That distinct mode of transportation in the city of canals.************************************(Photo: © Joseph Kellard/kellardmedia.com)

Built in 1865, the iron-and-glass-domed Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II is the oldest active shopping mall in Milan. The four-story arcade, located at the center of the city, features many luxury shops, cafés and restaurants. Architect Giuseppe Mengoni designed the structure that is adorned with marble stuccoes and mosaic floors.************************************(Photo: © Joseph Kellard/kellardmedia.com)

Santa Croce Firenze is a basilica in Florence where Michelangelo, Galileo, Machiavelli, Rossini and other prominent Florentines are buried. Reportedly the world’s largest Franciscan church, Santa Croce was built starting at about 1294. The Neo-Gothic style façade, which consists of white, black, green, yellow, and a variety of red marbles, was not built for centuries later. The first stone was secured in 1857 and decorations were completed in 1865. The church initially served as the final resting place for families living in the surrounding district. Starting in the 15th century, some of the city’s most notable residents were buried there, after which the church came to be known as “Temple of the Italian Glories.” ⁠************************************⁠(Photo: © 2019 Joseph Kellard/kellardmedia.com)⁠

Built in 1345 to replace a flood-flattened wooden bridge, the stone and triple-arched Ponte Vecchio (translation: “old bridge”) is the longest standing span in Florence. Meat and fish markets monopolized the walkway up until the late 1500s, when jewelers and goldsmiths were permitted to set up shops. Earlier that century, the city’s ruling Medici family hired artist, architect and biographer Giorgio Vasari to design and build the enclosed Vasari Corridor atop the bridge to connect their residence, the Pitti Palace, to the town hall, the Palazzo Vecchio, on opposite sides of the Arno River.The Ponte Vecchio has survived centuries of periodic Arno-agitated floods, and more recently the aerial assaults by both Allied forces and the Nazis in 1944, when it was “spared by direct order of Hitler,” writes Judith Dupré in her book Bridges: A History of the World's Most Spectacular Spans. Today, the bridge is home to jewelers and art and antique merchants that attract tourists and natives alike.************************************(Photo: © Joseph Kellard/kellardmedia.com)

Milan Cathedral The Milan Cathedral.

Salizzada dei Greci walkway Before I took my first trip to Italy, a friend told me to expect to feel sometimes that I’m on a movie set—such is the atmosphere that certain Italian city’s and villages exude. I was reminded of this analogy when coming across spots like this in Venice, where a pedestrian bridge crosses a canal to the Salizzada dei Greci walkway lined with restaurants, cafes and shops.⁠(Photo: © 2019 Joseph Kellard/kellardmedia.com)⁠

I snapped this photo while crossing Ponte dell'Accademia, one of four bridges that span the Grand Canal, the major waterway that runs through Venice. This is a view of the southern end of the canal, with the dome of the Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute in the distance. (Photo: © 2019 Joseph Kellard/kellardmedia.com)

A panoramic view of Varenna from Lake Como in northern Italy near the Swiss border. I was on a ferry enroute to nearby Bellagio when I snapped this shot.************************************(Photo: © Joseph Kellard/kellardmedia.com)

Chiese di Santa Maria del Giglio or the Church of Santa Maria Zobenigo in Venice.

A small beach in Varenna on Lake Como in Italy.

Buildings on the Rio dell'Arsenale canal in Venice.

Sundown on Lake Como at Varenna.

Built on the Grand Canal in Venice during the 16th century, the Palazzo Barbarigo was adorned two centuries later with mosaics and Murano glass. During the early 20th century, the building served as the headquarters for a glass company.

Sightseers view Florence from atop Brunelleschi's dome that crowns Santa Maria del Fiore, the Tuscan city’s cathedral. The pedestrian area is known as the lantern, above which is a golden ball that was made at the workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio, when Leonardo da Vinci trained there as his student and assistant. I snapped this photo from Palazzo Michelangelo.⁠

Boats colorize the beach in Monterosso, one of the five villages that make up Cinque Terre on the Ligurian coast of northwest Italy.

