Events

German botanical artist Marieluise Bantel comes to Il Palmerino with a new exhibition that celebrates the many phases of flowers

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

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

Artist Francesca Alexander and her parents moved from Boston to Florence in 1853 and became part of the city's thriving international community. At 5.30 pm on November 26, 2025, join us at Il Palmerino Cultural Association, in the Colonica di Villa Il Palmerino, for a lecture by US writer and professor Jacqueline Marie Musacchio, entitled: The Art and Life of Francesca Alexander (1837 - 1917) , after her recently published book by the same name. She was a largely self-taught

Contemporary art for a former convent turned Future Museum in Florence The exhibition The Rose that Grew from Concrete, curated by Morgane Lucquet Laforgue, r uns from 5 September 2025 to 4 January 2026. It represents the latest stage in Museo Sant'Orsola's cultural reactivation, and it stands as an ideal bridge between the former convent’s past and its future vocation as a museum and contemporary art centre. The future museum will officially open its doors in 2026, followin

La Rocca’s work has left a lasting impact, and this landmark exhibition brings her bold, witty and thought-provoking vision to a wider audience, though her career was cut short by her untimely death at the age of 38, From September 10 to December 21, 2025, the Estorick Collection in London will present the first UK museum exhibition dedicated to Ketty La Rocca (1938–1976), a trailblazing figure in Italian conceptual and feminist art. Ketty La Rocca My Words and You-2, 1971, p

Independent curator and archivist Carla Danella speaks to author and art historian Vanessa Nicolson about her works and life. Tuesday, October 7, 2025, 6pm Il Palmerino Cultural Association, Via Il Palmerino 6 Reservations required: associazione@palmerino.it Vanessa Nicolson is an author and journalist, and a former art historian. Her most recent book, Angels of Mud , is a multi-generational novel set in London’s Italian/Irish neighbourhood of Clerkenwell in the aftermath of

Two women artists from the eighteenth century are restored and recognised thanks to the AWA Legacy Fund. The Accademia delle Arti del Disegno, in via Orsanmichele 4, in Florence, will open its doors to scholars and the art-loving public, on June 3, for a half-day seminar where conservators, art historians and museum officials will reveal their original findings and share new insight into three newly restored works attributed to Violante Siriès at the Certosa di Firenze monast

Violante Ferroni’s two large-scale ovals in the atrium of the ancient hospital of San Giovanni di Dio were restored by conservators Elizabeth Wicks and Marina Vincenti in 2020. Darkened by centuries of dirt and discoloured varnish, the paintings were created by Ferroni in the mid-1700s. Elizabeth Wicks and Marina Vincenti restoring Ferroni's artwork, ph. F. Cacchiani, 2020 Join us at 10am on May 14, on via Borgo Ognissanti 20 for a tour of the Ancient Hospital of San Giovanni

La Foce manager Katia Lysy  will accompany our guests through the garden of her family’s Tuscan estate, as she shares the ‘living memory’ of her grandmother, writer Iris Origo  whose contributions to the Val d’Orcia endure on page and in the region’s landscape. The visit begins at 11am on April 9 2025. Participants will have the opportunity to enjoy the gardens featured in Katia's newest book 'La Foce: Paradise in Tuscany', a photographic volume that celebrates the Origos’ 'l

Author Vernon Lee and painter Lola Costa made their home at Il Palmerino, the place they found their creative identity.   Join us at Il Palmerino (Via Il Palmerino 6) on Thursday, March 13 at 4.30pm  for a tour of the Il Palmerino garden, estate and cultural association, as Federica Parretti, opens her home to visitors as part of the project: ‘A Florentine Garden: Early Women Expats and Artists of Today’. Federica is director of Il Palmerino’s namesake association and grandda

Elizabeth Von Arnim, author of  The   Enchanted April pens a green space of her own. Join us on March 11, 2025 , for a lecture in Italian at Il Palmerino Cultural Association. Landscapes and gardens recounted by the novelist will be reimagined through the eyes of noted landscape architect Maria Chiara Pozzana.  Elizabeth Von Arnim (1866 – 1941) published her first book Elizabeth's Gerrman Garden in 1898, and it achieved immediate acclaim. A cousin to Katherine Mansfield, this