This essay is included in my new book The Modern Salonnière. The 34 other essays in the book feature similar literary adventures and traveling with intention. …
View More Shadowing Petrarch in ParmaTag: Parma
Given most European cities have been in existence for so long, it’s a bet someone famous lived within or traveled through the city limits at one point in time. Parma is a great example.
I’ve only visited Parma once but I would go back in a heartbeat because there is so much history to explore there. And one of the strongest literary figures to have lived there is none other than Petrarch. I know what you must be thinking: human suffering and unrequited love not the obvious reason to visit the Italian town lauded for the best prosciutto and Parmesan cheese in the world!
Though I enjoyed more than my fair share of these gastronomic marvels, one of my greatest pleasures was spending three days channeling the despondent state of mind for which Petrarch, one of the town’s most famous former residents, is known. Credited with inventing the modern sonnet and responsible for the second longest love obsession in the history of mankind—only Dante’s pining for Beatrice eclipsed Petrarch’s infatuation for Laura—the fourteenth-century literary heavyweight lived in Parma off and on as an adult. I love unearthing facts like this that fuel literary adventures in towns far and wide.
Vigée Le Brun’s Passion for Painting
A Passion for Painting Billowing ruched fabric, pointy toes of dainty shoes visible from beneath flounced skirts hemmed in gold fringes and ornate trims. A bejeweled…
View More Vigée Le Brun’s Passion for PaintingNarratives That Illuminate Design
Narratives That Illuminate Design If you believe that design-centric coffee table books contain nothing more than visual surveys of portfolios, I am out to change…
View More Narratives That Illuminate DesignPoetry 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 FleetingAlly 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 SalonRococo Style in Italy
If I told you the most surprising thing I found in Parma, Italy, was France, would you think I’d lost my mind? I’m not speaking…
View More Rococo Style in Italy