A woman seated on Rio di Palazzo canal with the Bridge of Sighs in background.

Doors of Florence

The Last Supper, Leonardo da Vinci In September 2019, I fulfilled my teenage promise to one day travel to Italy to see Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper, a mural that the quintessential Renaissance man painted from 1494 to 1498 in the refectory of the Dominican convent-church Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan. Through these photo captions, I tell my tale of flying across the Atlantic to finally view this world-renowned masterpiece during the 500th anniversary of da Vinci’s death in 1519. Alongside the photos and captions here, I’ve gathered some quotes—from the master himself, fellow artists, historians, scholars and biographers—about his revolutionary painting. http://www.kellardmedia.com/photoblog/seeing-leonardos-last-supper-in-the-flesh-a-promise-fulfilled

A bicycle parked along the rain soaked Lungarno Anna Maria Luisa de’ Medici, a street running parallel to the Arno River. This section of the road lies between the north entrance to the Ponte Vecchio and the Uffizi Gallery.(Photo: © 2019 Joseph Kellard/kellardmedia.com)

Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute on the Grand Canal in Venice, Italy.

A boater emerges from the Rio dell'Arsenale canal onto the San Marco Basin in Venice.(Photo: © Joseph Kellard/kellardmedia.com)

A gondola travels the Rio Canonica Palazzo, a canal that links directly to the San Marco Basin in Venice. The first pedestrian bridge is the Ponte dei Cappelli, followed by the Ponte dei Consorzi.(Photo: © 2019 Joseph Kellard/kellardmedia.com)⁠

Santa Croce Church and plaza in Florence.

La Vittoria (Victoria) by Vincenzo Consani at the Pitti Palace. This was one of my favorite sculptures in this amazing mansion-turned-museum in the heart of Florence. A professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence, Consani (1818-1888) emerged as a prominent sculpture of the Canova school and La Vittoria is considered his marble masterpiece. (Photo: © 2019 Joseph Kellard/kellardmedia.com)

Boaters cruise the Grand Canal in Venice.************************************(Photo: © Joseph Kellard/kellardmedia.com)

Bridge of Sighs on the Rio di Palazzo canal in Venice.

The Bridge of Sighs suspends high above the Rio di Palazzo canal and the lower-level Ponte della Paglia, a stone footbridge originally built in the 1300s and reconstructed in 1847 in Venice.⁠************************************⁠(Photo: © 2019 Joseph Kellard/kellardmedia.com)⁠

A pedestrian bridge on the Riva dei Sette Martiri, a promenade on the banks of the Grand Canal and San Marco Basin in Venice. (Photo: © 2019 Joseph Kellard/kellardmedia.com)

The Duomo in Milan was under construction for nearly 600 years, from 1386 to 1965, when it was finally completed. An exemplar of Italian Gothic architecture, the cathedral was built with pink Candoglia marble and represents one of the largest cathedrals of its kind in Europe. Its facade hosts some 3,400 statues and sports 135 spires. 🇮🇹(Photo: © 2019 Joseph Kellard/kellardmedia.com)⁠

A sailboat cruises along the coast of Cinque Terre, an area of five fishing villages that cling to mountains overlooking the Mediterranean in the Liguria region of northwest Italy, known as the Italian Riviera. Above the homes are manually cultivated vineyards. ⁠Photo © 2019 Joseph Kellard/kellardmedia.com

This fisherman had already casts his lines when I ventured out with my cameras early one morning while in Venice. ⁠ (Photo: © 2019 Joseph Kellard/kellardmedia.com)⁠

A day and night scene in Venice.

