Experience a truly enchanting holiday in one of my Tuscan Villas
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.
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
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
The Puccini Museum of Celle is situated in the little village where Iacopo di Antonio Puccini, the great-grandfather of the famous Lucca-born coposer, was born on 26 january 1712.
Iacopo was the founding father of the dynasty of musicians that reached the apex of its glory in the figure of the maestro Giacomo Puccini.
Giacomo who was born in Lucca in 1858, like all his family maintained very close links with the last time on 26 october 1924, just a few days before his departure for brussels, where he died on 29 november of the same year. On the occasiono f this visit the village offered him a triumphal welcome, with 12 arches of laurel and other vegetation set along the street, one for each of his operas. The maestro then attended a ceremony of inauguration, during which the commemorative plaque that we can still see today was set upon the facade of the house of his ancestors.
In this veru house, ehere the members of the Puccini family were born and reared probably from as far back as the sixteenth century, the Museo Pucciniano of Celle has been set up, displaying num erous mementoes of the family.
The museum is arranged on two floors: on the ground floor, in the entrance hall, we can see the crown offered to Giacomo following the success of the premiere of Le Villi, which he bore to the bedside of his dying mother, the piano on which Puccini composed part of Madam Butterfly, and the gramophone donated to the composer by Thomas Edison.
The room is furnished with the original pieces that were previuosly in the composer’s birthplace in Lucca, and the bed in which Giacomo Puccini was born.
The kitchen is a magnificent example of the old country kitchens of the time.
Displayed on the upper floor is the christening robe of the Puccini family, which was also used by Giacomo, in addition to numerous relics of his forbears and an extensive collection of autograph letters, original sheet music and autograph scores records and photos that retrace the life and successes of Giacomo Puccini.
The museum, set up in 1973 by the Lucchesi nel Mondo association, which owns it and has been managing it uninterruptedly since its opening, was subjected to a meticulous renovation in 2004.
This has made it possible to set off to their best advantage the precious and fascinating collection of mementoes that was donated to the association in the early 1970s by the daughters of Ramelde Puccini, Giacomo’s favourite sister, Alba Del Panta Franceschini and Nelda Giaccai Franceschini.
In the summer season the Lucchesi nel Mondo association organises free operatic concert in the small square in front of the Museum, as well as offering guided tours all year round.
Museo di Casa Puccini
Celle dei Puccini, Pescaglia Lucca
Associazione Lucchesi nel Mondo
Castello Porta S. Pietro Mura Urbane 6 Lucca
Tel. /Fax +39 0583 467855
Open by appointment
Ten days of music, performances, entertainments in Livorno, starts today 31 july, a new edition of “Effetto Venezia”.
The Venezia quarter is charming area, filled with canals, islands,bridges, many from the 17th century designed for mercantile class.
Shows, theatrical performances and concerts give life to the historical district.
The big event is characterised by voices, lights, sounds and colours of Mediterranean inspiration occurs in narrow streets, courtyards, historical buildings and along small bridges, all making up the oldest but still beating heart of the town; just like Venice, the famous Italian town situated on a lagoon, the Venice district is criss-crossed by canals.
You can find a programme on: www.effettovenezia.it