encrusted on water formed stalactites. 
Sea nymphs and faeries and aristocratic crests.
The prisoners in Ovid’s Metamorphoses.
The fascinatingly carved and decorators part natural, part artificial cavern the Buontalenti Grotto in the Boboli Gardens is a fascinating place, is encrusted with seashells and stalactites, housing mythical, fantastic, and allegorical elements, as well as symbols referring to esoteric subjects. The Grotta di Buontalenti (also known as Grotta Grande or the Big Grotto) was built by Bernardo Buontalenti between 1583 and 1593, and commissioned by Francesco I de’ Medici.
Winding labyrinthine hedge walkways to get lost in or sneak into for a stolen kiss.
A brilliant blue heron rests in an artificial lake. 
Naked trees promise a boast of riches at the first bloom.
Wild iris and flowers of delicate violet and pale lavender dotted among tall wild grasses of rolling meadows.
Oranges a reminder of the beautiful year round climate of most of Italy.
I was there on an overcast early spring day before the beauty of the garden really bloomed but shall return their in autumn to take photographs of the richer, fuller gardens. The little wildflower meadows and orange trees and statutes were lovely against the grey sky and ornate fountains (turned off in the cold) but I long to see this place teeming with color and fullness after the long hot summer, as autumn turns the leaves Amber and gold. I get that chance this early October.
Watch this highly interesting and gorgeous historical and visual tour of the Boboli Gardens by Brit and garden expert, Monty Don. Boboli Garden — Tour of Italy – Florence
I caught a ridiculously photogenic couple in Rome taking a selfie together on the pincian hill at sunset, with cupolas and Saint Peter’s behind them. Oh, to be young and beautiful and in love in Roma, what many in this world wouldn’t give for it. If only, I think to myself…
Persimmon trees bearing fruit with a view.
A little ruin and a little Renaissance (and rococo).
Dance of the tourists on the Villa Borghese’s Pincio overlooking the Piazza del Popolo.
A kissing dove and pigeon. White doves always strike me as a symbol of Ancient Rome, much like olive trees.
I like watching the beauty of Rome unfold before other people.
Down the Pincio, on the way to the Spanish Steps, there are views everywhere of cupolas up close and far away.
The endless flow of Roman water over stone and newly fallen leaves.
There’s always a sense of play and humor in the Villa Borghese park, especially in the Pincian hill section.
Walking along the Appian Way one is reminded why Rome will always be the eternal city, winter, spring, summer or autumn.
Rome is the heaviness of time. It is the marks left on humanity. It is a walkable history book, forever unfolding its pages.
Rome is monuments of the big whigs leaving you breathless with their grand scale and an overwhelming rush of beauty.
‘Everyone is dead here’, the city whispers, in a voice softened against the bone-white marble of ruins.
The palatine lies silent under the stars. This is your one moment to catch your breath and savor Rome.
Try to stop time by breathing it in slowly. Hold it in, and take a sensory snapshot. Stand there, holding your breath, recording, feeling as immovable as a statue; a Henry James’ American willing a sacrifice to the pagan gods.
‘Just let me remember this. Let this enter me. The endlessness of it. The cobwebs. The broken stone. The bones. The dust. The pulse remaining somehow. Let me carry Rome where ever I go. Let it become a part of me. No, let me become a part of Rome. Another story never writ, another name unknown.’
Shots from Rome in October.
“You may have the universe if I may have Italy.” – Giuseppe Verdi
The top of the Castel Sant’Angelo from the Ponte Sant’Angelo.
Rome is the city of echoes, the city of illusions, and the city of yearning. – Giotto di Bondone
The golden hour of sunset on the ruins in the heart of the city.
A man who has not been in Italy, is always conscious of an inferiority. – Samuel Johnson
Looking over the city at dusk from the Villa Medici where the Pincian hill and the Spagna area meet.
“I sometimes fancy,” said Hilda, on whose susceptibility the scene always made a strong impression, “that Rome–mere Rome–will crowd everything else out of my heart.” ― Nathaniel Hawthorne
The casina view on the tip of the Pincio (Pincian hill) overlooking the Piazza dell Popolo. It is my favorite spot in Rome to watch the sun set. Get to it by the Popolo, Piazza di Spagna or the Villa Borghese park.
