(Roughly) Daily

South African artist Lorraine Loots agrees…

365 Postcards for Ants is the second phase of a project started on 1 January 2013, which involved me creating a miniature painting every single day for the entire year.

In celebration of our city’s designation as World Design Capital 2014, I’ve decided to do it all over again, and this time all the paintings will be Cape Town themed…

Learn- and see– more at Lustik, at her site, and on Loots’ Tumblr.

* Mohsin Hamid

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As we get small, we might send patronizing birthday greetings to Cosimo di Medici; he was born on this date in 1389.  The first of the Medici political dynasty, de facto rulers of Florence during much of the Italian Renaissance;, he was known as “Cosimo ‘the Elder'” (“il Vecchio”) and “Cosimo Pater Patriae” (“father of the nation”).  A fabulously-wealthy banker, he was a powerful patron of learning; he funded Ficino’s Latin translation of the complete works of Plato, and supported the work of scholars like Niccolo Niccoli and Leonardo Bruni.  But he is perhaps best remembered as a patron of the arts: he supported Fra Angelico, Fra Filippo Lippi, and Donatello, whose David and Judith Slaying Holofernes were Medici commissions; he commissioned Michelozzo Michelozzi‘s Palazzo Medici; and he enabled Brunelleschi to complete the magnificent dome of Santa Maria del Fiore (the “Duomo“).

Bronzino’s (posthumous) portrait of Cosimo de’ Medici

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