Raphael’s 1509 preparatory cartoon for his painting “The School of Athens,” also titled “Philosophy,” at the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan. I discovered the dark room that hosts the 26x9 charcoal drawing while visiting the art gallery/library to view a painting by Leonardo Da Vinci and exhibits of his notebook drawings. Raphel’s fresco, which appears on a wall at the Vatican, features two central figures, Aristotle and Plato, the latter of whom points upwards and is a likeness of Da Vinci. This drawing that has been in the Ambrosiana’s collection since 1610 recently underwent a four-year restoration and now displays behind non-reflective glass. (Photo: © 2019 Joseph Kellard/kellardmedia.com)

Walking along a road leading to Varenna, I came across a home sporting this patio overlooking beautiful Lake Como. ⁠

Florence’s Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, crowned by the signature dome by architect Filippo Brunelleschi. Ground was broken on the basilica in 1296 but the structure was not completed until 1436. ⁠(Photo: © 2019 Joseph Kellard/kellardmedia.com)⁠

Once I arrived in Florence from Venice and dropped my bags at our Airbnb, I walked down to the Arno River and aimed my Nikon at the Ponte Vecchio just before the sun went to bed. (Photo: © 2019 Joseph Kellard/kellardmedia.com)

Bridge at Ponte Longo and Fondamenta Zattere and Rio di San Trovaso Canal on Giudecca Canal in Venice.

Cypress Lane is one of the main pathways at Boboli Gardens in Florence. As its name suggests, the long, steep walkway is lined by stately Cypress trees and dotted with classical statuary, and flanked by smaller paths snaking through the botanical gardens. Boboli lies on the south side of the Arno River, behind the Pitti Palace, originally the home of a Florentine banker. The city’s ruling family, the Medici, purchased the palace in the mid-16th century and laid out the garden. The layout was further developed later by the Habsburg-Lorraine and Savoy dynasties. The garden was opened to the public in 1766.(Photo: © 2019 Joseph Kellard/kellardmedia.com)

Villa Monastero is a 14-room museum and conference center with a botanical gardens on the banks of Lake Como in Varenna, Italy. The estate was initially the site of a convent that was closed in the mid-16th century, after which the original villa was built and served as the residence of several families and individuals throughout the centuries. Today's museum, which features objects from these owners, was established in the 1930s, the gardens were opened the following decade, and the conference center was started in the 1950s.Today the entire complex is under the control of the Province of Acco************************************(Photo: © Joseph Kellard/kellardmedia.com

Riccardi-Medici Palace, Florence

Florence Skyline I snapped this photo of Florence’s skyline near the Giardino delle Rose, a green space situated just below the Piazza Michelangelo that offers panoramic views overlooking the Tuscan city.(Photo: © Joseph Kellard/kellardmedia.com)

A gondola on the Grand Canal in Venice.

I kept passing this archway going to and from my Airbnb in Venice. One morning, I finally stopped to snap a shot to capture this interesting slice of the canal city’s beautiful aging brick buildings.

“Birth of Venus” is a tempera-on-canvas painting by Sandro Botticelli (1445 - 1510) that is housed in a room devoted to the Renaissance artist at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. The Roman goddess of love, sex, beauty, and fertility rides naked to the island of Cyprus on an oversized scallop shell, assisted by the winds and met by a woman poised to cover her with a rose-printed cloak. Botticelli completed the painting, most likely a commission from the city’s ruling Medici family, in 1485.⁠

Venice’s trident lampposts stand near gondolas afloat on the San Marco Basin. The Church of San Giorgio Maggiore rises on an island in the distance.

josephkellard The Church of Saint Peter is baked into a rockycliff at Porto Venere in northwestern Italy on theMediterranean Sea. I used a long lens on my Nikon D90 tosnap this image as our ferry departed from the maritimevillage at the tip of a peninsula on the Ligurian coast.(Photo: © 2019 Joseph Kellard/kellardmedia.com

A Florence cityscape as seen from the Pitti Palace.(Photo: © Joseph Kellard/kellardmedia.com)

A replica of Michelangelo’s David overlooks Florence from the Piazzale Michelangelo in Florence.

