Art
THE RANT: Audio Guides, God I hate them.
Audio guides: secondhand information for people who'd rather press play than open a book. A love letter to art disguised as a...
Art
Flâneur: Art Itineraries Built From an Archive, Not a Guess
Flâneur: an itinerary engine for people who travel because of the art. Eleven cities, 22,000 catalogued works, three traveller profiles, a thousand...
Art
THE RANT. Coin Operated Timers, or the Church in the Contactless Age
In the age of contactless payments, the Church still demands one-euro coins to light up its Caravaggios with its coin operated timers....
Art
Michelangelo Buonarroti, the total artist (and his real torments)
Not the schoolbook saint, not the fridge magnet logo. A long, honest guide to Michelangelo from Florence 1475 to Rome 1564: sculpture,...
Art
Visiting the Galleria dell’Accademia in Florence: Beyond Michelangelo’s David
To most visitors the Accademia is the David museum, and they devote ninety percent of their time to a single statue. That...
Art
Michelangelo’s Prigioni at the Galleria dell’Accademia: The Unfinished Slaves of an Impossible Tomb
Ninety-five per cent of visitors accelerate past the four half-carved giants to photograph the David, treating them as the appetiser before the...
Art
The David by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (Borghese Gallery, Rome): the moment before, frozen in marble
Stand before Bernini's David at the Borghese Gallery and see how a 23-year-old redefined sculpture, capturing the split second before the stone...
Travel
Saint Savior in Chora, the best mosaics in Istanbul
Step inside Saint Savior in Chora, Istanbul's hidden Byzantine gem, and explore the most breathtaking medieval mosaics you've likely never heard of.
Art
Apollo and Daphne by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (Borghese Gallery, Rome): marble on the verge of the impossible
A boy from Naples, a block of marble, and an idea that should have been impossible. Bernini
Art
The frescoes of the Brancacci Chapel: Masaccio and the birth of modern painting
Brancacci Chapel in Florence decoded: Masaccio’s radical realism, light, and space that reshaped painting. A precise, unsentimental guide for serious art travelers.