The Florentine Villa


Book Description

Scholarly and innovative with visually stunning line drawings and photographs, this volume provides readers with a compelling record of the unbroken pattern of reciprocal use and exchange between the countryside and the walled city of Florence, from the thirteenth century up to the present day. Defying the traditional and idealized interpretation of the Florentine Villa, the author: analyzes the economic factors that powered the investment in and building of country houses and estates from the early Renaissance times onwards, as well as the ideology and the architectural and literary models that promoted the Florentine villa explores the area between Florence and Sesto in its history, morphology and representation looks at the villas existing in the area. A contribution to the protection of the important cultural heritage of the landscape in the Florentine area and of its historic buildings, villas and gardens, this study makes engaging reading, not only for scholars and students in architecture, landscape design and social history, but also for the well informed reader interested in art, architecture and gardens.




The Florentine Villa


Book Description

Scholarly and innovative with visually stunning line drawings and photographs, this volume provides readers with a compelling record of the unbroken pattern of reciprocal use and exchange between the countryside and the walled city of Florence, from the thirteenth century up to the present day. Defying the traditional and idealized interpretation of the Florentine Villa, the author: analyzes the economic factors that powered the investment in and building of country houses and estates from the early Renaissance times onwards, as well as the ideology and the architectural and literary models that promoted the Florentine villa explores the area between Florence and Sesto in its history, morphology and representation looks at the villas existing in the area. A contribution to the protection of the important cultural heritage of the landscape in the Florentine area and of its historic buildings, villas and gardens, this study makes engaging reading, not only for scholars and students in architecture, landscape design and social history, but also for the well informed reader interested in art, architecture and gardens.




Florentine Villas in the Fifteenth Century


Book Description

In this book, which was originally published in 2005, Amanda Lillie challenges the urban bias in Renaissance art and architectural history by investigating the architecture and patronage strategies, particularly those of the Strozzi and the Sassetti clans, in the Florentine countryside during the fifteenth century. Based entirely on archival material that remained unpublished at the time of publication, her book examines a number of villas from this period and reconstructs the value systems that emerge from these sources, which defy the traditional, idealized interpretation of the 'renaissance villa'. Here, the house is studied in relation to the families who lived in them and to the land that surrounded them. The villa emerges as a functional, utilitarian farming unit upon whose success families depended, and where dynastic and patrimonial values could be nurtured.







Frances Mayes Always Italy


Book Description

"This lush guide, featuring more than 350 glorious photographs from National Geographic, showcases the best Italy has to offer from the perspective of two women who have spent their lives reveling in its unique joys."--Publisher's description.




Leonardo the Florentine


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In and Out of Florence


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Villas of Florence and Tuscany


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Under the Tuscan Sun


Book Description

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The beloved memoir of self-discovery set against the spectacular Tuscan countryside that inspired the major motion picture starring Diane Lane—now in a twentieth-anniversary edition featuring a new afterword “This beautifully written memoir about taking chances, living in Italy, loving a house and, always, the pleasures of food, would make a perfect gift for a loved one. But it’s so delicious, read it first yourself.”—USA Today For more Frances Mayes, including a tour of her now iconic Cortona home, Bramasole, watch PBS’s Dream of Italy: Tuscan Sun Special! More than twenty years ago, Frances Mayes—widely published poet, gourmet cook, and travel writer—introduced readers to a wondrous new world when she bought and restored an abandoned Tuscan villa called Bramasole. Under the Tuscan Sun inspired generations to embark on their own journeys—whether that be flying to a foreign country in search of themselves, savoring one of the book’s dozens of delicious seasonal recipes, or simply being transported by Mayes’s signature evocative, sensory language. Now with a new afterword from Frances Mayes, the twentieth-anniversary edition of Under the Tuscan Sun revisits the book’s most popular characters.