Browsing AuthorPaco Neumann

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Paco Neumann

Paco Neumann is a journalist, photographer, proofreader, flâneur and perpetual amateur currently living in between Florence, Berlin, Paris and Tenerife. He´s been a regular contributor to fashion, art, trend and lifestyle magazines and worked for news, advertising and communication agencies
Domes of Florence (not only Brunelleschi’s)
Art & Culture

Domes of Florence (not only Brunelleschi’s)

6 diciembre, 2023 / By:
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Filippo Brunelleschi marked a milestone in the history of architecture with the construction of the cupola that crowns the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence, a prototype of Renaissance architecture — and key to the development of modern architecture — which also marks the beginning of this celebrated cultural movement in Italy, of which Florence continues to be an undeniable ambassador, in all fields of art, more than five centuries later. Moreover, the capital of Tuscany also treasures other domes worth of mention, such as the Medicean Chapels, the Basilica of San Lorenzo or the imposing synagogue of Florence, among many more of smaller size.
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Grande Museo del Duomo in Florence, over 750 artworks covering 7 centuries of history
Art & Culture

Grande Museo del Duomo in Florence, over 750 artworks covering 7 centuries of history

4 diciembre, 2023 / By:
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It has taken me five years to discover the Grande Museo del Duomo in Florence. I always thought it was a minor museum, but I was utterly wrong. The way the artworks are displayed in the vast space highlighting its magnificence and the state of conservation of the pieces are truly remarkable. In 1294 the Commune of Florence ordered the construction of a new cathedral dedicated to Santa Maria del Fiore to replace Santa Reparata. The ‘Fabbriceria della Cattedrale di Firenze’ (Florence Cathedral Works) was founded by the Florentine Republic in 1296 to oversee construction of the cathedral. …

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Fra Angelico’s frescoes: the treasure of the San Marco Museum
Art & Culture

Fra Angelico’s frescoes: the treasure of the San Marco Museum

3 diciembre, 2023 / By:
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This museum occupies an extensive area of the Dominican monastery of San Marco and still retains its original atmosphere. Founded in 1436 and designed by the architect Michelozzo, the monastery played an important role in the religious and cultural life of Florence. The fame of the museum is mainly due to the paintings of Beato Angelico (Blessed angelic one), one of the most representative painters of the Renaissance who embellished with its frescoes various rooms of the building, most remarkably the cells of the monks. A wonder to view also here:
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Cappella Brancacci, the Sistine Chapel of Florence
Art & Culture

Cappella Brancacci, the Sistine Chapel of Florence

2 diciembre, 2023 / By:
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Beyond the streets crowded by the omnipresent tourists looking for Florentine gems from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, there are less exploited corners of great historical and artistic richness as the Brancacci Chapel, also known as the «Sistine Chapel of the first Renaissance». The paintings on the walls are among the most popular and influential frescoes at the time. They are distributed in two horizontal levels along the chapel, which is part of the Carmine church and convent, founded in Florence in the mid-thirteenth century by a group of Carmelite monks from Pisa. Located in Piazza del Carmine (Florence-Oltrarno), the Cappella Brancacci is one of the oldest monumental buildings in Florence. The frescoes illustrating the life of Saint Peter are masterpieces by Masaccio and Masolino, painted between 1425 and 1427, just in the early years of the Florentine Renaissance. Later on, Filippino Lippi was called to complete Masaccio’s chapel decoration, which had been left unfinished due to Masaccio’s death in 1428.
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Cloisters of Florence: the great scape
Art & Culture

Cloisters of Florence: the great scape

2 diciembre, 2023 / By:
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Florence does not stand as a vulgar Renaissance theme park, but rather as an infinite source of beauty and art, an open-air museum in which emotions grow by every minute. As I walk through the cloisters of Santa Maria Novella, San Lorenzo, San Marcos, Santa Croce or Santo Spirito, peace and solitude seem very tangible to me. However, what most hypnotizes me is rather more radical. In these religious courtyards, with their gallery portrayed on all four sides, it is easy to feel as if you had left this world, not minding at all how to return, while you are busy imagining your next sins and who will be part of them.…

