Saturday, 21 October, Florence, Hotel Brunelleschi

Written 4 March 2024

Another hotel, another sumptuous breakfast buffet. This one included—in addition to all the usual breads, jams and jellies, cut fruit, grapes, berries, industrially made hashbrown cakes, bacon, sausages no American would think of serving for breakfast, olives, pickles, beets, cucumbers, and other vegetables—this chafing dish full of small American-style pancakes and little waffle segments.

Clearly, although they know that Americans eat sausage for breakfast, Europeans have no idea what Americans think of as breakfast sausage. In fairness, neither do a great many Americans these days. In the North, it's pretty much down to bland little brown-and-serve links. Only in the South, and increasingly rarely there, can you still get real breakfast-sausage patties. Jimmy Dean's used to be good but aren't any more; I recommend Goolsby's, which I get frozen at Costco.

The cheese assortment comprised several different varieties, including the strange one at the right-hand side. It seemed to have blue dye in it, in addition to the blue veins.

The meats included excellent raw and cooked ham and salami.

The pastries were also very good, although not as good as those in France. Nearby was a heap of little three-inch bread disks, each baked with a dollop of tomato sauce on top. Breakfast pizzas?

At 8:30 am, right after breakfast, Anna had arranged a lecture for us, at the hotel, by American art historian Jane Zaloga, who lives and works in Florence now. She was great. I must surely have taken notes, but they would have been on paper (rather than on my pocket recorder; I transfer my recorded notes to the computer every evening, so I can locate them anytime), so they are buried in the mass of paper souvenirs I brought home and have not yet had time to sort, scan, transcribe, or otherwise process. If and when they turn up, I'll write more about the lecture here. In the meantime, though . . . ,

At 9:30 am, we formed up in the lobby and departed in two groups, each with a local guide, in time for our 10 am prebooked admission to the Museum of the Academy of Art, where Michelangelo’s David is the centerpiece.

Because our hotel was so near the cathedral, we walked back and forth past it frequently, so I have many different photos of it. On our way to the Academy, we walked between its façade and that of the baptistry, which faces it across the Piazza del Duomo. Here it is, the Cathedral of Santa Maria dei Fiori, and Brunelleschi’s famous dome. (You know how, to build an arch, or its 3D equivalent, a dome, you first built an armature, usually of wood; construct the arch, or dome, over it; and then, once you've dropped in the keystone, remove the armature? Well, Brunelleschi figured out how to built the widest dome ever constructed and to do it without a supporting armature! And without an external crane! I really recommend Ross King's book.)

It still looks like a stack of ivory dominoes to me, and I can't say I care for the effect. At the right here is the part of the cathedral façade, looking a little better with some statuary and some relief to the surface.

The cathedral was started in 1296, and it took 150 years to finish. It's the third largest cathedral in the world, after St. Peter's in Rome and St. Paul's in London. All the white parts are carrera marble, and all the rest of the marbles are also local—green from Pratta and pink from Seravezza.

Giotto designed the square bell tower (you can see it in one of the photos in yesterday's page), but not the cathedral. In the 1400s they started to cover the building with marble, the dome was constructed between 1420 and 1436, and the faccedil;ade was only finished in the 19th century. Emilio de Fabrice designed the façade.

The church is open and free 10 am and 4 pm. Or you can pay for a skip-the-line ticket We never went in. Anna assured us the interior is empty because all the masterpieces are now in the Cathedral Museum, but photos from the internet show that the marble floors and the frescoes might be worth visiting some time.

You can also climb 463 steps to the top of the dome, between its inner and outer shells. We didn't. It's apparently only 400 steps to the top of the tower, and you're allowed to pause for breath (which you can't on the climb to the dome), but we skipped that, too.

The guide congratulated us on visiting so late in the year. This summer it was, she said, 100F day and night for days on end, and humid.

Here are the famous bronze batistry doors, consisting of 10 detailed panels, of which the upper 8 are visible here. Before winning the contract for the dome, Brunelleschi lost the contract for these doors to Lorenzo Ghiberti and was really, really mad about it. One of the deciding factors was that Ghiberti's design, made in "repoussé, took less bronze than Brunelleschi's, which called for solid bronze figures to be applied to a bronze surface.

The doors took Ghiberti 21 years to complete. The baptistry itself is much older, built about 1000. The Ghiberti doors were in place from 1427 until 1966, when they were half submerged in a terrible flood. At that point, the originals were moved to the cathedal museum and replaced with replicas. Michelangelo called them the Gates of Paradise, and the name has stuck. Today they are opened only for Easter and when the pope visits. Only very important people can be baptised there today.

The three graceful figures in the right-hand photo stand above the door.

