The books I’ve been reading about Horace Walpole since I returned from my trip to London to attend The Decorative Antiques & Textiles Fair in…
View More Horace Walpole Shops The Decorative FairTag: Italy
My trips to Italy remain some of the most luxuriant memories I have due to the gracefulness of just about everything about the country and its people.
Case in point is the history of ceramics in the region around Savona and Albisola, nestled into the coastal plains that stretch from the Ligurian Sea all the way to France to the west, to the Piedmont to the north, and to Tuscany to the east. Savona continues to be a hotbed for creativity, especially where Ligurian ceramics are concerned. Support for this art-form gained an uptick in December 2014 with the opening of the Museo Della Ceramica, which that holds more than six centuries of significant ceramics.
The museum is housed in the Palazzo del Monte de Pieta, which was built by Pope Sixtus IV in 1479. It has been restored and renovated to serve as the ceramics museum, the restoration project owing its success to Armellino & Poggio Architetti Associati, Studio di Architettura Fallucca and architect Marco Ricchebono. I present a diverse array of subjects relating to Italy here on The Diary of Improvateur so if you’d like to read about other angles that have caught my eye, click on the tag and you will find all of the posts relating to Italy there
Love Among the Ruins
How would it feel to spend your life so absorbed by crumbling architecture and disintegrating stone you could bring them vibrantly back to life with…
View More Love Among the RuinsPoetry and Ceramics in Savona
The 16th-century poetry that sprung from Savona made a strong impression on Thomas William Parsons when he found verses inscribed on a statue of the Madonna near the…
View More Poetry and Ceramics in SavonaA Definition of Fleeting
“O nature, merciful and cruel mother, when do you have such power and such contrary wills, to make and unmake things so charming?” —Petrarch Petrarch,…
View More A Definition of FleetingImpressions of Venice
Several months ago, Sophia Khan engaged me on Twitter and I decided to visit her site to understand her point of view. I must say…
View More Impressions of VeniceSnow White Meets Settenani
“Oh, mirror, mirror on the wall, am I most beautiful of all?” Snow White’s mother, the envious Queen, would ask her looking glass each evening,…
View More Snow White Meets SettenaniDream of Venice
When JoAnn Locktov asked me to contribute a poem to the book she was planning to publish in collaboration with photographer Charles Christopher, I didn’t…
View More Dream of VeniceAlly Coulter and the Opulent Salon
Ally Coulter’s grand salon on the first floor of the Holiday House NYC took my breath away the minute I entered the room. It was…
View More Ally Coulter and the Opulent SalonBarrymore Avignon Chair: A Love Story
Barrymore Avignon Chair: A Love Story Oh, fateful town in France! While communing in your Sainte-Claire d’Avignon, I saw her. Laura. The name that would…
View More Barrymore Avignon Chair: A Love StorySummer Reading with Carmen Natschke
For those of you who think Carmen Natschke, of The Decorating Diva fame, is merely a glamorous gadabout holding court in the design stratosphere, there…
View More Summer Reading with Carmen Natschke