On Ponte dei Pugni (Bridge of Fists), which was the most famous venue for these spectacles, there are marble feet markings which were the starting positions for fighters.
Great art is rooted in the hardest of human emotion. Is why we look back to ancient culture with reverance and sometimes nostalgia. We wouldn't want to be there in the midst of the brawl, most of us moderns would rather jump from the bridge. But our human spirit and memory recognizes the suffering and sacrifices of the ancestors. It's why there really isn't any "great art" anymore, at least in the classical sense, as those with the means to produce it don't have any great emotions. We will probably get there again, but like an LLM, sometimes humans need to reconstitute the entire corpus to make a rather small change
Well "great" is rather subjective.
But in terms of collective agreement we can conclusive say there really isn't anything like the art of the past made today. As an artist I was invited to a much vaunted exhibition in Venice itself recently. It consisted of a woman sitting in urine ...but with a kind message asking bystanders to please not poop in her tank.. The link if you fail to believe it.
Gotta love how some of the spectators on the larger Joseph Heintz the Younger painting enjoy the entertainment. Too bad that these images predate the invention of popcorn!
If anyone's played Assassin's Creed II (or any of the Ezio games) (these older games were produced with help from historians) Ezio's scar comes from a street fight on Ponte Vecchio in Venice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKTXd7L01pI2
On Ponte dei Pugni (Bridge of Fists), which was the most famous venue for these spectacles, there are marble feet markings which were the starting positions for fighters.
Great art is rooted in the hardest of human emotion. Is why we look back to ancient culture with reverance and sometimes nostalgia. We wouldn't want to be there in the midst of the brawl, most of us moderns would rather jump from the bridge. But our human spirit and memory recognizes the suffering and sacrifices of the ancestors. It's why there really isn't any "great art" anymore, at least in the classical sense, as those with the means to produce it don't have any great emotions. We will probably get there again, but like an LLM, sometimes humans need to reconstitute the entire corpus to make a rather small change
> It's why there really isn't any "great art" anymore, at least in the classical sense
This is a tautology, no? There's plenty of great art being made today by people feeling the same emotions as those in the past.
Well "great" is rather subjective. But in terms of collective agreement we can conclusive say there really isn't anything like the art of the past made today. As an artist I was invited to a much vaunted exhibition in Venice itself recently. It consisted of a woman sitting in urine ...but with a kind message asking bystanders to please not poop in her tank.. The link if you fail to believe it.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/07/arts/design/venice-bienna...
Modern art and artists indeed do mirror the feeling of their age.
Gotta love how some of the spectators on the larger Joseph Heintz the Younger painting enjoy the entertainment. Too bad that these images predate the invention of popcorn!
If anyone's played Assassin's Creed II (or any of the Ezio games) (these older games were produced with help from historians) Ezio's scar comes from a street fight on Ponte Vecchio in Venice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKTXd7L01pI2
Ponte Vecchio is in Florence
I love reading the little vignettes of history. Thanks for posting!