Fmr No. 2

The Summer Solstice FMR is devoted to noble pursuits and amusements: designed to accompany the reader through to the holidays with a few travel tips along the way. Patrick Mauries brings us the surprising figure of Ferdinand Bac, an eclectic dilettante artist who created the extravagant villa of Les Colombieres on the Cote d'Azur; counterpoints to this article include a look at the Etruscan studio in the Savoy palace of Racconigi, a noteworthy example of an antiquarian capriccio, and an exploration of the Este dynasty palace of Sassuolo, a triumph of trompe-l'oeil; in this issue we also consider the brainiest indoor pastime of them all, chess, with an array of exquisite boards from a Portuguese collection, and leave readers with one of the most distinctive summer landscapes in Italy, the beaches of Versilia, as recounted by Giovanni Mariotti and illustrated by the synesthetic paintings of Moses Levy.