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Casa Guidi, poet Elizabeth Barrett´s home in Florence
Art & Culture

Casa Guidi, poet Elizabeth Barrett´s home in Florence

1 diciembre, 2023 / By:
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Visiting a house-museum always embraces a closer emotional approach to the artist who lived there than just simply observe the works displayed in the neutral and dehumanized rooms of a museum. Casa Guidi was the Florentine residence of poets Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning for the most part of their married life. Located in the heart of Florence, the apartment has elegant main chambers with an 18th century decoration style and essentially maintains the same furniture that in the Brownings´ age. They resided here for fourteen years, between 1847 and 1861, and these interiors served as inspiration for some of their greatest poems, like Casa Guidi Windows (Elizabeth Barrett, 1851), inspired by her struggle for freedom.…

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CLET: the street artist behind the ‘customized’ traffic signs in Florence
Art & Culture

CLET: the street artist behind the ‘customized’ traffic signs in Florence

30 noviembre, 2023 / By:
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Street art does not survive in Florence as much as in Berlin. However, it has its representation with Clet Abraham (1966, Brittany). He has lived in Florence since 2005 and has today a shop and atelier in the neighbourhood of San Niccolò. His actions in the urban furniture, consisting of customizing traffic signs with stickers, bring nothing but joy to all visitors. CLET converts traffic signals into works of art without altering their function. He was first accused of abusive invasion of the public space in May 2017. The attractive French artist has been convicted by an Italian court to pay a fine of EUR10,400 for one of his works (L’Uomo comune) on the bridge alle Grazie.
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Museo Nazionale del Bargello: mecca of Renaissance sculptural art
Art & Culture

Museo Nazionale del Bargello: mecca of Renaissance sculptural art

29 noviembre, 2023 / By:
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Florence is not only beautiful on the outside; to rival its wonderful landscape and streets it also offers endless interior attractions. Since 1865, the Bargello National Museum has exhibited the most important collection of Renaissance sculpture in the world. The Medici gave the building in the sixteenth century to the bargello or head of the police, so he could use it as a prison. In fact, it was in its cortile, one of the most outstanding in the whole country, where executions took place. The site currently hosts works of Giambologna, Donatello, Benvenuto Cellini, Lorenzo Ghiberti, Brunelleschi and Michelangelo.
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Tabernacles: religious street art in Florence
Outdoors

Tabernacles: religious street art in Florence

25 octubre, 2023 / By:
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There is no doubt that the tabernacles are a key element of the oldest streets of Florence. More than a religious character, it seems to me that they have quite an exquisite kitsch appearance. The city currently houses around 1200 tabernacles, of different styles and periods — some are true masterpieces. Catholics fought against heresy not only with preaching, but also by placing sacred images on the streets, houses, shops and public buildings which endure today. In Oltrarno there is still a large number of these particular street sanctuaries, available for a worldly prayer at any time of the day or night. The ancient Romans were already devotees of this form of religious architecture, for they built small temples in the streets with sacred images that protected both the house and the travelers.
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A Florentine flâneur: the art of wandering the streets of Florence
Outdoors

A Florentine flâneur: the art of wandering the streets of Florence

25 octubre, 2023 / By:
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The figure of the flâneur is associated with the rise of “urban life” and especially with Paris, one of the first major cities of the industrial era in which appeared the flâneur as the person who wanders through boulevards, shop windows, and passages. This wandering character was conceived by authors Baudelaire and Walter Benjamin, who defined the authentic flâneur as an attentive and wise voyeur, and far from being a frivolous, banal, idle, superficial and clueless passer-by, he is above all a deep observer of the city, a restless traveler with no definite direction, and a forerunner (without a camera) of the documentary photography.…

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