Written 5 April 2024

The Museum of the Academy was, of course, spectacular. At the left here is one of the "prisoners" by Michelangelo. At one point, the pope commissioned a collection of over 30 figures. Michelangelo had half a dozen halfway done when the pope changed his mind and cut off the money, so he abandoned the project; the unfinished figures are called "the prisoners" because they're still trapped in their marble. The Medicis bought them, brought them here from Rome, and put them in the Boboli Gardens. But now they're here, where with other works, they lead up the statue of David.

At the right is one of the four pietas that Michelangelo made during his lifetime. (He made four pietas—the first was the famous one in Rome, this one, another in the museum of the cathedral in Florence, and a fourth that's in Milan, made when he was 88.)

And here, under his skylighted rotunda, is David, carved in the early 16th century when Michelangelo was 27. The carving took two years. The statue is 17 feet tall and a little oddly proportioned because it was originally intended to be placed high on the outside of the cathedral, near the smaller of the two domes, and thus to be viewed from far below.

The Academy building started out as a hospital, then in the 1500s became the Academy of Fine Arts. David was moved there in the 19th centur, which is also when the frescoes were painted. During COVID, the interior was restored and repainted.

Our local guide showed us the photo at the right on her phone. She claimed that, if you look at him in the face, he looks younger, less like a Greek god. That photo was taken by a professional photographer from scaffolding they put up once a month to clean the statue.

The Academy includes a very large plaster-draft collection—models made in plaster by sculptors wanting to perfect their designs before going on to the actual carving of the stone.

Michelangelo, though, never used either a living model or a plaster draft. He just studied each block of marble for a while and took a chisel to it. That's astonishing enough, but I was also amazed at how finished the finished portions of the "prisoners" were. I would have expected him to rough out the whole shape of the figure before refining the contours of the muscle and polishing the surface.

The man was a genius, no doubt about it.

One of the things they did during the COVID shutdown was to remove all the plasters and repaint the walls from off-white to pale blue, which shows up the plasters much better. They installed AC at the same time.

The full-size "Rape of the Sabines" at the left here is just the plaster draft. The real, marble version, has stood outdoors, in the covered Loggia dei Lanzi (which we saw later), since it was finished in 1582. It was made by a Flemish sculptor named Giambologna (Johannes of Boulogne) for Cosimo I de' Medici, not as a commission but just to impress him (and it worked; he got lots of Medici commissions as a result). It was only named later—the artist just wanted to show off his virtuosity and apparently didn't have the Sabine women in mind at the time.

The Academy museum also displayed a lot of paintings. Those around the Rape of the Sabines are early renaissance. The colors are still vibrant; the quality paints in that time was excellent, usually based on ground minerals.

At the right is a spectacular 1310 "Tree of Life" by Pacino di Buonaguida. Below it are little plaster plaques for the blind, showing some of the picture in 3D.

One room displayed gold-background religious paintings like these at the left, and another more classical paintings, like the one at the right, by Cesare Mussini, of the aged Leonardo da Vinci dying in the arms of Francis I of France.

After our time in the Accademia Gallery, we continued with our orientation tour of the city's principal squares. We passed back through the Piazza del Duomo, where I got this photo of Giotto's tower, to arrive at the Piazza della Repubblica (right).

It's known for its large carousel, which dates from the 1960's. I didn't think to go over and look to see whether it was French or German style. You can see it behind and to the right of the central column.

In Medieval times, it was the food market. Now, the column in the center is its only original Medieval feature.

It does boast several cafés dating to the 19th century, though. Caffè Gilli (left) and Caffè Paszkowski are among those with live music.

Chalk artists rent squares of sidewalk space from the city by the year. Here the artist is just getting started on a Mona Lisa. He's done most of the face, working from a photo the size of a large postcard, which rests next to the area he's working on. He's outlined his square with tip boxes, from which he apparently collects enough to cover the rental (and maybe even to live on?). He also seems to have laid out QR codes next to the boxes, so maybe he also hopes to collect a few future commissions. Unfortunately, he probably didn't have much of a day, since it rained off and on. In any case, during night, all his work of the day is hosed away, to be replaced on the morrow.

At the right is the Venchi chocolate shop, the one that produces (along with the regular stuff) chocolates for diabetics. We also passed Dreoni, Italy's largest family-run toy store, which celebrated its centennial in 2023.

Our next stop was the Piazza della Signoria, location of both the Loggia dei Lanzi (both left and right) and the Palazzo Vechio (the Old Palace), the original Medici stronghold.

The left-hand photo gives an idea of the placement of the loggia, covered but open to the street. People are walking right up in there among the statues, taking photos, sitting on the plinths, etc.

The right-hand photo shows its centerpiece, the "Rape of the Sabines." This is the finished marble statue of which we saw the plaster draft in the Academy museum.

