Tuscany – Man Ray, the fifty faces of Juliet (1941-1955)

Juliet
Juliet

From 12 september till 6 december 2009 in Lucca.
Exhibit in a Center of Contemporany Art, via della Fratta.

Fifty photos of the artist’s wife.
Open tuesday to sunday – from 10.00 am to 7.00 pm
Closed mondays.

More informations on: Lu.C.C.A.

Tuscany – Anglo – Italian Club Viareggio

Caffè Margherita - Viareggio
Caffè Margherita - Viareggio

The new programme of the Anglo-Italian Club Viareggio will start in october and end in May 2010 following the academic year with a series of meeting, lectures and performances covering a wide range of topics wich can interest English-speaking people of any age.
The Anglo-Italian Club was fonde in 1959 by the former vice-president of the British Institute of Florence together with a few teachers and other people keen on the english language in Viareggio. Its activities have been going on for 50 years and its present day secretaary and main organizer Lucia Lucchesi was awarded and Honorary MBE by the Queen in 2004 because of her achievements in running the association for about 30 years.
The purpose of the association is to give people the opportunità to listen to and speak english in a social context and is therefore not a school of english but a totally no profit organization.
The lecturers are mostly native speakers of english specialized in a variety of subjects that cover a large range of interests.
All meetings take place on saturday afternoons usually at the Oratorio of San Paolino on the corner of Via XX Settembre and via San’t Andrea (Piazza Piave) right in the centre of Viareggio near the coach and the train stations. People who are interested can enrol during the meetings or during the first social gathering at Cafè Carmencita in Piazza Mazzini on October 3 when members will meet to socialize and have a drink togheter.
The first part of the programme for the period october-december 2009 will be issued in september, and will be featured in the october issue of Grapevine.

For information call +30 0584 962275 or look for  the program on the Tourist Board site: APT Versilia

PROGRAMME:

Saturday 4 october, 4.00 pm:
c/o Carmencita  Cafe’ – Piazza Mazzini, 29-30, Viareggio.
PRACTICE  MAKES  PERFECT  1.

Saturday 11 october 4.15 pm: (Sala delle Colonne – Palazzo Paolina, Via Machiavelli 2, Viareggio)

Ian Edwards and Jennifer Rice:
THE  GOLDEN  AGE  OF  POPULAR  SONG
The story  of  Tin  Pan  Alley  1886-1956

( A Programme of Words & Music)

Saturday 25 october, 4.15 pm: (Oratorio)
Sinclair  De Courcy  Williams:
SOME  IRISH  ECCENTRICS

Saturday 8 november,4.15 pm: (Oratorio)
Anthony  M.  Kirk:
ENGLISH:  PAST,  PRESENT,  FUTURE

Sabato 22 novembre, ore 16,15: (Oratorio)
John  Denton:
(Università  di  Firenze)
FROM  THE  NANNY TO  LA TATA. THE  ITALIANIZATION  OF  AN  AMERICAN SIT.  COM.

Saturday 13 december, 4.00 pm:
c/o Carmencita  Cafe’ – Piazza Mazzini, 29-30, Viareggio.
PRACTICE  MAKES  PERFECT  2.

Tuscany – A change style for Franco Pegonzi

pegonzi-franco

Anybody driving past the round about at the Viale Europe and Via Pesciatina cross road, ( a spot still referred to as Papao even thug that establishment closed at least fifteen years ago), may have been surprised even perplexed when the council erected an ultramodern statue, a sorto f dreadlock head of red tresses streaming to the Pizzorne hills. Each week you’d wonder when they’d get round to finishing it off clearing and polishing the rusty ild metal.
So Grapevine took the opportunità of the Hambros Hotel exhibition to ask the sculto Franco Pegonzi when this might happen.
Shame on us, he changed his style a couple of years ago and that rough finish is deliberate.
From the higly polished smooth lines of his marble and granite statues he has switched to a whole world of indefinite forms, and in fact the hotel garden was inhabited by his metal butterflies, gauzy animals and multi coloured ribbons floating into the blue.
Pegonzi showed grapevine round his converted bar studio in Lunata and explained how he transforms marble and stone into full size statues, table supports, ornaments, even paperwights. The gracious curves and magnificent sheen of  his works, so highly polished they seem like white porcelain, all represent perfectly his favourite themes of harmony, peace and love.
Born in Barga in 1939, Pegonzi studied art in Lucca. The Hambros exhibition has generated enquiries from many nations so his new style metal installations could shortly be visible in many far flung places such as South Korea which are already host to his previous traditional style.

www.francopegonzi.it
info@francopegonzi.it

Tuscany – Arezzo, Joust of the Saracen

giostra-saraceno

Starting on 6th september 2009!
This tournament has its origins in the early 16 C and commemorates Christian efforts to hold back the tide of Islam in the 14 C. A lively and colourful procession of costumed participants is followed by the main event in which eight costumed knights charge towards a wooden representation of the Saracen, aiming to hit the Saracen’s shield with lances.
The Saracen is mounted on a swivel so that part of the task of the knight has to avoid being struck back.  Each pair of knights represents one of Arezzo’s four rival districts and their supporters each occupy a side of the piazza. The winner receives a golden lance.

More information on: Giostra del Saracino

Tuscany – Montelupo Fiorentino

ceramic-montelupo
Typical hande-made plate

Montelupo Fiorentino, is a town on the immediate outskirts of Florence, between Montalbano and the river Arno.
Its location and the presence of waterways helped to develop numerous craft activities, especially ceramics, which reached its greatest splendour in the course of the 15th and 16th centuries.
This art is still alive in the numerous artistic ceramics workshops. Every year in the month of June there is the Festa Internazionale della Ceramica (International Ceramics Festival) where the area’s history and traditions are re-enacted in a series of exhibitions and artistic events. The origins of Montelupo probably coincide with the building of a castle at the end of the High Middle Ages.