Lecture 1: The House of Medici and the Uffizi, Florence: Collecting as Power
The Medici are remembered as the family who ruled Florence in Italy for centuries. The Uffizi Gallery is their legacy. We trace the growth of one of the earliest museums in the world, as well as meet the Medici family members who commissioned masterpieces of art that would live forever in the public museum they later envisioned
Lecture 2: Catherine of Russia lands a Collection and launches The Hermitage
In 1764, Catherine of Russia began to collect art, building a small gallery to impress intimates. Then the Houghton Hall art collection was up for sale in England. Catherine needed art; the Walpoles needed money. We trace the clash between the aesthete Horace Walpole, and the “Tigress” Catherine. The result: Catherine became great as did her Hermitage Museum.
Lecture 3: A Louvre Story: How a Royal Palace became the Largest Museum in the World
The Louvre Museum is two things: a monument to the French monarchy and to the art France has created and collected. In this lecture, we will tour the largest museum in the world, noting such masterpieces as The French Oath of the Horatii and the very un-French Mona Lisa. Acknowledging the kings and curators who built this, we discover the patriotic museum.
Lecture 4: The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum of Boston: A Widow Turned Super Collector
This may be the most outstanding museum from America’s Gilded Age. We will learn about the fabulously wealthy Isabella Stewart-Gardner as we tour Fenway Court, built in romantic tribute to Venice in the Renaissance Era. Mrs. Gardner suffered great loss—a child in birth, a husband’s death—but found comfort in collecting. The greatest tragedy may have been the museum robbery in 1990.
Lecture 5: The Museum of Modern Art: How a New York Museum became the “Citadel of Freedom”
MOMA is the most American of museums because of the principles on which it was founded. The Museum of Modern Art was the brainchild of the Rockefellers, “America’s Medici Family." Explore highlights of its collection, including Van Gogh’s Starry Night, Mondrian’s Broadway Boogie-Woogie as well the museum’s relationship with Picasso’s Guernica. Discover why MOMA was known as the “Citadel of Freedom.”
Lecture 6: Mr. Wen, the Chimei Museum and the Taiwanese Renaissance
We travel to the new Chimei Museum in Taiwan, a house of western art and the largest collection of pianos in the world. Its creator, Wen Long Shi, who was born in poverty, made a fortune to anticipate the collections he would amass. His vision is a “Renaissance of Taiwan”—timely as the future of Taiwan becomes uncertain.