Padua, Italy
Ragione Palace
The Scrovegni Chapel also known as the Arena Chapel, is a small church, adjacent to the Augustinian monastery, the Monastero degli Eremitani in Padua, Italy. The chapel and monastery are now part of the complex of the Museo Civico of Padua.
Scrovegni Chapel
The chapel contains a fresco cycle by Giotto, completed about 1305 and considered to be an important masterpiece of Western art.
Torre dell'Orologio
The clock has references to the zodiac throughout its design. However, on the original clock, the Libra sign was not present, as with the pre-Roman system Scorpio and Libra were one Zodiac sign
The tower's construction began in 1426 and finished around 1430.
Botanical Gardens
The University of Padua was founded in 1222 by a group of students and teachers from Bologna. Padua is the second-oldest university in Italy and the world's fifth-oldest surviving university.
The university houses the oldest surviving permanent anatomical theatre in Europe, dating from 1595
Prato della Valle
Ravenna is a city in Emilia-Romagna, Italy. It's known for the colorful mosaics adorning many of its central buildings, like the octagonal Basilica di San Vitale, the 6th-century Basilica di Sant'Apollinare Nuovo and the cross-shaped Mausoleo di Galla Placidia. North of the center, the Mausoleo di Teodorico built in the 6th century for King Theodoric the Great, is a Gothic, circular stone tomb with a monolithic dome.
Assisi is generally regarded as the birthplace of the Latin poet Propertius, born around 50–45 BC. It is the birthplace of St. Francis, who founded the Franciscan religious order in the town in 1208, and St. Clare, who with St. Francis founded the Poor Sisters, which later became the Order of Poor Clares after her death. The 19th-century Saint Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows was also born in Assisi.
Assisi in the Province of Perugia in the Umbria region.
Basilica of San Francesco d'Assisi
Equestrian statue of Francis of Assisi
Assisi view from bottom of the city.
Montefalco is a historic small hill town in Umbria, Italy. It has been settled since pre-Roman times and retains many of its historic buildings. From 1446 to 1861 it was part of the Papal States. Montefalco DOC is a regulated geographical area for its wine, the reds usually including the highly localized Sagrantino grape variety.
The town has been actively settled since the times of the Umbri. It has been under the successive domination of the Romans, Lombards. In 1249 it was sacked by Frederick II, but was soon rebuilt with the modern name. from the 13th century it had been a free comune under the domination of local nobles and merchants, but later, as with many other Umbrian locales, the comune gave way to government by a Signoria — in this case, that of the Trinci from the nearby Foligno (1383–1439). In 1446 it fell under the rule of the Papal States where it remained until the unification of Italy in 1861.
St. Clare of Montefalco, sometimes known as St. Clare of the Cross, was born in Montefalco and died there in 1308.
Presenting and describing Tenuta Le Velette is telling the story of a place where man has lived and left his mark for centuries, growing grapes and making wine.
The tales that can be told about the stages in the story of the estate can still be read in the places, objects, and structures that we can almost define as the setting of a history lasting 3000 years, in which wine has played a cultural, religious, diet, recreational and economic role.
The Tenuta Le Velette area was part of the region where the Etruscans developed their knowledge, their well-being and their skills, and with them, their ability to use the volcanic land to create deep cellars with temperatures that are perfect for the fermentation and storage of white wines.
This legacy was the only technique used up until 70 years ago, when it was progressively backed up by increasingly modern technologies in perfecting conditions that were already available 2500 years ago.
Many of the aging cellars that are still being used on the estate today were originally built in those ancient times.
Orvieto Cathedral, is a large 14th-century Roman Catholic cathedral dedicated to the Assumption of the Virgin Mary and situated in the town of Orvieto in Umbria, central Italy. Since 1986, the cathedral in Orvieto has been the episcopal seat of the former Diocese of Todi as well.
The building was constructed under the orders of Pope Urban IV to commemorate and provide a suitable home for the Corporal of Bolsena, the relic of miracle which is said to have occurred in 1263 in the nearby town of Bolsena, when a traveling priest who had doubts about the truth of transubstantiation found that his Host was bleeding so much that it stained the altar cloth. The cloth is now stored in the Chapel of the Corporal inside the cathedral.
Situated in a position dominating the town of Orvieto which sits perched on a volcanic plug, the cathedral's façade is a classic piece of religious construction, containing elements of design from the 14th to the 20th century, with a large rose window, golden mosaics and three huge bronze doors, while inside resides two frescoed chapels decorated by some of the best Italian painters of the period with images of Judgment Day. The cathedral has five bells, dating back to Renaissance, tuned in E flat.
