Let’s say that not long after Prince Orsini returned home from years at war, his wife, Giulia Farnese, passed away. Let’s say instead of building her an austere family tomb, Orsini commissioned a sculpture garden full of monsters and mythical beings for her ghost to...
On Via San Lucifero, nestled among the prickly pears, there is a house with cracks in the plaster. The plaster is painted the color of the inside of an almond but mottled here and there with patches of blackish mold like rot. Against the house there is a vine of red...
Photo: Corrie Pappas My friend Alberto told me a ghost story once I’ll never forget. He works at the 12th-century Castello del Trebbio, outside of Florence. I wanted to find out more about the Pazzi family, who lived there in the 15th century. They were a banking...
of loadbearing supports and span-riseratios. Of harmonic proportionsand Pythagorean mysticism. I couldn’t marvel at the bright shops jutting from the Ponte Vecchiowithout a lecture on ancient architectureand the ongoing perils of gravity. I couldn’t wonder aloud how...
