Extra-Ordinary Experiences in Florence & Italy
We visited the exhibition “Pre-Raphaelites: Modern Renaissance” at San Domenico Museum in Forlì, open until June 30th. It’s a must-see for the quantity and quality of the selected works.
Continue reading “Pre-Raphaelites. The Modern Renaissance in Forlì”
On January 19th, the Orsanmichele Museum in Florence reopened to the public. A captivating place, rich in history and artworks, with breathtaking views of the city. A must-visit destination in Florence! Continue reading “The new Museum of Orsanmichele”
An interesting book for jewellery enthusiasts that winks at painting lovers has recently been published by our friend and colleague Silvia Malaguzzi. In “Diamanti rubini e smeraldi, il linguaggio dei gioielli nei dipinti degli Uffizi” (Diamonds, rubies and emeralds, the language of jewels in the paintings of the Uffizi) she transformed into a method the idea that many very famous paintings could reveal something new if one analyzes its precious details with the jeweler’s lens. Continue reading “The jewels in the paintings of the Uffizi”
After more than 10 years of activity and many changes, we decided it was time to renew our corporate image.
A lot has changed since Lucia opened Exclusive Connection in 2012: we started with group tours of the Vasari Corridor in Florence and we evolved to special guided tours for art lovers and celebrities, but not only that.
It has been a journey through our passions, as well as an important growth of our professional skills. Today Exclusive Connection is a different company from the one of 10 years ago, and for this reason, we decided to renew our corporate image. Continue reading “A new brand identity for Exclusive Connection”
This July began with the opening of 12 new rooms of the Uffizi Gallery that house the selfportrait section. The extraordinary exhibition presents 255 works from the rich collection of selfportraits, previously exhibited in the Vasari Corridor.
The collection was started by Cardinal Leopoldo de’ Medici in the 17th century and has never been interrupted since then. In fact, it is the largest, oldest, and most important collection of self-portraits in the world.
The selfportraits are exhibited in 12 new rooms on the first floor of the Gallery, characterized by a splendid bright pink, which wants to allude to Cardinal Leopoldo’s robe, whose statue welcomes visitors.
The works will be exhibited in rotation so that all the masterpieces in the collection can be admired, as well as for necessary conservation constraints. The current exhibition also features 36 selfportraits of women who have made a great contribution to the history of art.
How many times have you seen Botticelli’s Spring? Probably thousands of times, right? In fact, who does not know about Sandro Botticelli’s Spring? It is no coincidence that thousands of people visit the Uffizi Gallery every year to see it in person.
It is certainly a symbol of Renaissance and of ideal Beauty, as well as one of the most loved works by our art historian Lucia Montuschi who often defines it as “the Breath of Renaissance”. A definition inspired by the complex symbology that we find in the painting, a celebration of love, peace and prosperity.
If we look carefully at the painting we can see the outline of two lungs in the vegetation. The first to notice them were the American researchers Blech and Doliner in 2009, who saw this detail right behind the figure of Venus in the center of the famous masterpiece. Can you see them now?
An anatomical representation of a lung was also discovered in the Birth of Venus. According to Davide Lazzeri, a researcher in the study of medicine in art, in the particular shape and color of the cloak held by a figure identified as the Hora of Spring or one of the Graces, a lung can be seen quite clearly. To learn more about the news click here.
A new study says that visiting museums can boost your happiness. We know it very well, and we’re grateful for visiting museums every day thanks to our job.
So we’ve selected 3 not-to-be-miss exhibits for this Spring in Italy. Continue reading “3 not to be missed exhibits”
Our 2023 exciting news is the launch of our Art Club, a new project starting on March 6th, the day Michelangelo was born.
In the last two years, we have mainly focused on culture and art lovers who, together with us, strive to deepen their innate curiosity about the people and the works, key to our art history. Thanks to their thirst for knowledge and our dedication to cultural expression, we have decided to start this new adventure by planning 10 art history rendez-vous, which will deal with very original and exciting topics expressly conceived and researched by Dr. Lucia Montuschi.
The Art Club program offers 1 video-recorded lesson per month, for a total of 10 lessons, summing up to almost 5 hours. New content will be released every month, and it will always be available to our subscribers on our video platform.
The Art Club is a subscribers-only service, and it will be held in English by Dr. Lucia Montuschi. The annual cost will be €299 VAT included but, for this first year, we have decided to launch it at a promotional price of €199 VAT included.
We are very proud to present this program:
The first talk about Michelangelo is free. Watch it here
https://lucia-s-school-2dd9.thinkific.com/
Welcome back to our Food for Thought program,
it is with this formula that our quarantine videos begun in these past months, and it is with this sentence that we finally want to inform you that we are starting our tours once again.
Italy is reopening its sites following the State provisions on safety and health, and we are ready to have you rediscover our treasures. During these months we kept each other company with various videos divided between, Le opere scelte da Lucia (the artworks chosen by Lucia) in Italian and Food for Thought in English (if you missed any episode you can find all the videos on our YouTube channel by clicking here). It is obvious that no video can ever give you the joy and emotion that a “live” visit is able to pass on to you but, quoting Albert Einstein: “The measure of intelligence is the ability to change,” we adapted and we managed with our little contribution to keep the passion that unites us alive.
We just launched our new tour offer with Lucia – until June 3rd open only to Tuscan residents and then open to everybody – keeping the same costs of the past despite the increased expenses to comply with the new regulations. The choice we made was conscious and wants to be a strong message of solidarity towards all the people who have found themselves in difficulty in these recent months. We believe that art is a right for everyone and that it speaks in a universal language transcending personal interests or the chosen field of study. We are already working at full speed on all the events of this year that we have moved to 2021 and we are ready for new requests and new challenges.
We spent these past months working on our two sites: www.luciamontuschi.com which deals with tailor made tours and itineraries throughout the Italian territory and www.exclusiveflorencetours.com which has a selection of classic and unusual itineraries that are ready and easily bookable.
At this point only you are missing!
We are waiting for you,
Lucia and the Exclusive Connection staff
