![]() At Home in Italy showcases a sumptuous selection of the country’s most beautiful houses, described beautifully by the Editor of AD Italia, Nicoletta del Buono, and captured by photographer Massimo Listri. As del Buono’s text makes clear, as varied as traditional Italian approaches to design are—each unique to its region—they are nevertheless easily identifiable as Italian. With over two hundred stunning color photographs of thirty houses, ranging from sweeping panoramas to close-ups of specific rooms, furniture, and design details, this compelling book highlights the merging of traditional settings and modern comforts that epitomizes Italian style. At Home in Italy has something to offer to every lover of Italy and interior design. ![]() Tuscan Elements brings to life the colors, textures, and aesthetics of the Tuscan house—the magnificent stone and marble work; the hardwoods like chestnut, oak, and elm; earthy terra-cotta and brick; and the all-important water feature, used in ponds, fountains, and pools. This unique, visual sourcebook deconstructs the typical Tuscan home and examines its basic components in dazzling detail. Photographer Simon McBride illustrates these magical elements which you can use to infuse both your home and garden with a little bit of Tuscany. This book is a must-have for a source of never-ending inspiration. ![]() Italian Rustic is a step-by-step guide to recreating the romance and appeal of the weathered Italian farmhouse. This nuts-and-bolts guide to building Italian-style affords the reader all the elements to create their own rustic Italian home, from stone walls to artisanal stucco wall finishes. Author Elizabeth Minchilli is an American designer based in Rome and Tuscany, says of her readers, "People are hungry to know how terra-cotta tiles were laid, or how fireplaces were built." she says. A collaboration with her Italian architect husband, the team created a book that explains in clear details, along with photos and drawings, how to lay a tile floor a la Italiana, or add a Tuscan-style pergola to any garden, and much more. With more than 300 stunning photographs shot on location in Tuscany and Umbria, the book contains profiles of local artisans, engaging text on how the farmhouse style evolved, and targeted advice on how Americans can find Italian-style building materials and craftsmen close to home. Definitely a must-have in your Italian style collection! ![]() This is Elizabeth Minchilli's first book, a breathtakingly photographed volume that offers inside and outside inspirations from twenty-two lovingly restored Italian homes--labors of love by people whose passion for Italy just couldn't be ignored. Owners and designers share anecdotes about their experiences with local artisans, vendors, and bureaucracy, while offering real-world advice on the tactics of restoring a house in a foreign country. Whether you plan to embark on a complete redesign or renovation of your own home, home owners and dreamers alike will value the information presented in Restoring a Home in Italy. This is a book is a lush and beautiful inspiration for designing your own piece of Italy in your own home. ![]() For centuries, the romance and sumptuous style of Venice has been well known.This book invites us into the extravagant interiors and secret gardens where Venetians have forged an inspiring approach to living and entertaining in grand Old World style surrounded by water. This superbly photographed book takes the reader behind the fabulous facades of Venice to explore its grand interiors and local cuisine. Featuring lively anecdotal text and stunning color photographs of private interiors otherwise not open to the public, and including recipes from Venice and the surrounding Veneto region, this beautifully illustrated volume is essential for anyone who has fantasized about living in one of the world’s most romantic cities, or recreating this style in their own homes. Venice, the Art of Living is an enchanting volume for anyone interested in interior design of this noble city. ![]() Inside Milan ventures behind closed doors in this unique cultural capital that is renowned as a world leader in fashion, design, art, and industry. From sophisticated clean lines and muted tones to rooms bursting with art and color, the palazzos and apartments showcased in this stunning volume uncover the creative heart of this vibrant and cosmopolitan metropolis. Nicolò Castellini Baldissera’s carefully curated collection of interiors features the homes of an array of leading creatives of Milan society. With a cloth binding featuring an original Fornasetti drawing, gilded embossed type, and masterful color photographs by Guido Taroni, Inside Milan provides rare insights into the Milanese lifestyle. ![]() Living in the Alps explores the unique architecture of the Italian Alps, where the context of the surrounding landscape is strongly integrated within the cozy, rustic interiors. . The houses published in this volume are all located in the Alps along the Italian border. They have been renovated and redeveloped, their interior spaces demolished and rethought. Francesca Neri Antonello is a master of domesticating natural and raw materials, using them to create a warm intimacy that is indispensable for designing the interiors of those who live with the cold alpine temperatures. Her projects center around stone, iron, and above all wood, which is often recovered or burned to obtain the characteristic burnished color. The author brings together design thinking, craftsmanship, and a strong empathy with her clients. Each element of the interior is designed