italy Archives

Corinna B June 4, 2020

Why You Need To See Beautiful Orsanmichele In Florence

Today I want to tell you about a beautiful building in Florence that you will walk past multiple times, no doubt wondering what it is. Like pretty much everything in Florence it has a good story behind it too!

Orsanmichele

Diagonally opposite the Porcellino Market (Mercato Nuovo) and just up the street from Piazza della Repubblica, in between via Calimala and via Calzaiuoli you will see a square building with statues inside niches the entire way around it. It is beautiful and it is remarkable, but at first glance it is hard to tell exactly what it is.

This is the church of Orsanmichele.

It Wasn’t Always A Church

In 895 A.D this was an oratory in the garden of the monastery of St Michele. The word for garden was orto, so over the years Orto-San-Michele became shortened to Or-San-Michele.

This first structure burned down in 1239 and was rebuilt as a wooden loggia. The loggia had a column with the Madonna on it, accredited with several miracles. Once again, this structure also burned down. In 1336 the Silk Guild decided to rebuild it as a grain market. This is why the church has the odd shape – it is square because it originally was a grain market with a grain storage space above it.

At the time it made sense to keep a granary inside the city walls. During times of siege and wars you couldn’t always safely go out to the countryside to get the grain needed for the city.

It was still an open loggia and the city flowed through it. Bernardo Daddi painted a replacement Madonna, the Madonna delle Grazie, to replace the one lost in the fire. Once again she had miracles attributed to her, especially during the plague of 1348. With miracles come pilgrims, and they showed up in such numbers to pray at her feet that it became impossible to keep the space functioning as a market. A new market was built across the street, the Mercato Nuovo (Porcellino Market), and this space was walled in and converted into a church.

The Tabernacles

Each of the city’s guilds (artisan unions) was given a tabernacle on the exterior of the building and had to provide a statue or sculpture to put in it. These are the niches you see around the outside of the building.

The project wasn’t completed until the mid 15^th century, so many of the guilds benefitted from the expertise of the greatest Renaissance sculptors, including Donatello and Lorenzo Ghiberti.

The grain storage space above the old grain market has since been converted into a museum and all of the original sculptures are safely kept there. The sculptures you see outside are replicas. (It is well worth a trip upstairs to the museum)

For a breakdown of the art in each tabernacle, who sculpted it and which guild it was built for check this link

The Madonna

The Maddona delle Grazie by Bernardo Daddi

Inside the church the miracle giving Madonna delle Grazie by Bernardo Daddi is housed inside an incredible tabernacle created by the artist Orcagna in 1348-59. It is quite something!

Cool Things To Look For

There are some other really cool features to look for inside the church. If you sit back for a moment and watch you will see most of the travelers in here miss them. I say travelers rather than tourists because even though there are hordes of tourists swarming down the street outside, very few bother to come inside and have a look.

The grain chute inside one of the columns in Orsanmichele

Two of the columns on the left side of the church have open grain chutes. The grain stored above would be dispensed down these chutes into the market. It’s a quirky little detail but I love it.

Being that this is Florence of course the artwork inside this church is gorgeous. But as you look up at the paintings on the ceiling, look a little closer and you will see metal rings embedded in them.

These are not part of some creepy inquisition torture devices but actually date back to the days when this was a granary. The metal rings were used to work the pullies, hoisting huge blocks of grain.

Unless you go upstairs to the museum (recommended) your entrance to the church is free. You won’t need an enormous amount of time here so it is a great place to whip into on your way to the Piazza della Signoria, the Porcellina Market or Ponte Vecchio.

You may need to loop around it a couple of times to find the entrance – head up, it’s at the back. Be sure to walk around the building exterior at least once to see all the tabernacles and identify each of the guilds. The magnificence of buildings like Orsanmichele are part of what makes Florence so totally incredible.

Are you planning a trip to Florence? My free downloadable Secret Florence PDF gives you a list of my favorites in the Renaissance city. From my favorite restaurants and bars to my favorite secret jewelry shop these are places you will want to know about and add to your itinerary. Get your Secret Florence pdf HERE

Do you belong to my Private Members Newsletter? Twice each month it tells you about special foods to try, festivals happening in Italy and under the radar places to visit, both within the big cities as well as villages around the country. You can get on the list and become a member (for free) here.

Things To Do In Florence why you should visit the church of Orsanmichele in the historic center — Pin this to your Florence Pinterest board!

