VIOLENCE AND POWER IN EARLY RENAISSANCE FLORENCE, Day 1

As I am a big fun of the Courtauld art gallery and the institute of art, I could not miss the opportunity of taking part in one of their highly popular study art tours. As Rome and Antwerp were immediately sold out, we opted for the tour of Florence. Led by Dr Scott Nethersole it lasted 3 full days. Unforgettable experience!
Here is the description of the tour:
Fifteenth-century Florence witnessed a delicate balance of power, an equilibrium so fragile that it frequently tipped over causing widespread violence, social unrest, exile and political instability. Yet despite such a tumultuous history, the visual arts produced by the likes of Masaccio, Filippo Lippi or Botticelli in this period are often seen in a very different light: a world of sweet Madonnas, ideal bodies and enlightened humanist patrons. Breaking with such traditions, this study trip will examine how visual media were exploited to serve the interests of different parties against the backdrop of these vicissitudes. On each day of this to tour to Florence, we will follow a well-known route that not only cuts across the urban geography of the city, but also across our preconceptions of the Renaissance. They will include the route followed by the condemned on their way to the scaffold, that taken by a new Archbishop upon appointment, and that followed by the Magi processions on 6 January. En route we will visit some of Florence’s most famous sites and works of art and view them with new eyes.

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