A path on the outer grounds of Vezio Castle in Varenna overlooks Lake Como in northern Italy ⁠near the Swiss border. (Photo: © 2019 Joseph Kellard/kellardmedia.com)⁠

The Hilton Molino Stucky is a former flour millon Giudecca Island on the Giudecca Canal in Venice.*************************(Photo: © Joseph Kellard/kellardmedia.com

The Santa Maria di Nazareth abuts the Pontedegli Scalzi bridge on the Grand Canal in Venice.Venitian architect Baldassare Longhena (1598-1682)designed the house of worship, also called the Church of theScalzi, for the religious Order of the Discalced Carmelites.Construction began in 1656 and was completed in 1689 byGiuseppe Pozzo after Longhena's death seven years earlier.The Baroque facade was designed by architect GiuseppeSardi, and was raised between 1672 and 1680 and adornedwith statues of saints b sculotor Bernardo Falconi.The slender stone arch bridge was designed by EugenioMiozzi and built in roughly two years starting in 1932,replacing a 19th-century iron bridge. The word "Scalzi"translates to "barefoot" and refers to the shoeless monks whoonce resided at the church. The Scalzi is one of iust fourbridges that span the Grand Canal.(Photo: © Joseph Kellard/kellardmedia.com)

This young woman had quite the expressive face amid the crowd at a busy Florentine market.************************************(Photo: © Joseph Kellard/kellardmedia.com)

Let’s take a stroll along a main walkway running through Varenna, a quaint former fishing village nestled at the foot of mountains lining the eastern edge of Lake Como in northern Italy. (Photo: © 2019 Joseph Kellard/kellardmedia.com)⁠

Canal on Fondamenta del Pintor in Venice.************************************(Photo: © Joseph Kellard/kellardmedia.com)************************************

Florentine landscape with the former city wall as seen from the Boboli Gardens in Florence.

The Torre del Gallo (top-left) is a castle-likestructure nestled in the hills of Arcetri in Florence, south ofthe city center. I snapped this photo from Boboli Gardens,looking south from the garden outside the Porcelain Museum(Photo: © 2019 Joseph Kellard/kellardmedia.com

I snapped a shot of these colorful homes, nestled in the hills of Florence, from the Boboli Gardens at the center of the city. ⁠

A slice of Florence, featuring the Ponte Vecchio bridge crossing the Arno River, as viewed from Piazzale Michelangelo, a square offering elevated panoramic views of the Tuscan city. ⁠(Photo: © 2019 Joseph Kellard/kellardmedia.com)⁠

Steep Stairs, Porto VenereStairs leading to a patio overlooking the Mediterranean Sea in Porto Venere, Italy. ⁠Photo: © Joseph Kellard/kellardmedia.com)

While on the lookout for interesting doors to photograph, I came across this bike parked beside a broken, gated window hosting a potted plant in Porto Venere, a village on the northwest coast of Italy. ************************************(Photo: © 2019 Joseph Kellard/kellardmedia.com)

Wrought iron on a pedestrian bridge on the Rio de le Toresie canal in Venice.

The dome of the Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute rises above the Grand Canal in Venice.

Sunbathers shelter under colorful umbrellas on the rocky coast ofMonterroso, a village in the Cinque Terre regionof northwest Italy.(Photo: © Joseph Kellard/kellardmedia.com)

I snapped this photo of a gentleman at his family-owned art gallery on the Rio de le Toreseie canal in Venice. My sister and I struck up a conversation with him and learned that he acquired the gallery from his father. He told us about his travels around the world, particularly South America. When we told him our next stop was Florence, he recommended places to visit and even drew directions with pen on paper (Google Maps, be damned!). He was one of the many friendly natives that we encountered in Italy, some of whom went out of their way to direct us. I was fortunate enough to capture his gallery, as he stood outside on the Sotoportego Del Forno walkway, while it glowed at dusk. ⁠************************************⁠(Photo: © 2019 Joseph Kellard/kellardmedia.com)⁠

Collage of doors of Venice.