Corinna B April 21, 2020

The Best Ways To Learn Italian At Home For Cheap

How is your quarantine coming along? Are you getting bored with Netflix yet? This might be the perfect time to learn a new language. We have endless free time and most of us are looking for something to occupy our minds. Plenty of us are out of work and can’t spend the money on expensive lessons, but if you are interested in learning Italian I have some great options for you.

When I started learning Italian I couldn’t afford to take classes. I was a single parent, working 7 days per week to keep a roof over our heads and there wasn’t any spare money, let alone spare money to spend on myself to take classes. Also I didn’t have time to commute across town to physically go to classes. But I really, really wanted to learn the language, so I had to get creative.

3 Ways To Learn Italian While We Are On Quarantine.

If you are planning a trip to Italy at some time in the future you might enjoy using some of this down time to learn some Italian. Now that I’m no longer flying to Italy next month I decided to use this time to improve my language skills, so this weekend I pulled out my Italian text books and am committing to spending a half hour per day learning Italian. (No matter how good you are at a language there is always room for improvement)

1. Listen

When I started learning Italian there really weren’t podcasts like there are now. I did manage to find a couple of lightweight, fun podcast-like audio programs on iTunes that I would listen to on my commute. There are some great podcasts to help you learn Italian available now. Although they aren’t enough by themselves they are still really helpful!

RELATED: How To Plan A Trip To Italy

At home I played Radio Italia on my computer while I was working or writing my blog posts. Listening to easy voices talking about music and ordering coffee (rather than politics or anything heavy) got me used to the sing-song sounds of the language and the rhythms of conversation. Most of the time I had no idea what they were talking about, but as I started learning the language it started making sense.

2. Use Books

The cheapest way for me to start really learning the language was to buy some inexpensive workbooks and see A) if I could do it and B) if I was really interested in pursuing it or if it was just a phase I was going through.

Barron's Italian Now! Text book — Italian Now! is a great place to start

I bought three Italian text books that became the backbone of me learning the language. Italian Now, Italian Verb Drills and Italian Grammar Drills. These were fantastic. I would always have one of them with me and work away on it during downtime on photoshoots, at my son’s music lessons, or anytime I had a free moment. The books are full of exercises and have a marking key in the back of the book, so you can check on your progress each day.

Nanni Tate Italian Verb Drills — Italian Verb Drills is the best book I’ve found for learning and practicing Italian verbs

I advise starting with Italian Now and Italian Verb Drills. Italian Now is a good all round beginner book and gives you some structure to follow.

Italian Verb Drills in my opinion is an essential book for anyone learning the language. Italian is a very verb driven language, so it is important to learn the main verbs and how to conjugate them. The exercises in this book are very repetitive but you’ll find that in no time your brain just automatically conjugates the verbs without you even thinking about it.

Italian Grammar Drills is also really helpful and is full of exercises to do to get you in the habit of using good grammar. In my opinion as a traveler it doesn’t really matter if your grammar isn’t so good. No one is expecting you to speak grammatically perfect Italian on your vacation. If you have a decent understanding of verbs and know some vocabulary you will do just fine, but if you can start learning grammar from the beginning it will become automatic and is so much easier than trying to add it in later.

Multi Media

Once I realized that I was going to see this learning Italian thing through and not give up after a couple of weeks, I saved up and bought Rosetta Stone Italian. Initially I just bought the first level, but later bought the entire set.

Rosetta Stone Italian Level 1-5 — Rosetta Stone Italian

I’ve done languages my whole life and I really think this is the best system I have ever seen or used. Rosetta makes your brain learn the language the same way a baby or a child learns. Most language programs have you learning by translation, memorizing vocabulary and translating from your language into the new language. This is a really difficult way of learning as you are perpetually translating, so in real life situations you are a couple of seconds behind as your brain moves words from English over to Italian.

Instead of translating, Rosetta teaches your brain to recognize pictures and identify them in the new language. You see a picture of a house and your brain immediately says Casa rather than house = casa. In each learning block they teach you visually then give you an audio section where you keep repeating the words in that lesson until your pronunciation is correct. Then it takes you into reading and writing the words and phrases.

It’s the same way you learn your own language growing up. You go at your own pace, so there’s no pressure, and the program keeps giving you tests along the way so everything stays current in your brain.

It’s easy to see why international businesses and government agencies like the CIA use Rosetta Stone to teach their people languages. I’m a huge fan!

Rosetta Stone teaches lots of different languages, so if you want to learn French or German or Spanish or any other language during this quarantine break, you really can take your pick.