More views from the majestic Pincian Hill. There’s a particular happiness I experience whenever I am on the Pincio. I have so many beautiful memories there. It represents everything I love about Rome; the history, the beauty of the landscape and architecture, the art, the people watching. I love the ivy covered apartments and Renaissance architecture.
Another one from the Villa Medici with the silouhette of Saint Peters in the distance.
In the world Rome is probably the place where most in beauty has been accumulated and subsists in span of twenty centuries. It has created nothing, only a spirit of greatness and order of beautiful things; but the most magnificent monuments on the earth have extended and were fixed in it with such energy to leave the most numerous and indelible tracks in it, more than in anywhere else on the globe. – Maurice Maeterlinck
From my hotel balcony overlooking the Aurelian wall, the Villa Borghese metro stop, apartments and the Villa Borghese park. A sign of Rome is the countless antennas on rooftops.
On top of Saint Peter’s Cupola, Vatican City is laid out.
From the dome of St. Peter’s one can see every notable object in Rome… He can see a panorama that is varied, extensive, beautiful to the eye, and more illustrious in history than any other in Europe. – Mark Twain
Peeking through a gated fence and cypresses to a private garden.
There are a thousand little views of the Vatican from different corners of Rome.
A glass of prosecco and a view from my hotel balcony on the Via Veneto at the Grande Albergho Flora.
From a Vatican Museum garden, another breathtaking cupola and manicured, statue studded garden.
Rome through a glass of Sicilian wine at sunset.
The Coliseum from a distance on a tele photo lens.
Rome from the top of the observation deck on the Vittoria Emanuale Monument.
Yes, I have finally arrived to this Capital of the World! I now see all the dreams of my youth coming to life… Only in Rome is it possible to understand Rome. – Goethe
The Via del Corso from the Vittorio Emanuale (aka the Wedding Cake).
The rooftops of the historic center of Rome.
“Everything is blooming most recklessly; if it were voices instead of colors, there would be an unbelievable shrieking into the heart of the night.” – Rainer Maria Rilke
The Roman Forum and the Alban hills.
“She had always been fond of history, and here [in Rome] was history in the stones of the street and the atoms of the sunshine.” ― Henry James
Cupolas and sky high statues.
Churches over the Forum; layers of history, people and ruins.
“Rome was mud and smoky skies; the rank smell of the Tiber and the exotically spiced cooking fires of a hundred different nationalities. Rome was white marble and gilding and heady perfumes; the blare of trumpets and the shrieking of market-women and the eternal, sub-aural hum of more people, speaking more languages than Gaius had ever imagined existed, crammed together on seven hills whose contours had long ago disappeared beneath this encrustation if humanity. Rome was the pulsing heart of the world.” ― Marion Zimmer Bradley, The Forest House
A beautiful frontpiece to an old church and an arch.
Rome is beautiful, so beautiful, I swear, all the other things seem nothing in front of it. – Charles de Brosses
Cypresses and stone.
The cypresses, umbrella pines and verdant green against red stone and brick and roof tiles are gorgeous.
A lone goddess in a corner.
See the wild Waste of all-devouring years!
How Rome her own sad Sepulchre appears,
With nodding arches, broken temples spread!
The very Tombs now vanish’d like their dead!
Alexander Pope
Borken temples and pillars.
Rome – the city of visible history, where the past of a whole hemisphere seems moving in funeral procession with strange ancestral images and trophies gathered from afar.
George Eliot
Ancient Rome, Baroque, fascist architecture and the 21st century in one sweeping glance.
You cheer my heart, who build as if Rome would be eternal. – Augustus Cæsar
The Alban Hills appear blue against the sky no matter the weather or season. They once hid Julius Caesar from his enemies in his earlier youth.
For me, Rome is the old center, with her narrow streets, in warm colours, orange,red and even gold. Here is Rome like a house. The alleys are passages, and in three minutes you are in the most beatiful squares of the City, Piazza della Rotonda with the monument, the Pantheon, and the Piazza Navona. These are my reading rooms, my refreshment rooms, my salons where I meet my guests. – Rosita Steenbeek
The Wedding Cake view of Rome is the view of the gods.
The light that reveals Rome’s monuments is not that to which we are accustomed; it produces numerous optical effect plus a certain atmosphere, all impossible to put into words. The light strikes Rome in ways that I’ve never seen. – Stendhal
The back view of the Wedding Cake of the Forum, the Coliseum and Palatine Hill, where the Emperors and the Patricians lived in Ancient Rome.
