This past Wednesday, we headed off to Florence (Firenze). Departure itself was rather exciting, because we had to be at the train station at 6:20 AM. I had assumed we would walk, which takes about 15 minutes, but my roommates found a bus that would get us there at 6:10. This would be excellent, except that we had a few delays as we tried to head out, and ended up arriving to the bus stop at the same time as the bus was pulling up and running, hoping he would stop long enough for us to get on, and he did. We reached the train station only to find our classmates, Filiberto and a delayed train.
Several hours and three trains later… we get into Firenze. The first thing that I notice is that it is touristy, there is a Mc Donalds in the station, and one just outside the door. There are also a lot of signs in English. Filiberto takes us into a little underpass, and at this point I am just hoping that the hotel is as close as he says it was. When we surface we are in a piazza with a gorgeous church, Santa Maria Novella.
We make it to the hotel, and Chelsea, Lisa and I got the keys to our room. I wish I had remembered to take pictures of the hotel lobby, because it was pretty awesome. There was the area with the desk, and then separated by a couple of pillars and situated under a barrel vault, there was as mall sitting area. But the lobby also appeared like a split level, because there was another small sitting area above that opened up to face the lobby. The steps wound through the center of the hotel, and our room was on the Italian second floor, which is the third floor to my American brain.
After a few minutes in the room to refresh ourselves after our train ride, Lisa and I set out to explore, while Chelsea decided to stay back and rest before going on our first tour with Filiberto in a couple hours. Lisa and I discovered a little café with great sandwiches, and continued on our walk. We saw some gorgeous shop windows, and found the Disney store, which of course you have to go into, no questions asked. And then completely by accident, we found the Duomo, Santa Maria die Fiori, the most famous churches in Florence. The work of so many great Renaissance architects and artists squeezed onto 3 buildings, the cathedral, its bell tower and baptistery. We stood in complete awe, took a few pictures and then had to meet up with the group. Ironically the duomo was on our tour for the day, but certainly I didn’t mind going more than once.
We got back to the hotel and set off like a bunch of ducklings behind Filiberto. As we walked through the city I was just so amazed by the beauty of it. But I also tried not to get too distracted by how beautiful it was, because the vespas, bikes and taxis don’t care if you think it is your turn to cross the street. Filiberto took us through the city, stopping periodically to point out a statue here, and beautiful Renaissance window there, Back at the duomo, he begins to explain to us what makes this particular cathedral so spectacular. First the baptistery, with its beautiful doors, and interior with a ceiling covered in gold mosaics. The portrait to Christ on the ceiling has him seated with his hands out to the side. One hand has the palm facing forward welcoming his children, while the second has his palm facing back, pushing evil away. The bell tower, done primarily in white marble with amazing detailing, from top to bottom, soared up into the perfect blue sky. I could not have asked for a better day if I had tried. The crown jewel of the project, however, is the dome, completed by an architect by the name of Brunelleschi in 1401. The primary design for the church was already done, and called for a massive dome, bigger than any other in the world at the time. It was discovered though, that there was not enough lumber in Italy as a whole to even build the scaffolding to build the dome… and so the Florentines were in a bit of pickle. Brunelleshi figured out that if he built a smaller dome, and used it to support the larger dome while also making some modifications to the supporting structure of the church, it would work.
Historians mark the completion of the dome in 1401 as the start of the Renaissance. But here’s the best part, you can climb it. It takes 463 stairs, a couple of really tight spiral staircases, some strangely shaped places, a lot of patience, and endurance but you can do it. The path takes you on a walk through the interior around the edge of the dome, with great bird’s eye views of the church below, and close ups of the frescos on the ceiling by Giorgio Vasari.
I would just like to take a moment to note that Filiberto does not like these frescoes, he like Vasari’s other works, but not these frescos. They are not my favorites that I have seen, but I would not have said they are terrible, that being said, one of Filiberto’s theories was that Vasari was influenced by Michelangelo, and tried too hard to imitate him, which lead Gina to gesture at the ceiling and state, “This is your brain on Michelangelo.” I found this to be a perfect summary of my time in Florence.
So to continue on, the views from the top of the dome were spectacular. The city spreads out for miles, with the bell towers and domes rising above their residential neighbors in all corners. Not only that, but no detail was left unfinished. The white marble curled around flowers and looked like it was given just as much attention as the tiles in the floor and the carvings in the façade. I doubt that Brunelleshi expected hundreds of tourists to be climbing to the top of his dome on a daily basis, making their way steadily to the top. The most incredible part of it for me was not that we climbed it, or how amazing the view was, but it was that I was standing at the top of a creation that is now credited with being the start of a new historical era. An era that didn’t just impact art, but science, philosophy, literature, and every aspect of daily life.
We also visited the basilica of Santa Croce, a Fransiscan church. The façade here was also beautiful, with its contrasting dark and light marble. Santa croce’s interior is particularly remarkable because it is lined for its entire length in crypts and memorials. Gallileo, Machiavelli, and Michelangelo are all buried in this church, along with several other important figures in Italian history and culture.
One thing is certain, I would have an entirely different perspective on this city if I had not already taken my sculpture class in Alma. In that class, I made my own feeble attempts at carving stone, I recognize that comparing a first attempt to a masterpiece is rather unfair, but the hours I spent working on a form that is so incredibly simple in comparison make me fear for the number of hours Renaissance artists spent with their chisels and hammers, bringing out faces, flowing hair, and truly “sculpted” muscles.
Thanks to daylight savings, and the very early sunsets, we got to walk through the city at night. We walked along the river and to the Ponte Vecchio, a very old and famous bridge over the Arno River. What was cool about the bridge to me is that it actually has houses and shops built on it. Most of the shops are jewelry shops, so that was quite exciting to walk through.
