A nice video of Florence in the Renaissance period

 Hi everybody,

  today we want to share a nice video, which explains something of the city during the period of Michelangelo, Leonardo and Botticelli:


http://tv.repubblica.it/edizione/firenze/palazzo-vecchio-la-firenze-del-400-rivive-in-3d/62399?video



info@hotelmarios.com
www.hotelmarios.com
via Faenza, 89
50123, Florence
Italy

LORENZO DE' MEDICI, known as THE MAGNIFICENT

Lorenzo by Girolamo Macchietti

MARIO'S HOTEL staff wants to take you into the history of Florence.

Lorenzo de' Medici (January 1, 1449 – April 9, 1492) was an Italian statesman and de facto ruler of the Florentine Republic during the Italian Renaissance. Known as Lorenzo the Magnificent (Lorenzo il Magnifico) by contemporary Florentines, he was a diplomat, politician and patron of scholars, artists and poets. His life coincided with the high point of the early Italian Renaissance; his death marked the end of the Golden Age of Florence. The fragile peace he helped maintain between the various Italian states collapsed with his death. Lorenzo de' Medici is buried in the Medici Chapel in Florence.

Lorenzo's court included artists such as Piero and Antonio del Pollaiuolo, Andrea del Verrocchio, Leonardo da Vinci, Sandro Botticelli, Domenico Ghirlandaio, and Michelangelo Buonarroti who were involved in XV century Renaissance. Although he did not commission many works himself, he helped them secure commissions from other patrons. Michelangelo lived with Lorenzo and his family for several years, dining at the family table and attending meetings of the Neo-Platonic Academy.

Lorenzo was an artist himself, writing poetry in his native Tuscan. In his poetry he celebrates life even while - particularly in his later works - acknowledging with melancholy the fragility and instability of the human condition. Love, feasts and light dominate his verse.

Cosimo had started the collection of books which became the Medici Library (also called the Laurentian Library) and Lorenzo expanded it. Lorenzo's agents retrieved from the East large numbers of classical works, and he employed a large workshop to copy his books and disseminate their content across Europe. He supported the development of humanism through his circle of scholarly friends who studied Greek philosophers, and attempted to merge the ideas of Plato with Christianity; among this group were the philosophers Marsilio Ficino, Poliziano and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola.

PONTE VECCHIO

Visit Florence and stay at Hotel Mario's: its staff will help you in your visit!!!

Ponte Vecchio is a Medieval bridge over the Arno River, in Florence, Italy, noted for still having shops built along it, as was once common. Butchers initially occupied the shops; the present tenants are jewellers, art dealers and souvenir sellers. It has been described as Europe's oldest wholly-stone, closed-spandrel segmental arch bridge, but there are far older segmental arch bridges such as Alconétar Bridge. Ponte Vecchio's two neighbouring bridges are Ponte Santa Trinità and Ponte alle Grazie.

The bridge spans the Arno at its narrowest point where it is believed that a bridge was first built in Roman times, when the via Cassia crossed the river at this point. The Roman piers were of stone, the superstructure of wood. The bridge first appears in a document of 996. After being destroyed by a flood in 1117 it was reconstructed in stone but swept away again in 1333 save two of its central piers, as noted by Giovanni Villani in his Nuova Cronica. It was rebuilt in 1345, Giorgio Vasari recorded the tradition in his day, that attributed its design to Taddeo Gaddi, besides Giotto one of the few artistic names of the trecento still recalled two hundred years later. Modern historians present Neri di Fioravanti as a possible candidate. Sheltered in a little loggia at the central opening of the bridge is a weathered dedication stone.

The Torre dei Mannelli was built at the southeast corner of the bridge to defend it.

The bridge consists of three segmental arches: the main arch has a span of 30 meters (98 ft) the two side arches each span 27 meters (88 ft). The rise of the arches is between 3.5 and 4.4 meters (11½ to 14½ feet), and the span-to-rise ratio 5:1.

It has always hosted shops and merchants who displayed their goods on tables before their premises, after authorization of the Bargello (a sort of a lord mayor, a magistrate and a police authority). The back shops (retrobotteghe) that may be seen from upriver, were added in the seventeenth century.

