Difficulty: Intermediate
Italy
Riccardo, the priest, is having a hard time. His mother is trying to help him in her way. Barbieri keeps bothering Giusi. The patient who seems to think he is a doctor gives Luigi some news.
Difficulty: Intermediate
Italy
Luigi has to listen to an interminable list of possible side effects to the drugs he will be taking. Could it be that he is actually going home?
Difficulty: Intermediate
Italy
Two of the doctors meet up in the hall and get into a spat about which job is more noble, that of an oncologist or that of a surgeon.
Difficulty: Intermediate
Italy
Luigi reflects on how so many Italians, though living in a marvelous place, would like to be somewhere else, do something else, etc. But there are exceptions.
Difficulty: Intermediate
Italy
Luigi continues reflecting on how his illness changed his life in various ways, not all of them negative. Un passo alla volta (one step at a time).
Difficulty: Intermediate
Italy
As he leaves the hospital with his wife, Luigi talks about how his perspective changed having had an experience such as he did.
Difficulty: Intermediate
Italy
Borgo Sansepolcro is an out-of-the-way Tuscan city. But, as this video sets out to explain, it boasts one of the most beautiful paintings in the world, so it is well worth the journey. The video begins with some passages from a 1925 essay by Aldous Huxley: “The Best Picture.” We have translated the Italian translation back into English, for learning purposes, but you can find the original English version here.
Difficulty: Intermediate
Italy
The host describes the fascinating story of a British army captain who, during World War II, happened to have read Aldous Huxley's words (quoted in the previous segment), and remembered them just in time.
Difficulty: Intermediate
Italy
Restoring the Resurrection was a lengthy and complex process, consisting of reinforcement, cleaning, and the retouching of the painting itself.
Difficulty: Intermediate
Italy
The restorers take us through the meticulous cleaning process involving Japanese rice paper, a gel made from marine algae, and a solvent.
Difficulty: Intermediate
Italy
Piero was not just a painter; he was a member of an important family in Borgo Sansepolcro. There is a fresco painting attributed to him that might have alluded to the family business, which was producing and selling leather goods.
Difficulty: Intermediate
Italy
It's rare for a work of art to become the symbol of a city and even be part of its coat of arms, but this did indeed happen in Borgo Sansepolcro. Piero's Resurrection may be thought of as a fresco, but it's much more complicated than that, as we learn in this segment.
Difficulty: Intermediate
Italy
For art historians, it is so interesting to try to figure out, with the materials at hand, what Piero wanted his work to finally look like, but it's a challenge, as the artist's initial sketches have been lost.
Difficulty: Intermediate
Italy
With techniques available today, it is possible to distinguish the various layers of plaster used on different days of work, to determine in what order the artists and their assistants applied the paint. And during the cleaning, details can come out that were previously not visible, including buildings and even letters of the alphabet.
Difficulty: Intermediate
Italy
Retouching the painting is a very delicate job, and is done in such a way as to be reversible, and respectful to the original.
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