Saturday, April 11th Live on Zoom 10am Los Angeles / 1pm New York / 6pm London / 7pm Florence Professor Brown tells a true story of vendetta and intrigue, triumph and tragedy, exile, and repatriation in her 2021 book, The Venetian Bride: Bloodlines and Blood Feuds in Venice and its Empire .  It chronicles the 16 th  century marriage of Giulia Bembo and Girolamo Della Torre and reveals the complexities of the Venetian Empire, family life, and power struggles.  In her Studiolo

Saturday, April 4th Live on Zoom 10am Los Angeles / 1pm New York / 6pm London / 7pm Florence Painter and portraitist Nicholas Todhunter returns to Paola’s Studiolo  to discuss the work of Jacopo Tintoretto (1518–1594), described as Venice’s most dramatic painter—a whirlwind of speed, shadow, and swagger.  Nicknamed Il Furioso  for his wild energy, he painted saints like stage actors, miracles like lightning strikes, and ceilings as if gravity were optional.  Tintoretto worked

Saturday, March 28th Live on Zoom 10am Los Angeles / 1pm New York / 6pm London / 7pm Florence During his all-too-brief career, Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, better known as Raphael (1483-1520), frequently benefited from the patronage of women and painted works intended for female viewers ranging from nuns to noblewomen. Raphael’s women patrons and viewers came from different social classes and were often linked via bonds of kinship, marriage, and friendship. This conversation w

Saturday, March 21st Live on Zoom 10am Los Angeles / 1pm New York / 6pm London / 7pm Florence Professor Elizabeth Lev will discuss the astonishing life of Caterina Riario Sforza (1463 –1509), one of the most prominent women of Renaissance Italy, who was a wife, mother, leader, and warrior, fierce enough to make Machiavelli himself wince.  In her biography, Elizabeth Lev examines Caterina's extraordinary life and accomplishments. Raised in the court of Milan and wed at the age

Saturday, March 14th Live on Zoom 10am Los Angeles / 1pm New York / 6pm London / 7pm Florence Pope Leo XIV proclaimed 2026 a “Special Year of Saint Francis,” and to reflect on this honor, we have the pleasure to hear from Professor Bill Cook, the ultimate expert on the life of this beloved saint.  He said, “If history is to be useful and not just entertaining for our time, we must first get the facts and contexts right for the subject, and then we need to think creatively abo

Saturday, March 7th Live on Zoom 10am Los Angeles / 1pm New York / 6pm London / 7pm Florence During the Renaissance, a Florentine orphanage opened and began admitting children in 1445, ultimately rescuing thousands of children and revolutionizing childhood foster care and education amid the splendor of exceptional Renaissance art and architecture.  Florence’s Ospedale degli Innocenti/Hospital of the Innocents  was Europe’s first orphanage for abandoned children.  In an era wh

Saturday, February 21st Live on Zoom 10am Los Angeles / 1pm New York / 6pm London / 7pm Florence One might have trouble imagining a connection between the works of the master French sculptor Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) and the art of ancient Egypt.  However, Rodin was a great admirer of the art of antiquity and over the course of his life, he amassed a sizable collection of artifacts from Greece, Rome, and Egypt.  In his final years, Egypt became a particular source of fascinat

Saturday, February 7th Live on Zoom 10am Los Angeles / 1pm New York / 6pm London / 7pm Florence Dive into the intimate history of cosmetics, and discover how, for centuries, women have turned to makeup as a rich source of creativity, community, and resistance.  The Renaissance was an era obsessed with appearances.  Beauty culture from the time has left traces that give us a window into an overlooked realm of history – revealing everything from 16 th  century women's body anxi

Saturday, January 31st Live on Zoom 10am Los Angeles / 1pm New York / 6pm London / 7pm Florence What impact did ancient art have on Italian Renaissance artists?  One key lesson, often overlooked, was how to express powerful emotions, especially suffering.  We see this in the transformation of Filippino Lippi's (1457–1504) art after he left his native Florence, lived in Rome (1489–93), and enriched his visual vocabulary.  When Filippino returned home to Florence, he painted an