If I could go anywhere: Greek cake shops, the Athenian countryside and the sanctuary of Artemis at Brauron theconversation.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from theconversation.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
At the beginning of 2020, author John Willsteed had plans to revisit Barcelona's towering Gaudí cathedral. He's still planning and dreaming of its scale and detail.
Bosco ai Frati Altarpiece by Fra Angelico
at the Museo di San Marco is being conducted off-site by Lucia Biondi. The friar artist painted the altarpiece around 1450 after he returned from Rome. Cosimo de’ Medici had commissioned it for the high altar of the Franciscan convent of San Bonaventura at Bosco ai Frati. The composition is dominated by the Virgin Mary holding the Christ child flanked by two angels and encircled by various saints, notably the Medici saints Cosmas and Damian. The elegant architectural background references the classical style the artist admired during his stay in Rome and recalls the architectural elements in the frescoes in the Vatican’s Niccoline Chapel that Fra Angelico painted for Pope Nicholas V in 1447–48.
The Renaissance San Marco convent, now a museum, is where Fra Angelico lived and painted under the patronage of Cosimo de' Medici. It was also where Savonarola proclaimed the Bonfire of the Vanities.