A long weekend in Florence

From the aristocratic Grand Tour in the 17th and 18th centuries to today’s mass tourism, Florence has attracted millions of students and amateurs of Renaissance art. Last January, a century after Miss Lucy Honeychurch’s trip* and armed not with a Baedeker’s but with a Lonely Planet travel guide, I wandered from the Piazza della Signoria to the Ponte Vecchio and strolled alongside the Arno. And … Continue reading A long weekend in Florence

Science & Art in Britain’s “Modern” History

Why do we feel sometimes that there is a gap between the sciences and the humanities? Or that science seems to struggle to be integrated into the cultural sphere on an equal footing with arts or literature? Where do these impressions come from? “Natural philosophy,” as science was called from antiquity to the 19th century, was not always looked down or as a threat by … Continue reading Science & Art in Britain’s “Modern” History