These pinnacles are very common in Lisbon but they look particularly effective on the terrace of the Monastery of Saint Vincent Outside the Walls. Ces pinacles se trouvent un peu partout à Lisbonne mais ils sont particulièrement décoratifs sur la terrasse du monastère de Saint Vincent Hors les Murs.
Category Archives: Elsewhere
Postcard from Lisbon – La Fontaine
The Monastery of Saint Vincent Outside the Walls in Lisbon has a magnificent collection of 38 azulejos depicting different fables by La Fontaine. This is one of them. The dog with his master’s dinner round his neck A dog was carrying his master’s dinner and another dog tried to steal it. When more dogs appeared, attraced by …
Postcard from Lisbon – Fully tiled fireplace – Cheminée entièrement carrelée
Like Spain, Portugal has a long tradition of azulejos or ceramic tiles. This fully tiled fireplace is in the Swan Room of the National Palace of Sintra built in the early 15th century, which is up on a hill outside Lisbon and therefore much cooler in winter. Comme l’Espagne, le Portugal a une longue tradition …
Continue reading “Postcard from Lisbon – Fully tiled fireplace – Cheminée entièrement carrelée”
Postcard from Lisbon – Mosteiro dos Jerónimos
Today I fell in love with a World Heritage site- the early 16th century monastery of Jeronimos in Lisbon. The two-storey cloisters with their intricately sculpted columns and arches are quite extraordinary. Aujourd’hui je suis tombée amoureuse d’un site inscrit au patrimoine de l’Unesco – le monastère de Jéronimos à Lisbonne. Le cloître à deux …
Continue reading “Postcard from Lisbon – Mosteiro dos Jerónimos”
Postcard from Lisbon: Azulejos – Terreiro do Paço
This beautiful mural made with LIsbon’s famous azulejos (tiles) is in a little garden in the Alfama quarter and depicts the square shown in yesterday’s photo before the earthquake. Ce beau mural en azulejos, les faïences célèbres de Lisbonne, se trouve dans un petit jardin dans la quartier d’Alfama et représente la place d’hier mais avant le …
Continue reading “Postcard from Lisbon: Azulejos – Terreiro do Paço”
Postcard from Lisbon: Commerce Square – Place du commerce
We are spending a week in Lisbon on a home exchange.The Praça do Comércio is near the Tagus river, is still called Terreiro do Paço because it was originally the site of Paços da Ribeira (Royal Ribeira Palace) destroyed by a massive earthquake in 1755. It was rebuilt (and remodelled) by Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, 1st Marquis of Pombal, who …
Continue reading “Postcard from Lisbon: Commerce Square – Place du commerce”
Leonardo in Venice – Léonard de Vinci à Venise
Guess who we ran into in Venice today? Our friend Leonardo da Vinci, who arrived here in 1500 and offered his services to the Senate as an engineer with all sorts of ingenious ideas to overcome the Turks which never came to fruition. As we know, he was a great friend of François I and …
Continue reading “Leonardo in Venice – Léonard de Vinci à Venise”
Love Scallop – Coquille Saint Jacques d'amour
I was intrigued to see a scallop shell on the façade of the 14th century Palazzo Bembo on the Grand Canal as it usually symbolises St Jacques de Compostelle (Santiago de Compostela in France. Further research reveals that it is the convex scallop shell that represents St Jacques while the concave shell symbolises Venus, much …
Continue reading “Love Scallop – Coquille Saint Jacques d'amour”
Bleach Blonds – Blondes oxygénées
Even during the Renaissance, blond women, whether Venetian or French, were considered more beautiful. The Venetians used to bleach their hair and so did Diane de Poitiers, for example. (Detail from the Legend of Saint Ursula series by Carpaccio). Même pendant la Renaissance, on trouvait les femmes blondes plus belles, qu’elles soient vénétiennes ou françaises. …
Ancient Venetian fireplace – Cheminée venétienne antique
This strange fireplace which is in Palazzo Grimani in Venice, was built in the sixteenth century in the ancient Roman style, and is very different from the fireplaces constructed in Blois and Chambord at the same time. Cette étrange cheminée qui se trouve au Palazzo Grimani, fut construite au seizième siècle dans le style antique, …
Continue reading “Ancient Venetian fireplace – Cheminée venétienne antique”