It is in the Ciompi rising of 1278, that social revolution in which all Florence seems for once to have been interested, that we catch really for the first time the name of Medici. In 1352, Salvestro de’ Medici—non già Salvestro ma Salvator mundi, Franco Sacchetti calls him—had led the Florentines...

What you can see shinning brightly in the gullies on the steep slopes of the Apuan Alps is not necessarily snow, but probably the ravaneti, the screes of marble debris at the foot of the quarries that were already being worked in Roman times and were frequented by the great scupltors and architects who...

Italian movies started being produced at the beginning of the twentieth century. During the first ten years of the century, the first movie theatres were built in the larger cities and production companies were established. Many historical movies were produced. One of the firsts was La Presa di Roma,...

Presently, in the afternoon, I shall follow Via Porta Rossa, with its old palaces of the Torrigiani (now, Hotel Porta Rossa), and the Davanzati into Mercato Nuovo, where, because it is Thursday, the whole place will be smothered with flowers and children, little laughing rascals as impudent as Lippo...

If you are happy in your house, but just lack the space you need or don’t like the layout, then think carefully about the areas of the house you want to extend and improve. Some improvements may increase the value of your home while others may well improve its eventual saleability, but may not...

Documentary photographer Juliana Edwards is publishing a powerful photographic record of the east London site that will house the 2012 Olympics. Taken from when London won the bid to host the Games in 2005 until many of the roads were closed in 2007 to make way for construction of the new site: ‘2012:...

Easter and the UK May bank holidays are getting close and it is important that holiday makers take out Travel insurance & Car Hire Excess insurance even if they are going away for a few days. As Easter is much later again this year there will be more people taking a holiday. In 2008 as it was so...

Director-General, Mark Thompson, said: “I am enormously saddened by the news of Wendy’s death. Her countless BBC appearances across decades, especially as Miss Brahms in Are You Being Served? and then as Pauline Fowler in EastEnders, lit up living rooms for millions of British families who...

Film London Microwave, the highly successful micro-budget film-making scheme supported by BBC Films, is delighted to announce a further two features have been greenlit following a competitive third round of open applications. Film London Microwave challenges film-makers to shoot a feature film for a...

1878 – Queen Victoria meets Alexander Graham Bell and tries out his new invention, the telephone. 1918 – the first ever mass communication from a reigning British Monarch is sent out when a letter from George V is reproduced and distributed to all returning prisoners of war using lithography....