The warm lights on this dock for gondolas, backed by the Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute, lured me to take a snapshot of this scene on the Grand Canal in romantic Venice. ⁠************************************⁠(Photo: © 2019 Joseph Kellard/kellardmedia.com)⁠

I snapped this photo along a stretch of road in Florence named Lungarno degli Acciaiuoli that runs along the Arno River between the Ponte Vecchio and the bridge in the distance, the Ponte Santa Trinita. While I was editing the image in Lightroom, this scene was crying for a classic look, so I injected it with some sepia toning.

These low-hanging clouds gathered after a rain storm in Florence. I took this shot from the Ponte alle Grazie, a bridge that spans over the Arno River. I pointed my camera eastward as the late afternoon sun hit the buildings lining the northside of the river. ⁠(Photo: © 2019 Joseph Kellard/kellardmedia.com)⁠

Built in 1865, the iron-and-glass-domed Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II is the oldest active shopping mall in Milan. The four-story arcade, located in the center of the city, has many stylish, luxury shops and cafés and restaurants. It was designed by architect Giuseppe Mengoni and is adorned with marble stuccoes and mosaic floors.(Photo: © 2019 Joseph Kellard/kellardmedia.com)

Colorful homes line the Rio dell’Arsenale canal in Venice. ⁠I went out with my cameras early one morning in the city of canals and found this expansive one nearby my Airbnb. (Photo: © 2019 Joseph

When I visited Varenna, a village on Lake Comoin northern Italy, I hiked up a mountain and climbed to the topof the 12th-century Vezio Castle. From there, I took manyphotos of the surrounding areas, including this birds-eye viewof the neighboring village of Fiumelatte.(Photo: © 2019 Joseph Kellard/kellardmedia.com

The wet pavement of the winding Luigi Fusaro in Florence.

While traveling in Italy I came across several model shoots, including this one with a woman in a black backless dress in Florence. She looks across the Arno River at the Vasari Corridor, an arched and elevated walkway—extending from the Palazzo Vecchio to the Pitti Palace while passing through the Uffizi Gallery and Ponte Vecchio (left). ⁠

A glass-encased fountain crowns an underground Apple Store at the Piazza del Liberty in Milan.⁠ Below the fountain, water travels down to a glass wall that people stand behind while their friends and family members snap photos of them—presumably with their iPhones.

Colorful marble, bas-reliefs and columns distinguish the main façade of Saint Mark’s Basilica in Venice. The cathedral’s architecture is an intermarriage of western and eastern influences, including Byzantine mingling with Romanesque and Gothic flourishes, all reflective of the Venitian Republic as a maritime power on the Adriatic Sea and beyond. ⁠The original church was constructed in 828 to house the remains and relics of Saint Mark that were shipped to Venice from Alexandria, after which he was designated the patron saint of the Medieval city. ⁠“In those times, relics represented a powerful social and economic aggregator, attracting pilgrims and merchants,” reads the basilica’s website. ⁠The church was burned to the ground in 976 but was rebuilt two years later. The basilica that stands today was completed in 1071. ⁠As the Fourth Crusade came to a close in 1204, marble, art and other riches were transported to Venice to adorn the basilica. Among these were four gilded bronze horses stolen from Constantinople. Today, this quartet of weathered equine statuary resides inside the cathedral while a bronze replica stands in its place above the main entrance. ⁠⁠During the 14th and 15th centuries, Gothic elements were added to the facade, including the spires and sculptures of angels and saints. ⁠In 1807, Saint Mark’s Basilica was designated the seat of the Patriarch of Venice and the city’s cathedral. ⁠~ JK⁠

In Venice on vacation, I went out early one morning to take photos while the crowds slept. As I roamed, I came across many narrow, hidden alleys and walkways, another distinct feature in this city of canals. This particular walkway is Calle San Domenico.⁠

A view of Lake Como from Vezio Castle in Varenna, Italy. I hiked up a mountain path and climbed to the top of the medieval structure to get this shot. (Photo: © 2019 Joseph Kellard/kellardmedia.com

Alley in Venice.