The women agaisnt the back wall of the loggia are original Roman statuary, from the Medici collection, and I think Cellini's Perseus and Medusa is in there, too.

At the left here is the Palazzo Vecchio, and a right medieval stronghold it is, too. Today, it houses the offices of the town hall, a couple of museums, and an event space. Civil marriages are conducted there. Tom Hanks ran around in it in the movie Inferno.

Its entrance is flanked by two large statues, a copy of Michelangelo's David to the left and Baccio Bandinelli's Hercules and Cacus to the right. Hercules is referred to scornfully by the Florentines as "the big sack of potatoes," because of his overexaggerated musculature. He has an eight-pack rather than a six-pack, and his back bulges like, as one critic put it, steroids gone wrong.

You actually get a closer view of the pair in the photo of the loggia above.

Also in the square was this sea-god fountain commemorating the victory of Florence over Pisa, which finally gave Florence direct access to the sea, with payment of a toll. The photo is dark, because this shot was actually taken later in the day, when we passed through the square on a different tour.

Inside, the courtyard of the Palazzo Vecchio was lined with these carved, cameo-colored pillars, and the walls, ceilings and vaults among them were painted in the "grotesque" style, featuring these fish-tailed, goat-headed horses and other fanciful creatures.

Our guide told us that at one point a woman from northern Europe married into the Medicis, and so that she wouldn't be homesick, they had frescoes of her home countryside painted on the walls, but we didn't see them.

The guide also pointed out the window overlooking the square of the room in which the Mona Lisa was painted.

On our walk, we passed by the covered market (mostly souvenirs and leather goods), but I didn't get a photo of the wild-boar-shaped fountain in front of it. Apparently, rubbing its nose is good luck, and it can grant wishes. If you place a coin on its nose, then on its tongue, and the coin slides off and drops through the grating, your wish will be granted. If, instead, it bounces off and falls to the ground, you can always pick it up and try again.

The last square we visited was the Piazza de Santa Croce, named for the church faces on it. Machiavelli, Michelangelo, Galileo and lots of other famous folks are buried in Santa Croce. But we were there for our included, three-course, à la carte lunch at a restaurant called Finisterrae.

I started with a white bean, potato, and lentil-based minestrone.

My second course was a thin but tasty sirloin steak with porcini mushrooms.

For dessert, I chose coffee and caramel gelato.

After lunch, around 2:15 pm, Anna turned us loose, reminding us to rendezvous back at the hotel for our evening tour of the Uffizi Gallery. I headed back toward the hotel, but like a dunce, I made a wrong turn and didn't realize it until I came to the river. Drat. So I turned around and headed back the right way.

It rained off and on all morning, the skies opened as I left the restaurant, and it turns out that my rather aged North Face hooded raincoat was not really waterproof any more (I speak of it in the past tense because it has since been replaced). By the time I got back to my room, it was sodden, as were my shoes (synthetic felt rather than leather, fortunately) and my Tilley hat. Fortunately, the weather remained balmy despite the rain. It still wasn’t fun, after lunch, putting that freezing-cold wet coat back on for the walk home, but it was the only protection I had for the electronics, maps, etc. I managed to keep my binoculars, recorder, and camera reasonably dry in its various inside pockets.

At the right here is a photo of the hallway outside my hotel room, showing the undulating floors.

Dinner got crowded out of the schedule altogether, but I ate an apple from the bowl on offer at reception and the chocolate that housekeeping left for me yesterday before showing up at the 6:30 pm rendezvous for the evening’s tour and after-hours visit to the Uffizi Gallery. Fortunately, David showed up for that, too.

On the walk to the evening's art museum, Anna told us some of its history. The building was originally constructed, at Cosimo I's behest, to house all the administrative offices of the Medici family, as well as the city's government and judicial offices (which may have been the same thing under the Medicis), in one place—hence its name: "uffizi" means "offices." It's a long, narrow, multistory rectangular building with a long narrow rectangular courtyard in the center. It stands between the Palazzo Vecchio and the river, end-on to the river.

On our way, Anna spotted, approaching us from a distance, a group of people celebrating something—a young woman's graduation from something, I think. She hastily explained to us that, where we would say "congratuations," the Italians shout "auguri" (pronounced "ow-GOOry." As the group passed us, she led us in a loud chorus of "Auguri!" to the great amusement of the revelers.

At the left is the view of the 1345 Ponte Vecchio (the Old Bridge) from the point where the Uffizi meets the river. The Ponte Vecchio is, in fact, the oldest (and once the only) bridge in the city.

Niches along the outside of the Uffizi hold statues of Florentine geniuses. For example, that's Giotto at the right. In the second half of the 16th century, only about 25 years after its construction, the building became an art gallery.