Civita di Bagnoregio is a town in the Province of Viterbo in central Italy. The only access is a footbridge from the nearby town, with a toll introduced in 2013. Due to the toll, communal taxes were abolished in Civita and nearby Bagnoregio. Due to its unstable foundation that often erodes, Civita is famously known as ‘the dying city’.
The city is also much admired for its architecture spanning several hundred years. Civita di Bagnoregio owes much of its unaltered condition to its relative isolation; the town was able to withstand most intrusions of modernity as well as the destruction brought by two world wars. The population todayis 11 people, but due to a healthy amount of bed-and-breakfasts the village gets busy in the summer months.
Chianciano Terme
Etruscan Museum
Chianciano Terme history dates back to the 5th century BC, when the Etruscans built a temple dedicated to the god of Good Health, close to the Silene springs where the newer quarter of Chianciano (the Terme section) stands today.
Sarcophagus of the Spouses
The earliest evidence of a culture that is identifiably Etruscan dates from about 900 BC. This is the period of the Iron Age Villanovan culture, considered to be the earliest phase of Etruscan civilization,
The first Greek author to mention the Etruscans, whom the Ancient Greeks called Tyrrhenians, was the 8th-century BC poet Hesiod, in his work, the Theogony. He mentioned them as residing in central Italy alongside the Latins.
A 2012 survey of the previous 30 years’ archaeological findings, based on excavations of the major Etruscan cities, showed a continuity of culture from the last phase of the Bronze Age (13th–11th century BC) to the Iron Age (10th–9th century BC). This is evidence that the Etruscan civilization, which emerged around 900 BC, was built by people whose ancestors had inhabited that region for at least the previous 200 years.
Etruscan art and sculpture truly amazing.
Giacomo Puccini (22 December 1858 – 29 November 1924) was an Italian composer known primarily for his operas. Regarded as the greatest and most successful proponent of Italian opera after Verdi, he was descended from a long line of composers, stemming from the late-Baroque era. Though his early work was firmly rooted in traditional late-19th-century Romantic Italian opera he later developed his work in the realistic verismo style, of which he became one of the leading exponents.
His most renowned works are La bohème (1896), Tosca (1900), Madama Butterfly (1904), and Turandot (1924), all of which are among the most frequently performed and recorded of all operas.
Lucca Cathedral is a Roman Catholic cathedral dedicated to Saint Martin of Tours in Lucca, Italy. It is the seat of the Archbishop of Lucca. Construction was begun in 1063 by Bishop Anselm.
The walls encircling the old town remain intact, even as the city expanded and modernized, unusual for cities in the region. Initially built as a defensive rampart, once the walls lost their military importance they became a pedestrian promenade, the Passeggiata delle Mura Urbane, a street atop the walls linking the bastions.
Lucca is known as one of the Italian's "Città d'arte" (Arts town), thanks to its intact Renaissance-era city walls and its very well preserved historic center, where, among other buildings and monuments, are located the Piazza dell'Anfiteatro, which has its origins in the second half of the 1st century A.D. and the Guinigi Tower, a 45 meters tower that dates from the 1300s.
Beautiful Gardens hidden behind the homes in Lucca.
Carrara marble, Luna marble to the Romans, is a type of white or blue-grey marble popular for use in sculpture and building decor. It has been quarried since Roman times in the mountains just outside the city of Carrara in the province of Massa and Carrara in the Lunigiana, the northernmost tip of modern-day Tuscany, Italy.
More marble has been extracted from the over 650 quarry sites near Carrara than from any other place. The pure white statuario grade was used for monumental sculpture, as "it has a high tensile strength, can take a high gloss polish and holds very fine detail".
By the late 20th century this had now run out, and the considerable ongoing production is of stone with a greyish tint, or streaks of black or grey on white. This is still attractive as an architectural facing, or for tiles.
The tough and rather dangerous working conditions in the quarries made Carrara a centre of Italian radicalism, especially in the late 19th century.
Located in Bonassola, Italy
A Sculpture hanging on the wall inside the restaurant.
Rode the bikes to this small and exquisite seaside village of Bonassola and had lunch Osteria Antica Guetta. Her potatoes crusted seabass.
Their take on fish and chips. The slaw was perfect match.
Mussels and pasta.
Framura, Province
Levanto
Credits:
Created with images by Renáta Sedmáková - "Padua - Prato della Valle in evening dusk" • f11photo - "Downtown Siena skyline in Italy" • ironstuffy - "Architecture of Italy. Siena - one of the largest tourist center"