Our first night, we had dinner as a group at a little restaurant not too far from the hotel. They brought out three different pasta dishes, one of which was cinghiale, a classic Tuscan dish with wide noodles and wild boar meat, which is actually quite good. Then there were platters of chicken and potatoes, and a tiramisu for dessert. It was quite delicious. After the meal we walked out of the restaurant and we kind of gathering in the street as we all tried to decide whether we wanted to explore further or just head back to the hotel. At this point, within a few seconds of each other, various parts of the group were almost taken out be moving vehicles from three directions. This hastened the decision making process a bit.
On Thanksgiving day, we walked along the river again. I saw Michelangelo’s David, I kind of expected to cry at that moment, but I really just felt detached from myself, like this could not possibly be real life. The David is kept in a museum, and at the end of a long room, lit from above…I really didn’t notice anything else about the room, except that Filiberto thought that he could lecture about things that were in the length of space leading up to The David, and that I would remember them. No, my brain was still trying to wrap itself around a few fairly simple concepts, like the fact that I was standing in Florence, Italy staring at one of the most famous pieces of artwork in the world. I have such a pure respect and admiration for Michelangelo and all his colleagues, the fact that The David has veins in his forearms, wrinkles in his knuckles, and curls in his hair. It is beyond incredible.
Then we got some lunch at a “self service” pasta bar, which is basically your standard cafeteria style serving, but with pretty decent pasta. That afternoon we toured another church. *Insert details when journal is present* And then we headed to the market.
We also visited a museum with collection of antique musical instruments, and by antique I mean some of the 1400’s vintage. All of the instruments were collected by the Medici family, a very powerful Florentine family throughout history. The collection even includes one original Stradivarius tenor viola. Stradivari was a violin builder, and his violins have become mythical because they are supposed to be some of the best made instruments in the world. Very few of them remain, there are a few that are complete, and some parts of his instruments were recycled and placed on others, but to have a whole original Stradivarius is incredibly rare. It was amazing to me how little the shape of a string instrument has changed in the last few centuries, at first glance, I could not tell you what vintage any violin in that room was, and really without further study I don’t think that I could tell you even after close examination, but it was still incredibly cool. I also saw one of the original upright pianos (which apparently came around in the early 1700s) but there were a lot of mechanical issues with them, and they were more a of novelty than an effective instrument.
Friday, we went to the Uffizi Gallery, which was originally intended to be an office building, when it was built a couple hundred years ago, and it now holds some of the most important pieces in art history. We saw works by Pierro della Francesca, Da Vinci, and Michelangelo. We also saw the Birth of Venus and Rite of Spring or La Primavera by Botticelli. These two were absolutely my favorites; worth everything it took to get me there. I could feel the wind in their hair, and feel the mist coming off the sea. The paintings felt so incredibly alive, and open and inviting, as if you could just step into them (the guards really frown on that… probably worse than trying to snap a picture) The flowers in Primavera were what really caught my attention: they were actually slightly 3 dimensional, and so much more wonderful. We saw Michelangelo’s Holy Family, and Da Vinci’s Annunciation. I feel like the Uffizi is museum that you have to visit multiple times in order to fully appreciate it, because after a while, you will stop seeing all the wonderful parts of each painting, and just stare. And each one deserves more attention that a normal human being can really give in 98a day.
Florence has a couple of pretty awesome open air markets that are open every day until about 7. We wandered up and down the street, going in an out of the shops looking at leather bound journals, purses, beautiful leather coats, and bits of Murano glass jewelry. All of that was interspersed with your standard touristy paraphernalia. The streets of Florence were a bit of culture shock to compared to the streets of Macerata. First of all, the vendors speak English. Secondly, many of them live up to the reputation of Italian men being shameless flirts. Walking through Macerata I have received the occasional cat call or some such nonsense, but I could probably count the occurrences on one hand. Not the case with Florence. One vendor started talking to a friend of mine, by saying that he would give her a free leather coat to match her jacket… by the end of their interaction he had stated that they were going to get married in the church up the road and have 7 babies… It wasn’t until we were back in Macerata that I realized how pure my Italian experience has been. Florence is an amazing city, but it has been almost three months since I have been within a fifty foot radius of a Mc Donalds, and it has been a long time since I felt my brain almost slipping out of Italian mode. I actually caught myself saying “Vorrei questo panino please.” Which if you translate the part that I didn’t screw up is, “I would like that sandwich please.” When we first got to Florence and we heard people not only speaking English, but American English in the streets, we were so excited, and it felt so strange. There are very few other people in Macerata that speak English as a first language… a couple Irish and Australian exchange students that I know of… but beyond that I am fairly certain that it is just us.
1) The original item used to pluck the strings on a harpsichord was the feather of a crow.
2) Until the year 1700, small members of the violin family were played against the shoulder, not the neck.
3) The English Horn was actually called the “corne anglée” in French, and which means “angled horn,” but it was misconstrued as “corne anglais” which is pronounced the same, but means English horn.
4) A unicorn symbolizes spousal fidelity in Renaissance painting.
5) A pelican can sometimes symbolize Christ, but it often used to symbolize someone that gives their life for a child.
Florence was amazing. I would love to go back someday, so that I can just live and breathe the city some more. All the artwork, right there in front of you is so much more alive than in pictures. Walking through the churches and the galleries and streets, you can feel the energy of all these artists coming together to create this beautiful city. I see their marble statues and feel the blood sweat and tears it took to bring those figures out of the rock. One of my favorite places thus far.
19 days until I head Home!
Fantastic! These are so cool and so much fun!!!
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