On one of our first celebrations together, Toni-Lee bought a set of book labels for me, inscribing them with the words, Ex Libris.
The calling card of so many families, ours included.

Books are miracles.
Interested in Tuscany?
Books galore.

Although my trip to Tuscany is a year away, I bring it home to the here and now with a selection of pertinent books.
So varied.
So rich.
So enlightening.

Miracles, really.
Who knows where they will take you.

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Tagging Today
Monday, October 15, 2018
My 188th consecutive posting.
Time is 12.01am
Boston’s temperature will reach a high of 64 but
it will be cloudy with a shower..

Dinner is Roast Chicken and Angel Hair pasta with a wonderful Marinara Sauce, both recipes found on the website, with my daughter Kat, cousin Lauren, and Jake, a friend of Kat’s from Swarthmore. Other Swart house guests off visiting others.

Quiz Question for Today:
Who wrote “The Agony and the Ecstasy?”
And what is it about?

Hints:

Far Left:
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 1452 – 2 May 1519), more commonly Leonardo da Vinci or simply Leonardo, was an Italian polymath of the Renaissance, whose areas of interest included invention, painting, sculpting, architecture, science, music, mathematics, engineering, literature, anatomy, geology, astronomy, botany, writing, history, and cartography.

He has been variously called the father of paleontology, ichnology, and architecture, and is widely considered one of the greatest painters of all time.

Sometimes credited with the inventions of the parachute, helicopter and tank, he epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal.

The picture is a portrait of him by Francesco Melzi.

Second from left:
Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi (c. 1445[2] – May 17, 1510), known as Sandro Botticelli was an Italian painter of the Early Renaissance.
He belonged to the Florentine School under the patronage of Lorenzo de' Medici, a movement that Giorgio Vasari would characterize less than a hundred years later in his Vita of Botticelli as a "golden age".
Botticelli's posthumous reputation suffered until the late 19th century; since then, his work has been seen to represent the linear grace of Early Renaissance painting.

As well as the small number of mythological subjects which are his best-known works today, he painted a wide range of religious subjects and also some portraits.
He and his workshop were especially known for their Madonna and Childs, many in the round tondo shape.
Botticelli's best-known works are The Birth of Venus and Primavera, both in the Uffizi in Florence.

He lived all his life in the same neighborhood of Florence, with probably his only significant time elsewhere, the months he spent painting in Pisa in 1474 and the Sistine Chapel in Rome in 1481–82.

The picture shown is a probable self-portrait rendered as a detail from his “Adoration of the Magi.”

Second from right:
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni or more commonly known by his first name Michelangelo was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect and poet of the High Renaissance born in the Republic of Florence, who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art.

Considered by some the greatest living artist during his lifetime, he has since been described as one of the greatest artists of all time.

Despite making few forays beyond the arts, his artistic versatility was of such a high order that he is often considered a contender for the title of the archetypal Renaissance man, along with his rival, the fellow Florentine and client of the Medici, Leonardo da Vinci.

The portrait shown is by Daniele da Volterra.

Far right:
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino (March 28 or April 6, 1483 – April 6, 1520) known as Raphael was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance.
His work is admired for its clarity of form, ease of composition, and visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur.
Together with Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, he forms the traditional trinity of great masters of that period.

The picture shown is a presumed portrait.


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Love your notes.
Contact me @ domcapossela@hotmail.com

Just a few years ago Chris Capossela was a high school student at Buckingham, Browne, and Nichols School.
Now he is Chief Marketing Officer for Microsoft.

On Thursday we received from him this piece on focusing on the details of the seemingly smallest jobs and, in the process, refreshing one’s career.
It seems pertinent to all of us: students, workers, homemakers.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-refresh-your-career-again-againagain-chris-capossela/?published=t

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Answer to “Who wrote “The Agony and the Ecstasy:”

Irving Stone (July 14, 1903, San Francisco, California – August 26, 1989, Los Angeles) was an American writer, chiefly known for his biographical novels of noted artists, politicians and intellectuals.

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Books
I’ve just finished Under the Tuscan Sun: At Home in Italy, a 1996 memoir by American author Frances Mayes.

The book, published by Random House, was a New York Times bestseller for more than two and a half years, and was a New York Times Notable Book of 1997. It includes several chapters of recipes, and describes how she bought and restored an abandoned villa in the Tuscan countryside.

It does bring out the green in all of us who wish we were in her place, making us envious of the creativity of the reconstruction and the hedonism of the food.

I’ve started a new book on Florence and Tuscany, "The Agony and the Ecstasy," (1961) a biographical novel of Michelangelo Buonarroti written by American author Irving Stone.

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"The Agony and the Ecstasy"

In the opening of the book we find Michelangelo entering the workshop of Domenico Ghirlandaio, the largest and busiest of the painting workshops. Ghirlandaio instantly recognizes Michelangelo’s talent and instead of charging Michelangelo for the apprenticeship, accedes to Michelangelo’s request for a stipend so he could get his father’s permission to enter the workshop.
But Michelangelo desires to be a sculptor and it is apparent that his talents do not conform to Ghirlandaio’s style. When a Medici school for sculptors is set up, Ghirlandaio agrees to permit Michelangelo to apprentice there.

I’’m excited to read this.

And so “Good Morning!” my friends.
Some upbeat moments here, especially Chris Capossela’s link to an excellent essay.

Enjoy the day.
Love
Dom