specifically for each space: furniture, doors, stairs, fireplaces, lamps. Each accessory is chosen with care, interpreting the personal needs of those who will live in the house. The enveloping atmospheres are enhanced by the fabrics and the skillful combination of artificial and natural light. ![]() Lower Salento, the so-called “heel of Italy” in the Puglia region, is bordered by two seas, the Adriatic and the Ionian. The area is strongly characterized by the silvery greens of endless olive groves, the red earth, the warm shades of limestone, the dazzling white of the walls painted in lime, the intense blue of the sea, and the light of the south that envelops everything. In recent years, both Puglia and the Salento have been discovered by an international public that understands its uniqueness and has chosen it as an ideal place for a retreat. Rural houses and old regal palazzi, with star vaulted ceilings, have been carefully restored and transformed into private homes of great beauty. This book selects some of the most elegant and original of these: farms and historic buildings that differ in terms of their age, style, and taste, but all of which offer the Mediterranean charm of that preserved corner of Puglia. All the homes have been freshly photographed by Filippo Bamberghi, with views and decorative details of the houses and glimpses of the surrounding landscape. The text by journalist Patrizia Piccinini, based on interviews with the owners of the houses, recounts the history of the buildings, the genesis of the projects, and the bond between the owners and the territory. If you love the laid back, white chic of Puglia, you'll love this book. ![]() Puglia is located on Italy’s sun-drenched coast (the Spur to Heel) and is where you will find many restored Masseria--large farmhouse complexes--inspirations to all those who love rustic living. Surrounded by verdant vineyards and groves of olive trees, the Masserie of Puglia are historic, often walled compounds of the past, some dating back to the Middle Ages. It is a very different environment and architectural style found nowhere else in Italy. Once serving as farmhouses and way stations for those traveling along the Via Appia, these buildings have been renovated to serve as private residences or boutique hotels, with their beautifully preserved interiors thoughtfully adapted and turned into a cool serenity. Simultaneously austere and luxurious, the simple yet spacious rooms retain their original charm, including stone kitchen fireplaces, arched hallways, and magnificent marble floors. The buildings themselves are dazzlingly white backdrops of medieval stucco and stone. Richly contextualized with original essays by architect and scholar Diane Lewis, and photos by Mark Roskams, Masseria, the Italia Farmhouses of Puglia will inspire interior lovers with the details of this unique and rustic architectural style. --Jerry Finzi
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![]() These interesting and beautiful chairs are commonly referred to as "throne chairs", associating them with a medieval royal court or in a Renaissance setting. There are many names for these: commonly referred to as X-chairs, but more historically correct, Dantesca (or Dante) chairs, Savonarola chairs, or when without arms, Sedie a Tenaglia, Pincer Chairs or simply Scissor Chairs. In most cases, they were designed to folded up or taken apart for transport or when additional chairs were needed for a special event. Folding frame chairs were first used in Ancient Egypt, Rome, and Greece used by the elite classes--they were expensive to create by master craftsmen. Some were even simple, metal designs with a sling seat. Throughout the Roman Empire the sella curulis, an armless folding stool, was very common, looking somewhat like the bottom half of a modern director's chair. In early Christian times they were originally called faldistorium (folding stool, in Latin) when they were used by religious officials when their throne was too cumbersome to move to outdoor events.The folding chair for everyday use originated in medieval Italy and spread through Europe during the Renaissance. The form was revived during the Neo-classical period, and continued its popularity through the 19th century and during the Craftsman design era. There are even 20th century chairs that were based on the originals. Dantesca chairs typically have four intersecting s-shaped legs and a wooden or stone ornamental knob (called a boss) where the legs intersect. Some will fold, while others don't. Savonarola are chairs named for the 15th century Florentine, Dominican friar Girolamo Savonarola, who lived during the Italian Renaissance. Instead of four legs, the Savonarola was made up of a series of narrow wooden curved slats (also s-curved) that all folded in unison. The backs were often elaborately carved, typically with a family crest or head of a person or animal, symbolizing the owner. Often the seat had a cushion of velvet or silk in an elegant style. Legs on these designs were joined to flat "feet" that allowed the chair to sit level on uneven tiles or even outdoors on uneven ground. Curiously, even though Savonarola had his followers burn things of luxury and excess (due to his commitment to the poor) in his Bonfires of the Vanity, he still felt comfortable in his own version of a portable throne, which can be still seen today in the Convento di San Marco in Florence. Still today, in both modern or classical interiors, the Savonarola or Dantesca chairs are a great choice, used in pairs or along as an accent piece. --Jerry Finzi And available on Amazon...
