Essay · Education & Ideas The College That Refused to Lower Its Voice Bryn Mawr was founded in 1885 on a single, radical proposition: that women deserved not a version of higher education, not an approximation of it, but the genuine and uncompromised article — the same rigour, the same standards, the same unapologetic expectationContinue reading “Bryn Mawr College”
Category Archives: Explore
Where the River Bends: Memphis and the Music That Changed the World
It is the most productive square mile in American cultural history. A city of grief and genius, of violence and transcendence, built on cotton and the blues and the unsettled accounts of race — Memphis made the modern world’s soundtrack and has never quite recovered from the effort. By Bergotte Begin with the geography, becauseContinue reading “Where the River Bends: Memphis and the Music That Changed the World”
Affordable Style: Inns and Guesthouses of Sicily
Sicily is an island of layers: Greek temples, Norman cathedrals, Baroque palaces, and volcanic landscapes. While Palermo’s grandeur and Taormina’s glamour attract international crowds, the island’s real charm often lies in its agriturismi and family-run guesthouses. Rooted in food, history, and landscape, these stays prove that Sicilian hospitality doesn’t need to be expensive to feelContinue reading “Affordable Style: Inns and Guesthouses of Sicily”
Villa San Michele
Above Florence Villa San Michele, A Belmond Hotel, has just reopened above Fiesole after eighteen months of renovation — and the view from the terrace is, as it has always been, the finest available in Tuscany There is a concept the Romans called otium — a form of leisure quite distinct from idleness, devoted toContinue reading “Villa San Michele”
A Hundred Years of Wonder: David Attenborough at One Hundred
He gave three generations of human beings their understanding of the natural world. He did it with patience, with rigour, and with a quality of attention so rare it functions, in an age of noise, almost like a form of grace. By Bergotte On the eighth of May 1926, in Isleworth, Middlesex, a child wasContinue reading “A Hundred Years of Wonder: David Attenborough at One Hundred”
Giotto: The Painter Who Opened the Window of the Renaissance
When Giorgio Vasari published his Lives of the Artists in 1550, he began the history of Renaissance painting not with Leonardo or Michelangelo, but with Giotto di Bondone. For Vasari, Giotto was the one who “translated painting from Greek to Latin” — that is, who moved art from the flat hieratic conventions of medieval iconographyContinue reading “Giotto: The Painter Who Opened the Window of the Renaissance”
The Voice That Didn’t Live to Hear the Echo
Venice · Art · 2026 The 61st Venice Art Biennale opens on May 9th under the title In Minor Keys. Its curator, Koyo Kouoh, died a year ago. The show goes forward entirely as she conceived it — and it may be the most important Biennale in a generation. By Bergotte · Preview, May 2026Continue reading “The Voice That Didn’t Live to Hear the Echo”
In Minor Keys
The Venice Biennale opens on the 9th of May. How to go, how long to stay, and why the city is as much the point as the art The Venice Biennale is the largest and oldest contemporary art exhibition in the world — 131 years old, held every two years in the city least suitedContinue reading “In Minor Keys”
Sant Ambroeus Paris: The Iconic Milanese Café Opens in Saint-Germain-des-Prés
Sant Ambroeus Paris has officially arrived on Rue Saint-Benoît, in the heart of Saint-Germain-des-Prés — bringing with it nearly 90 years of Italian culinary heritage. Founded in Milan in 1936, the legendary café-restaurant has expanded from Milan to New York, Aspen, and Palm Beach. Now, its first full Parisian restaurant marks a significant new chapterContinue reading “Sant Ambroeus Paris: The Iconic Milanese Café Opens in Saint-Germain-des-Prés”
Mallorca: The Mediterranean’s Timeless Island
The largest of Spain’s Balearic Islands, Mallorca is a place of shimmering paradoxes. Long dismissed as a package-tour destination of beaches and sangria, it has quietly reasserted itself as one of the Mediterranean’s most sophisticated escapes: a landscape of Gothic cathedrals and Moorish gardens, of hidden coves and mountain villages, of Michelin-starred kitchens and rusticContinue reading “Mallorca: The Mediterranean’s Timeless Island”
My World of Interiors 