and in the modern

Visitors to Italy have eyes for the most part for the old and very old.

This exhibition in Forli in 2013 on Italian art between the two world wars is worth watching and a valuable reminder that this country remains alive and creative, not just a string of museums.

This first little movie is also useful as a language lesson. Nice clear speech, if a little fast, and with some art-technical language that may be useful. Watch and re-watch, let your ear and the hearing parts of the brain absorb the sounds. Actually hearing a foreign language is step 1.

and this film on Forli provides some context to that one above

BUT
it presents, don't they all, a rather cutesy story of Italy past.
Caterina Sforza is mentioned as a ruler of Forli.
For the not-faint-hearted I offer this link to a rip-roaring account of Ms Sforza
from badassoftheweek.com
Let no one assume that the youngish women now mayors of Rome and Turin will be pushovers. :-)




Um, I'm diverting from the modern a bit but here's a picture and quote from the Badass
history of Caterina Sforza of Forli, link above


Gosh! Trump that! How modern.

FOR A LESS RACY ACCOUNT of Catherine Sforza, 
with more about Forli, click here

and for a feminist cheer for the Tigress of Love, go here.

Those stories tell of Caterina Sforza. Here's a clip from her
confronting the Borgias who threaten to kill her children if she does not surrender:
being a widow, her rights depend on having a male heir.
Of course for the TV series The Borgias they opt for the more lurid yarn that
she lifts her skirt and says look see, I can make more. Seen on TV, must be true.

French without subtitles.


---oooOooo---

Faenza, next town west, home of ceramics for a very long time, hosts the modern too. This is a translation from description of the next movie:

A "long weekend" in Faenza, one of the world capitals of majolica (the name of the city itself gave rise to the word "faiences"), to discovery the world of ceramics and ceramicists, through events, exhibitions, and cultural and spectacular activities:
ARGILLÀ: market-fair to be held on August 31st (afternoon) and September 1sth and 2nd along the streets of the Historic District of Faenza, with 200 exhibitors from ceramics capitals in Italy, France, Germany, Spain, Nederland, Austria, Slovenia and Croatia, as well as other European nations,Cultural and collateral events: the city, through its own structures (International Museum of Ceramics, Exhibition Hall, crafts and cultural associations, AICC, the State Institute of Art Gaetano Ballardini, I.S.I.A., etc.) will become a venue for an exciting programme of shows, exhibitions, and activities.Foto e editing di Saverio Pepe - Musica di Markus Legner