Author: patrick

Art

A Style Is Born– From High Renaissance To The New Manner

By Andrea Gáldy – Pontormo and Rosso. Diverging Paths of Mannerism, 8 March to 20 July 2014, Palazzo Strozzi, Piazza Strozzi, Florence, Italy, www.palazzostrozzi.org. An exhibition curated by Antonio Natali (director of the Uffizi Gallery) and Carlo Falciani (lecturer in art history) and held at the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi. Carlo […]

Food History

The Maienfeld Wine of Schloss Salenegg

  By Patrick Hunt How many wines can compete with the renown of Burgundy for Pinot Noir?  To many, Maienfeld in the Canton of Graubunden in Switzerland is famous as the setting for Johanna Spyri’s 1880 novel of Heidi,  so this lovely and picturesque part of the Rhine Valley has even […]

Art

J. S. Bach and Steganography

By Patrick Hunt – According to 17th century German mathematician Gottfried Leibniz, “Music is a secret exercise in the arithmetic of the soul.” That music and mathematics are deeply wedded needs no explanation, since “Music is mathematics you can hear” [1]  If anyone could hear the mathematics of music, it […]

Art

Cultural Diplomacy and Soviet Art

By Allison Rath –  When Norton Dodge (1927-2011) first traveled to the Soviet Union in 1955 to study the economic role of Russian women, he encountered the underground nonconformist art world in Moscow with the clandestine help of artist Valery Kuznetsov. Moved by the art he saw, Dodge would spend the […]

Art

Seven Wonders of the World at Abbazia di Novacella

By Patrick Hunt –  The Abbazia di Novacella is in the South Tyrolean municipality of Varna (Varhn), surrounded by its monastery vineyards above the Isarco (Eisack) River. South Tyrol was part of Austria until 1919 but is now Italy. The Abbazia is steeped in history, from its medieval foundation around […]