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A restored garden and the women who made a 'space of their own' among the green. Join us (in Italian) on Friday, November 21 at Villa La Quiete for a half-day seminar and garden tour: ‘The Happiness of Gardens: The extraordinary lives of women garden designers’ scheduled from 9.30am to 1.30pm. This lecture series, organised by the University of Florence, as part of the ‘Eredità delle Donne’ festival, focuses on several noteworthy women who lived and worked in the 19th and 20t

Resurrecting the Marchesa in an age where women had little public power. Isabella d’Este (1474 – 1539) stands out as a formidable figure. This 6pm 'Wednesday Lecture' at the British Institute of Florence, on December 3, 2025, is sponsored by the Calliope Arts Foundation.   Isabella was born into one of Italy’s most illustrious dynasties and married into another. Her husband, Francesco Gonzaga, was a warrior and a philanderer, but their partnership – she ran the state while he

Mabel Nicholson, Nancy Nicholson, EQ Nicholson and Louisa Creed. The Women’s Art Collection, Murray Edwards College, Cambridge. 6 March to 6 Sept. 2026 EQ at work on a batik bedspread c.1932, photographed by Kit in their flat in Chelsea Embankment. The palette on the wall belonged to Mabel Pryde, Kit's mother The exhibition 'Relative Ties' will explore the work of three generations of women artists from the illustrious Nicholson family, from the early twentieth century to

What can early twentieth-century foundlings tell us about women's history in Florence? 'Girls in the Innocenti Archive: 1900-1921’  at the Innocenti Institute and Museum is a project and exhibition conceived and executed by the Istituto degli Innocenti, in collaboration with Calliope Arts Foundation, aimed at protecting and showcasing the identity tokens that belonged to the girls taken in by the foundling hospital during the early decades of the twentieth century, objects th

Begin again, with blooms By Linda Falcone German Botanical artist Marieluise Bantel will be on show from February 18 to March 31 2026 at Cultural Association Il Palmerino with 'TIMELESS: Marieluise Bantel and her Flowers' , with canvas and paper works, as part of the project 'A FLORENTINE GARDEN: EARLY WOMEN EXPATS AND ARTISTS OF TODAY' organised by Calliope Arts Foundation and Cultural Association Il Palmerino, in collaboration with the British Institute of Florence. The At

Twentieth-century adoptive Florentine artist Flavia Arlotta will be featured in the show 'Inner Gardens: Still-lifes and Landscapes by Flavia Arlotta' at Il Palmerino Cultural Association from 13 September to 16 December 2025. An interview with Francesco Colacicchi and Alta Macadam By Linda Falcone   This article was first published in Restoration Conversations magazine, Issue 7 - Spring 2025 Walking up the wide but wooded path, to the Colacicchi house on via dell’Osservatori