We entered the gallery shortly after it closed for the day, and once again, thanks to the special arrangements made by Tauck, we were alone in rooms full of world-famous art, just 20 of us and a knowledgeable guide, that are usually filled wall-to-wall with people trying to edge close enough to see the paintings.

The room shown here is called the "long gallery," for obvious reasons. Its ceiling was decorated with yards and yards of frescoes in the grotesque style, dating from the 16th century. In the time of the Medicis this gallery was an open balcony, where the family's very large collection of Roman sculpture was displayed.

At the right, you can see that along the tops of the walls are long rows of portraits. The larger ones are of Medici family members, and the smaller ones of notable visitors they entertained.

Anna Maria Luisa and her brother were the last Medicis, and neither had children. In 1737, when she died as the last one, she donated the medici collection to the city of Florence.

In a room full of madonnas, the guide showed us some of what made Giotto's work new and different.

In the one at the left, painted in 1280 by Cimabue (Giotto's teacher), the folds of fabric are indicated by lines and streaks, like wood grain, as though the folds were viewed through glass that they were pressed up against. The angels look every which way.

In the one at the right, painted in 1306 by Giotto, the folds look soft and realistic, indicated by shading and some semblance of perspective. Everyone in the scene (except Jesus, who looks into space, and Mary, who glances out at us) is firmly focused on the Christ child.

The renaissance didn't officially begin until 1401, but Giotto is clearly headed that way a hundred years earlier.

Here are two his-and-hers pairs of portraits. On the left, painted in 1473–1475 by Piero della Francesca, are Federico Montefeltro and Battista Sforza, Duke and Duchess of Urbino. These facing profiles were apparently popular at the time because of the resemblance to the faces on Roman coins and because the did not reveal the emotions of the subjects. But in fact, Federico was always protrayed in profile because he had lost an eye in battle and preferred not to show the scar. His nose is that funny shape because he had it broken intentionally to improve his peripheral vision to the blind side! She has shaved her hairline, to have a higher forehead, and looks so pale because she was probably wearing lead make-up—the fashion was to look like marble statuary.

The other pair, painted in 1504–1506 by Rafael, are Agnolo Doni and Maddalena Strozzi, on the occasion of their wedding. They also commissioned the only Michelangelo painting in the Uffizi, a holy family grouping on display in the same gallery.

As we strolled from well-known masterpiece to well-known masterpiece, we passed a smallish side room in which this amazing construction was displayed. It appeared to be stitched together out of fabric. I never found a label referring to it, but the guide remarked in passing that the ceiling above it (for reasons known only to the artist, I guess) is covered with mother-of-pearl, as you can see in the right-hand photo.

Among the sculptures were this nereid riding a "sea horse" (note the webbed front hooves and curly tail), known as Atalanta, and a particular favorite of mine: Laocoön and his sons grappling with the serpents. This one is a 16th century copy; the original is the one in the Vatican museums.

The gallery was overflowing with iconic works, and it's a temptation to try to show you all of them, but I'm going to restrain myself and leave you with just a couple more images.

Here, of course, is Botticelli's Birth of Venus, jocularly referred to as Venus on the Half Shell.

And at the right is the view from an upstairs window, up the length of the interior courtyard, past the well-lit tower of the Palazzo Vecchio, to the dome of the cathedral.

But that's not all we saw and learned on this walk. In the mid-16th century, Cosimo's son Francesco married Johanna of Austria. After one look at the Palazzo Vecchio, she said "That's the ugliest house I've ever seen," or words to that effect, with the result that the family went about acquiring a more feminine place that would please her better. They settled on the Pitti Palace, a kilometer away and on the other side of the river. They planned to keep both residences, but that intervening kilometer was a problem. It was teeming with the hoi poloi, passed through filthy streets, and then through the smelly fish market, which was on the Ponte Vecchio (convenient for throwing the scraps into the river).

So they hired a guy named Vasari, who in just six months in 1565 built a raised, enclosed corridor from one palace to the other. The Palazzo Vecchio is so close to the inland end of the Uffizi that he just built a covered bridge, high above the street, from one to the other. At the river end of the Uffizi, the raised corridor leaves the building and follows the river to the Ponte Vecchio, goes over the bridge (over the tops of the shops), and continues down the street to the Palazzo Pitti. Voila. No silken slippers soiled with gutter water, no jostling by the common folk. As for the fish market, they just moved it elsewhere and replaced it with goldsmith shops, which the bridge is still famous for. Where the corridor passes a church along the way, it has a balcony directly into the church, so that the family could attend services without mixing with the rest of the congregation.

The corridor was closed in 2016 for safety reasons, and the renovations took considerably longer than the original construction—six years. But now it's apparently open again, and you can walk through it, though we didn't get a chance to on this trip.