Open from June 26 to September 26, 2024
Tuesday to Saturday from 3 pm to 7 pm
Our newest cultural project “The Florentine Garden: Early Women Ex-pats and Artists of Today” kicks off at 6 pm on June 26, at Cultural Association Il Palmerino, with the exhibition ‘Return Home: Lola Costa at Il Palmerino”.
Lola Costa was an English ex-pat poet and painter – largely of still-life works, portraiture and landscapes – who lived at Il Palmerino for nearly 70 years, after purchasing the estate following the death of its former owner, British writer Vernon Lee. Lee’s former archive forms part of the British Institute Library collection. She was a key member of the English community in Florence, ‘holding court’ for local and international intellectuals and creatives, many of whom were women, including Janet Ross, Edith Wharton, Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell. The Lola Costa show is backdrop to the debut of a new publication – a notebook-style magazine called The Curators’ Quaderno, by Calliope Arts with The Florentine Press, whose first issue features insight on Lola’s art and her identification with kindred spirit Vernon Lee.
The “Return Home” exhibition, open until September 26, is the start of a three-year program organized by Il Palmerino Cultural Association and Calliope Arts Foundation, in collaboration with the British Institute of Florence. Its calendar will include lectures, a residency grant for contemporary artist (TBA), and additional exhibitions. “The Florentine Garden: Early Women Ex-pats and Artists of Today” is part of the “Estate Fiorentina”, an initiative proposed within the City of Florence’s Operational Plan.
As The Curators' Quaderno by Linda Falcone for Calliope Arts Foundation, illustrates the art and poetry of Lola Costa are infused with the spirit of Il Palmerino and its garden, which continues to foster connections between the past and present, and between the English and Italian communities of Florence.
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