The traveler who has contemplated the ruins of ancient Rome may conceive some imperfect idea of the sentiments which they must have inspired when they reared their heads in the splendor of unsullied beauty. – Edward Gibbon
The Piazza del Campidoglio designed by Michelangelo Buonarroti in 1536–1546 at one of my favorite museums and spots in Rome on Capitoline Hill.
O Rome! my country! city of the soul! Lord Byron
Julius Caesar and the ruins.
Porta San Sebastiano is the modern name for the ancient Porta Appia, a gate in the Aurelian Wall of Rome, connected to the Via Appia, the old entrance to the city for ancient pilgrims, wanderers and the 17th, 18th and 19th century Grand Tour.
A thousand roads lead men forever to Rome. – Alaine de Lille
Another peek from the Pincio.
The alternate view of Rome from the Janiculum Hill, the Giancolo.
The Pantheon, which draws me to it at night to admire it’s immortality against a navy sky.
The Roman evening either keeps still or it sings. No one can behold it without growing dizzy, and time has filled it with eternity. – Jorge Luis Borges
Did I mention how amazing dusk is on the Pincio?
A private rooftop garden, the Auerlian Wall on the original “1950s & 1960s La Dolce Vita” street of the Via Veneto, not too far from the Lord Byron statue.
The Twin Churches of the Piazza del Popolo and the Vatican.
“The Creator made Italy from designs by Michaelangelo.” —Mark Twain
A palm tree (or descendent of) left over from ancient Egypt, planted a millenia or two ago perhaps.
This spot is disarmingly charming. Below to the left is the luxe 19th century Hotel de Russie with an enormous garden terrace and marble stairs with cafe tables, coffee and cocktails from an outdoor bar.
“Traveling is the ruin of all happiness! There’s no looking at a building after seeing Italy.” — Fanny Burney
Wandering around the city at night, the cobblestones lit up by cafe lights.
“What is the fatal charm of Italy? What do we find there that can be found nowhere else? I believe it is a certain permission to be human, which other places, other countries, lost long ago.” —Erica Jong
The Villa Borghese gardens leading out to the Pincio.
For us to go to Italy and to penetrate into Italy is like a most fascinating act of self-discovery… back, back down the old ways of time. Strange and wonderful chords awake in us, and vibrate again after many hundreds of years of complete forgetfulness.” —D.H. Lawrence
The sun falls over the Piazza del Popolo through construction fencing. At the center of the square is an Egyptian obelisk — it was brought to Rome in 10 BC by order of Augustus.
I found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble. Augustus; quoted in Twelve Caesars by Suetonius
The Fontana del Mosé Salvato view of the Pincio.
Rome was a poem pressed into service as a city. – Anatole Broyard
The wide view of Via del Corso always reminds me of the film Roman Holiday and Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck’s vespa ride.
“Thou Paradise of exiles, Italy!” — Percy Bysshe Shelley
Near the Piazza di Spagna, at the top of the Spanish Steps. Young lovers are all over the park snatching amorous moments out in public.
Italy, and the spring and first love all together should suffice to make the gloomiest person happy. – Bertrand Russell
The sun rises and sets in Rome and each golden hour the view becomes more and more beautiful. It’s what brought the Romantics and the artists for centuries. The landscape, the ruins, the fountains, the art, the cupolas and the stone and marble bathed in the Italian sun. It’s why I keep returning to the Eternal City. It’s what I live for.
“Italy is a dream that keeps returning for the rest of your life.” – Anna Akhmatova
An excellent little art history discussion on Artemisia Gentileschi (in french) with high quality sound and photographs. By Anne STEINBERG-VIEVILLE.
Worth a look and a listen even if you don’t speak french – the image comparisons and baroque music still make it compelling.
In honor of International Womans Day! (Which no-one seems to celebrate in America, but I always enjoy in Europe)!
And whilst I am stuck at home in another snowstorm (the house, trees, street are literally blanketed with white) I am going to light a fire, make some tea and work on more posts about Artemisia and the intense stories behind her paintings and on sunny spring time afternoons I’ve spent in Rome chasing art and architecture and the ghost of John Keats. We’ve had some very interesting conversations on the Viale delle Magnolie.