Events in Florence, September 2010

Dear friends,

September will be a fantastic month for many reasons: one of them is the exhibition of Bronzino from September 24th, 2010 to January 23rd, 2011. Bronzino,one of the greatest painters of the 16th century at Palazzo Strozzi www.palazzostrozzi.org
Then, you are still in time to visit Casa Buonarroti, with an exhibition on Pietro da Cortona; this will ends 11th of October 2010.
On the occasion of the 4th centennial of Caravaggio's death, the exhibit presents over 100 paintings belonging to the outstanding Florentine legacy of works by Caravaggio, a nucleus of Caravaggesque paintings,at the Uffizi at the Galleria Palatina of Palazzo Pitti.
These are only some of the many possibility you have coming to Florence in September.We'll be pleased if between a Caravaggio and a Bistecca alla Fiorentina, could enjoy a real Florentine hospitality: Hotel Mario's, in the centre of Florence, in the heart of the old city.
www.hotelmarios.com
info@hotelmarios.com
tel : +39055216801

Strozzi Palace in Florence

Palazzo Strozzi is a palace in Florence, Italy. The Palace was begun in 1489 by Benedetto da Maiano, for Filippo Strozzi the Elder, a rival of the Medici who had returned to the city in November 1466 and desired the most magnificent palace to assert his family's continued prominence and, perhaps more important, a political statement of his own status. A great number of other buildings were acquired during the 70s and demolished to provide enough space for the new construction. Giuliano da Sangallo the Younger provided a wood model of the design. Filippo Strozzi died in 1491, long before the construction's completion in 1538. Duke Cosimo I de' Medici confiscated it in the same year, not returning it to the Strozzi family until thirty years later.
Palazzo Strozzi is a splendid example of civil architecture with its rusticated stone, inspired by the Palazzo Medici, but with more harmonious proportions. Unlike the Medici Palace, which was sited on a corner lot, and thus has only two sides, this building, surrounded on all four sides by streets, is a free-standing structure. This introduced a problem new in Renaissance architecture, which, given the newly-felt need for internal symmetry of planning symmetry, was how to integrate the cross-axis: the ground plan of Palazzo Strozzi is rigorously symmetrical on its two axes, with clearly-differentiated scales of its principal rooms.
The palazzo has mullioned paired windows; the radating voussoirs of the arches increase in length as they rise to the keystone, a detail that was much copied for arched windows set in rustication in the Renaissance revival. Its magnificent cornice is typical of the Florentine palaces of the time.
The palace was left incomplete by Simone del Pollaiolo (il Cronaca), who was in charge of the construction of the palace until 1504. Also by Cronaca is the cortile or central courtyard surrounded by an arcade, inspired by Michelozzo. The famous wrought-iron lanterns that decorate the corners of the palace exterior, are by an iron-worker named Caparra.

Caetano Veloso's concert in Florence ( Sesto Fiorentino )

Dear Friends, there is a big event at the end of this June 2010 in Florence.There is the concert of Caetano Veloso, the great Brazilian singer will be in Tuscany for a fantastic concert at Villa Solaria on 29th of June 2010.He won the latin grammy 2009 with his new record "Zii e Zie".
We invite you to reserve a room at Hotel Mario's in Florence,only few metres from the train and bus station and enjoy the concert of CAETANO VELOSO.
For information about the concert : Nhandeara +39055 242830 www.eventimusicpool.it
To book a room at Hotel Mario's : info@hotelmarios.com or call +39055216801

BELEZA!!!!

Hotel Mario's a small cozy Hotel

Hotel Mario's is located in a perfect position in the city centre of Florence.It's close to the most important attractions and masterpieces. Very very close to the central train station Santa Maria Novella in a pedestrian street ( via Faenza 89 ), only one block from the Fortezza da Basso ( where there are the fairs ) and one block too from Palazzo dei Congressi. We only have 16 rooms, we absolutely want give to all the customers all the time they need. Clients are not a key of a door, a number, but somebody with their own history and need.People that come from all over the world can have at Hotel Mario's, the same ambient and warmth they have at home.
Don't choose a standart place, choose an Hotel that has history, that take care of you. Hotel Mario's in Florence, Tuscany, the right place where to stay.