Dear Everyone,
The Professor enjoys museums. One could argue that he enjoys them too much …
Setting aside the romantic aspects of museums, I’d like to focus on a few treasures from two of my favourites.
The first is the Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence. They have one of the finest collections of Italian Renaissance art in the world, as well as a collection of Dutch and Flemish masters. The contrast between the two kinds of artwork is striking, almost jarring.
My favourite room in the Uffizi is the Sandro Botticelli room. (You can read a previous post of mine on Botticelli’s illustrations of Dante’s Divine Comedy here.) One of my favourite paintings is Botticelli’s Primavera.
However, there are two other works in the Uffizi that fascinate me. First, Filippo Lippi’s Madonna with Child and Two Angels, which is mentioned in Gabriel’s Inferno (You can read about it here.)
Second, the Annunciation by Leonardo da Vinci. (You can view a stunning image of it here.)
Another favourite museum of mine is the Prado in Madrid. There’s an extensive Spanish collection here, of course, with many European masterpieces.
Let me draw your attention to three of my favourites. First, Francisco de Goya’s moving and dramatic The Third of May 1808.
In the age of the internet, one doesn’t need to travel in order to visit the great museums of the world. Both the Uffizi and the Prado have websites that offer virtual tours. The Web Gallery of Art offers a searchable database of images, if you have a particular piece in mind and you want to know to which museum it belongs.
I also want to recommend the television series “Museum Secrets,” which goes behind the scenes at major museums. Their programs and their secrets are fascinating.
I’ll be posting about other museums later this week. You can also follow me on Twitter.
All the best and thanks for reading,
SR
I am honoured to have had all three of my novels appear on the New York Times and USA Today Bestseller lists. I was a Semifinalist for Best Author in the 2011 and 2012 Goodreads Choice Awards. {