Located in a 17th-century building, Belle Arti Resort is a modern boutique hotel with arty, period features.

BBC: Mini guide to Naples, Italy

To encourage the next generation of artisans, Context Travel developed a scholarship program with the Scuola delle Arti Orafe, a prestigious jewellery school in Florence.

BBC: Florence��s fading artisan culture

Arti Kanwar, deputy jute commissioner, a Kolkata-based Indian bureaucrat whose office buys jute sacking from producers, said the government for years has supported the industry by procuring at above market prices.

WSJ: Indian Fiber Weaves a Crisis

In fact, Florence during its decades as a haven for American artists became the site of intense cross-pollination of academic styles: for instance, the American Frank Duveneck's brooding brushwork courtesy of Munich, Eakins's Pennsylvania Academy rigor, and the "purist line" of Florence's own Accademi di Belle Arti.

WSJ: Americans in Florence | Palazzo Strozzi | The Florentine Mix | By Peter Plagens