After taking in the wonders of Pinturicchio in Spello’s Santa Maria Maggiore church, do stop in at the Pinacoteca (Civic Picture Gallery) next door to see a treasured missing shrine, once in Santa…
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Entering the 12th c.- church of San Lorenzo Martire in Spello, your attention is drawn immediately to the golden baldacchino dominating the altar: The 17th-c. Spello baldacchino copies the splendid Bernini bronze baldacchino of the…
Once a sacred site, always a sacred site. Or often, in any case, here in Italy. Spello’s Church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Spello is an example, testament the Roman columns to…
The 13th-c Sant’Andrea church in Spello has direct links to St. Francis in Assisi and the Franciscans. First historical reference to the church dedicated to the apostle, St. Andrew, dates to the…
Keep your eyes open as you walk through Spello so as to take in the hints of the splendor of the Roman colony, Hispellum – and they’re even in the churches. In Santa Maria…
Once again, my mantra “only in Italy” is most fitting: after all, where else might you find the splendid mosaic floor of a Roman villa when digging out a parking lot? It…
We’ll explore Spello together in my next ZOOM on November 21st – and until then, I’ll be sharing blog notes as introduction; after all, there’s so much to share on this medieval…
Quiz for the day: what is a “trunk-shaker with a reversed umbrella interceptor”? Here it is: It’s the mechanized tool used by the Trabalza-Marinucci family to harvest the olives of their three…
When we first harvested olives here in the Umbrian countryside in an icy December, 1976, the picking was all done by hand. Basket around the waist, you’d reach up the olive branch…
November is the month of the olive oil harvest all over Italy – and this year, it’s my month to focus on olive oils, subject of my two ZOOM presentations (- and…