A highlight of my travels in Italy was happening upon small churches, often tucked away within a city or village, with non-descript façades and richly decorative and ornamental interiors.Among these delights was Santa Maria presso San Satiro (The Church of Santa Maria at San Satiro) that is nestled between buildings in a courtyard-like hideaway off a busy street in central Milan. ⁠Designed by architect Donato Bramante, the church was built to connect to an existing 9th-century private chapel starting in 1476/78(?), with the main construction completed in 1482-83(?).⁠⁠Given its gray, unassuming exterior, Santa Maria presso San Satiro is strikingly and exquisitely decorated inside, with multi-shades of gold, bronze and tan walls, Corinthian pillars and capitals, and high-vaulted ceilings and copula. ⁠The building’s distinct (architectural) feature is an optical illusion, a false apse that appears behind the altar. This illusory apse—the half-circular recess and semi-dome that appears in the background of this photo I snapped from the church’s nave—is a relief that Bramante applied to the rear-north wall that has only a four-foot recess.Bramante lacked the space to execute his cross or “t”-like floor plan, given the close proximity of a road and neighboring homes outside. To compensate, he painted the wall using a trompe l'oeil, a linear perspective technique employing realistic objects to affect a three-dimensional visual illusion—in this case, to appear to extend the length of the nave. Photo © 2019 Joseph Kellard/kellardmedia.com

Completed in 1591 as a single stone-arch span, the Rialto Bridge was the only fixed structure to cross the Grand Canal in Venice prior to the 1850s. Antonio da Ponte and his nephew, Antonio Contino, designed the Rialto (named after the city’s primary financial center) to replace a wooden bridge that was the last in a series at the same location since the 12th century. Today, the Rialto is the oldest of the four bridges that span the canal and supports rows of retail shops attracting crowds of tourists. ⁠(Photo: © 2019 Joseph Kellard/kellardmedia.com)⁠

A collage of Florence storefronts: Clockwise from top right: Otto Atelier, a photography gallery; a green grocer and wine shop; Canto del Ramerino, a pizza restaurant; and Contempo Records, a vinyl LP shop.************************************Photo: © Joseph Kellard/kellardmedia.com

A taxi-boat cruises along the Giudecca canal inVenice. The towering building in the distance is the neo-Gothic Molino Stucky on Giudecca island. German architectand artist Ernst Wullekopf designed the building, and Swissbusinessman Giovanni Stuck built it, construction of whichwas completed in 1895. The building originally served as aflour mill. Today, it houses the five-star Hilton Molino Stucky.

The Grand Hotel Villa Serbelloni lines the@shore in Bellagio⁠. I snapped this photo as our ferry approached the village on Lake Como in northern Italy. (Photo: © 2019 Joseph Kellard/kellardmedia.com)⁠

The facade of Basilica di Santa Maria dellaSalute on the Grand Canal in Venice, Italy. Venetian architectBaldassare Longhena (1598-1682) designed the octagonalchurch. Construction began in 1631 "to preserve the city ofVenice from the terrible plague of the seventeenth century"according to the cathedral's website.(Photo: © 2019 Joseph Kellard/kellardmedia.com

The Via di S Niccolo, a narrow street one blocksouth of the Arno River in Florence, after a rain storm.

“Joe, when you go to Italy, you’re going to feel sometimes like you’re on a movie set.” (Photo: © Joseph Kellard/kellardmedia.com)

Summer by Giovanni Caccini, one of Four Seasons statues on the Ponte Santa Trinita bridge in Florence.Photo Joseph Kellard

Alley and stairs in Varenna, Italy.

A boat cruises through a straight in Porto Venere, a village on the Ligurian Sea in northwestern Italy.(Photo: © Joseph Kellard/kellardmedia.com)

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