Lucca

I wonder what an open kitchen does to the relationship between cooks and guests.

Yeah, I think that the open kitchen, when Rose and I started, I always say that we became really great partners because not only did we want to kind of cook the same food because she lived in Lucca, my family was from Florence, but, you know, we both had open kitchens at home.

So our children came home from school and one of us might be cooking, but we also might be doing their homework or they might have a friend there for tea or, you know, people would come for dinner and see us cooking and help out.

We both, I think, voted the same way.

The outer side is full of columns, carvings, and groups, and on the frieze of the central door is a Jesus Christ with the twelve apostles in half relief, after the Greek manner.

The people of Lucca about the same time, that is, in the year 1061, as rivals of the people of Pisa, began the church of San Martino in Lucca from the design of certain disciples of Buscheto, there being then no other architects in Tuscany.

Attached to the facade of this church there may be seen a marble portico with many ornaments and carvings made in memory of Pope Alexander II, who had been, a short time before he was elected to the pontificate, bishop of that city.

Of this construction and of Alexander himself everything is fully told in nine Latin verses, and the same may be seen in certain other ancient letters engraved on the marble under the portico between the doors.

One goes climbing to the summit in a manner that he who is on the ground always sees all those who are climbing, those who are climbing see those who are on the ground, and those who are halfway up see both the first and the second, that is, those who are above and those who are below.

This fanciful invention, with better method and more just proportions and with more adornment, was afterwards put into execution by the architect Bramante in the Belvedere in Rome for Pope Julius II and by Antonio da Sangallo in the well that is at Orvieto by order of Pope Clement VII, as will be told when the time comes.

But returning to Nicola, who was no less excellent as sculptor than as architect, in the facade of the church of St. Martino in Lucca, under the portico that is above the lesser door on the left as one enters into the church, where there is seen a Christ deposed from the cross, he made a marble scene in half relief, all full of figures wrought with much diligence, having hollowed out the marble and finished the whole in a manner that gave hope to those who were previously working at the art with very great difficulty, that there soon should come one who, with more facility, would give them better assistance.

The same Nicola, in the year 1240, gave the design for the church of St. Jacopo in Pistoia, and put to work there in mosaic certain Tuscan masters who made the vaulting of the choir niche, which, although in those times it was held as something difficult and of great cost, moves us today rather to laughter and to compassion than to marvel.

And it's just... going to be an amazing opportunity now to for me to pivot from the classical crossover repertoire that have served me so well over the last 15 years and now do some proper opera i will be debuting down in alabama the role of rodolfo from la boheme puccini of course puccini is also the composer Oh, he's the best, really.

In fact, I went to the Puccini Museum in Lucca, Italy, just a week ago, actually.

Amazing.

We just returned from Europe and Switzerland.

In 1519 the Medicean rulers of Florence granted a few political concessions to her citizens, and Machiavelli with others was consulted upon a new constitution under which the great council was to be restored, but on one pretext or another it was not promulgated.

In 1520 the Florentine merchants again had recourse to Machiavelli to settle their differences with Lucca, but this year was chiefly remarkable for his re-entry into Florentine literary society, where he was much sought after, and also for the production of his Art of War.

It was in the same year that he received a commission at the instance of Cardinal de Medici to write The History of Florence, a task which occupied him until 1525.

His return to popular favor may have determined the Medici to give him this employment, for an old writer observes that an able statesman out of work, like a huge whale, will endeavor to overturn the ship unless he has an empty cask to play with.

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comedy in prose fifteen fifteen question mark belphagor arcidiavolo novel fifteen fifteen asini d'oro poem in terza rima fifteen seventeen dell'arte della guerra fifteen nineteen to fifteen twenty discorso sopra il riformare la stato di firenze fifteen twenty Sommario delle cose della citta di Lucca, 1520.

Vita di Castruccio Castracini da Lucca, 1520.