I’m back at home in Santa Fiora for the weekend of work and Italian matrimonial bureaucracy. Having been away and drenched in all things creative with creative others I’ve come home semi-sated. I appreciate the quiet here after the tides of tourists and I’ve bigtime missed the man and cat (one’s out driving, the other fast asleep in the window as I write this), so I think of this as a little reverse working holiday at home.

On Thursday I had a full day – art history walk, printmaking studio and an evening in the jewellery studio. Exhausting, museum-feet-inducing, and deeply satisfying.
With art historian, Elisabetta, our printmaking class ambled the streets surrounding the Piazza della Signoria and Santa Croce, soaking in the wealth of culture that is right under the noses of the kinds of tourists who were out hunting giant Davids. The tranquil oasis of churches, side streets and corner stories we had almost to ourselves.

Casa Buonarroti – owned but never lived-in by Michelangelo – is just around the corner from my apartment in Via Ghibellina. In his will he left it to his nephew and this treasure trove has since become a museum filled with studies, maquettes, and houses his letters and earliest works (the Madonna of the Stairs and the Battle of the Centaurs were completed when he was 17 and 19). It contains numerous artists’ works, including Della Robbia ceramics (which Santa Fiora’s Pieve delle Sante Flora e Lucilla also contains, I might add, not too boastfully…).

Casa Buonarroti is a haven for those wanting to experience beautiful and famous artworks of Florence away from the crowds of the Ufizzi and L’Accademia di Belle Arti…both of which I love, but only in January.