Are you in my Private Members Newsletter group? The newsletter comes out twice a month and tells you about places you haven’t heard of in Italy, foods you need to try and travel tips to get you there. This is the secret sauce that I don’t tell you about on this blog or in my books. You can join the newsletter HERE

Corinna B April 4, 2020

5 Fabulous Italian Museums With Free Virtual Tours

Whether your summer travel plans have been postponed by the Coronavirus, your kids are home all day and need new entertainment, or maybe you just want to relive a trip from the past, you can get yourself a little taste of Italy by exploring the museums that offer virtual tours.

Italy has sensational museums, many of which get missed while tourists wait in long lines to visit the main attractions. Here is your chance to explore ancient Rome and Renaissance Florence from your laptop with a virtual tour. Four of these museums are written about in detail in my book Glam Italia! 101 Fabulous Things To Do In Rome, giving you specific things to look for and fascinating stories behind the people and pieces involved.

1. The Capitoline Museums

Perched on the hill overlooking the Roman Forum with a view along the Fori Imperiali to the Colosseum, the Capitoline Museum is one of the greatest museums in the world. With so many treasures from Ancient Rome to be discovered you can lose yourself here for hours, whether in the real world or the virtual one. There is a well laid out floor plan and it is easy to find your way around the virtual tour. Check it out here

2.Trajan’s Market

Across the street from the Capitoline Museum and the Roman Forum you can see another massive forum complex, Trajan’s Forum and Market. This one was designed by Apollodorus of Damascus, (the same guy who designed the Pantheon) and inaugurated in 112 A.D.

Trajan was the Emperor of Rome from 98 A.D until 117 A.D. The Empire’s most expansive growth happened during his rule.

At the end of his Forum stands the semi circular building of Trajan’s Market. This 170 room structure standing 35 meters above the level of the forum was actually used as offices and shops, nearly 2000 years ago! Part of the building is now the museum of Trajan’s Market and again, it is fantastic. You can take a virtual tour both of the museum and of the forum itself here.

Trajan’s Forum and Market are directly in front of one of my favorite places to visit in Rome, the Ancient Roman houses at Palazzo Valentini. This is an absolute must see when you are in Rome. You can read about it here.

3. The Ara Pacis

This is one of those fabulous secrets hiding in plain sight in the heart of Rome. Very few tourists seem to know about it, but once again it is one of my absolute favorites. Interestingly this is one of the few museums in the world dedicated to a single object, in this case a more than 2000 year old altar to peace.

The Ara Pacis in Rome. Augustus's altar to peace — The Ara Pacis in Rome

Augustus was the first Emperor of Rome. After centuries of war with other countries and decades of civil war at home he eventually brought peace to Rome. To celebrate this peace in 13 B.C. he built this huge marble altar. I wrote about it here and at length in Glam Italia! 101 Fabulous Things To Do In Rome. The altar originally stood in the Campus Martius, but when the Tiber River was expanded a few centuries later the Ara Pacis became submerged under 4 meters of mud, disappearing for 1000 years.

Now restored to much of its old glory and housed inside a modern Richard Meier building full of natural light, it is a pretty incredible museum to visit. Part of what makes the altar so amazing is the carvings that cover the marble walls around it. Again they are detailed in my book, but you can still enjoy meandering around inside the museum looking at thm with the virtual tour, here.

4.The Vatican Museums

The Vatican Museums virtual tour — The Vatican Museums

The Vatican Museums house some of the greatest collections (of pretty much everything) in the world. Unless you are in Rome in the off season it is impossible to see much in the museums, and in all honesty you really need multiple days there. But lucky for us the Vatican has created some wonderful videos of the most famous rooms across the various wings of the complex. You can spend ages wandering through the virtual tour here. Even if you have been to the Vatican Museums before you will really enjoy this!

5. The Uffizi

Uffizi Gallery Florence Virtual Tour — The Uffizi in Florence

Just a quick train ride from Rome or a mere mouse-click on your laptop and you are in Florence, the heart of the Italian Renaissance and home to the best collection of Renaissance Art anywhere in the world. Florence has a tremendous virtual museum offering through a website called Hyper Visions. It takes you though the different artworks in a variety of ways. be sure to click into the Factories of Stories section (my favorite). While on the Hyper Visions site be sure to look at the Pitti Palace section too. At this time the Vasari Corridor section isn’t showing the artworks inside, but do click around on it as well as the Boboli Gardens section.

Do you belong to my Private Members Newsletter? Twice each month I send out a newsletter with fabulous travel tips and secret places to visit in Italy. You can join the Private Members Newsletter here.