![]() When Voyaging throughout Puglia, you might start seeing colorful ceramic flower buds or pine cones displayed on balconies, lined up on staircases or in gardens. You will see them for sale in gift shops and ceramic shops in most towns you visit. But what are they? Do they have a spiritual meaning? ![]() They are called Pumi di Grottaglie, primarily made in the town of Grottaglie (a hub of ceramic production). They represent flower buds (or rose hips) with their pointed bud-shaped design with acanthus leaves surrounding the base. The form can also look more like pine cones, with many points surrounding its form. Pumi are made in all sorts of colorful glazes--even metallic gold. Others will be painted in complex floral designs popular in Mezzogiorno (the South). Still others can be decorated with a lacework of holes, to be used as candle holders, lamps or incense burners. ![]() The term pumo comes from the Latin pomum (fruit) and is said to have its roots in honoring the pagan goddess Pomona, deity of fruit, olives and grapes. In some areas of Puglia these ceramics are called Pumo de fiure (flower bud). They represent life about to burst open and flourish--symbols of abundance of the land and of birth itself, but also of prosperity, chastity, immortality and resurrection. In common use, they are put on balconies and into homes to ward off evil and Il Malocchio, or the evil eye. If you're ever in Puglia, bring a Pumo back to keep your home safe. With the multitude of colors and styles to choose from, you will certainly find one (or several) to compliment your decor. In the least, bring home a pair to attach to your own balcony or front steps to keep away the evil spirits... --GVI A ceramic artisan showing how a pulo is thrown on the pottery wheel. A wonderful short film called Il Pumo, in which a young displaced Pugliese
decides to return to the land of his forefathers after being inspired by the story and his purchase of a Pumo. Elsa Peretti danced the night away at Manhattan's Studio 54 during her days as a top fashion model. But she also is a jewelry designer and philanthropist. A lover of architecture, she is also largely responsible for the restoration of the village of Sant Martí Vell in Catalonia, Spain. Through her foundations, she supports a wide variety of cultural, social, and artistic causes. One of her more artistic endeavors proved to be a real challenge... Peretti's La Torre was a ruin of a watchtower on the steep and craggy cliffs of Southern Tuscany--it was hardly a typical beachfront villa. Built by Spanish invaders in the 16th-century as a military lookout between the Tuscan archipelago and the island of Corsica, its remote setting appealed to Peretti but its decrepit condition was daunting. The tower contained awkward, spartan interiors with thick stone walls, cell-like rooms and thin slits as windows. Milanese architect Renzo Mongiardino helped change all that. The design could go take one of two possible paths: honoring the structure and its spartan shapes with whitewashed walls, simple wooden furniture and mattresses on the floor, or creating a three-dimensional fairy tale tower with tromp l’oeil effects. One of the main features is a fireplace mantle created by a copy of a gaping, monstrous mouth, inspired by the sculptures found at the 16th-century Bomarzo Garden of Monsters. Tromp l’oeil columns, pediments, and vines emphasize the fairy-tale-like quality of the tower, taking it back into the 17th century. Some of the effects include distorting perspective to make the spaces appear more spacious than they actually are. Mongiardino designed the tower sitting room as a “Roman ruin” with trompe l’oeil coffered ceiling opening to sky. The patterned floor incorporates terra-cotta, wood and marble. The influence of Bomarzo Gardens is obvious
A sgabello is a type of chair (sedia) of hieratic significance popular during the Renaissance. Sgabelli were typically made of walnut and included a variety of bas relief carvings. The legs could be either two decorated boards with a stretcher for support, or three separate ornamented and carved impost legs. This seat was often placed in hallways, carved with a family's imprese or emblem drawn from its coat-of-arms. Its primary purpose was decorative, therefore the seat was not necessarily comfortable. Similar chairs were made in France. Nowadays, they are used as an accent piece in interior design and period pieces can be worth a small fortune.
The elements of this style are basic: Celebrate light. Feature rustic architectural elements. Introduce moderate splashes of color. The canvas is neutral, white on white. Modern mixes with history. The eye shouldn't be attacked... keep it simple. The people in these environments walk freely naked or in white cotton robes. Pets and children accessorize and enhance this lifestyle...
--Jerry Finzi In a country where entire mountains of marble exist, and nearly every commune has travertine quarries nearby, it's no wonder that many wonderfully designed bathrooms feature stone... and lots of it. Here are some of the most beautiful bathroom ideas in stone that I've come across... --Jerry Finzi There are many options (albeit an expensive choice) for sinks and tubs carved out of solid marble, travertine or other stones. |
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