It’s really, really good. Raph can provide you with private drawing instruction in Italy. Inquire for details.
He’s a modern master who can help you or your art students learn from the Renaissance masters. No tour company can top that offer, we guarantee.
It really is magical.
Doug Sassi told me a story he’d learned in his Venice travels about how the Austrians, after getting the Veneto handed over to them via the Treaty of Campo-Formio, deciding to humiliate the once proud Venetians by chiseling off the lions from the town’s wellheads. Scattered around the city in various piazze, the Venetians had sculpted–as a symbol of their prowess, naturally–lots of wellheads with these gargoyle-ish lions. The Austrians figured they’d give the Venetians what-for by knocking them all off.
They only missed a few. And as Doug had been told by his Venetian friends, they were on the more remote islands in the lagoon.
Doug challenged me to find one on a trip back in 2001; I was there for a week and didn’t see any and had largely given up. Needing to make room for more risotto and gelato, I went out for a run in Venice one evening to see the city and get lost on purpose, and spotted this guy out of the corner of my eye.
The kicker: it’s located only steps from Piazza San Marco in a quiet corner of castello. For me it felt like finding another version of the Mona Lisa in a coffee shop next to the Louvre; how had the Austrians missed this guy, right here in the heart of Venice’s decadence?
No extra charge on one of our tours for us to let you in on the secret of where to find this rare little treasure.
Doug leading a tour around a street market in Firenze. I think Tony Bourdain nailed it: more Americans would eat vegetables if our produce was more commonly of the quality you can get from street vendors in Italy.
Respect for doing things the old way is a good thing sometimes. Especially when it comes to what you eat.
Some of the best stuff in Italy is found off the beaten path in cities most tour companies skip or even tell you to avoid for lack of interest in learning their hidden experiential value. We love taking people to the places in Italy not usually found on the front cover of the guidebook. Dig into the *real* Italy!
Your morning artistry. We love sharing this with clients.
Mmm…Mama Isa’s spaghetti alla Bottarga: one of those ingredients I wish we could source here in the US. Well, you can order it online…but it ain’t cheap. Might be a good splurge item for those wanting something a bit off the beaten culinary path.
Check out Mama Isa’s carbonara recipe. It might be sacrilegious but I make a vegetarian version with fake bacon that works out just fine (I crisp it in oil with some garlic and shallots and it tastes plenty rich).
One last bit of Raphael’s (the modern one, not the Renaissance one) talent tonight. If you’re even a little bit interested in learning how to *really* progress in your renderings of living subjects, you need to seek his instruction.
Portrait of local baker Doug Rae by Raphael Sassi. One of the special things Sassi Italy Tours can do that I don’t think anyone else can offer as well as we can: a chance to study the masters of the Renaissance under the tutelage of a modern master. Raphael Sassi is a career professional portrait artist and the winner of more awards than I can begin to mention here. His attention to light and emotionally accurate rendering of his subjects is hard to beat, and Sassi Italy Tours can naturally book him to accompany you on an artist’s tour of Rome and Florence, where you’ll study the works of the masters with his help and oversight, and learn two dimensional rendering of various subjects with a classical touch.
Sassi Italy Tours 