Travelogue

28 dicembre 2008

Today was probably the most exhausting day of the entire trip. Our early morning departure at 8:10am was a bit painful after all the lovely wine...but one must press on!

The San Marco Museum - actually a religious cloister - houses many frescoes by Fra Angelico, and we visited the cells of Savonarola. Almost all of the religious art - Madonna and Child altarpieces - have considerable gold leaf to represent the light of God, and I imagine how it must have appeared - situated in a dark church interior (no electricity in the 1500's), illuminated by candles and oil lamps. The monastery's living quarters each have a single fresco for meditation. Savonarola, who ruled Florence from 1494 to 1498, champion of the 'bonfire of the vanities'' lived here, and I saw a bronze marker in the Piazza della Signoria where he was hanged and then burned to ashes before being dumped into the Arno.

Wandering around at lunch, I debated between a panino of porchetta with porcinin mushrooms or lampredotto - a cow's ruminating stomach. I chose porchetta. A few quiet moments in Dante's church before viewing the Casa di Dante Museum, and then off to meet at the Perseus bronze statue in the Piazza della Signoria for our afternoon tour through the Uffizi. With about 15 minutes to spare, I indulged in a much needed macchiato at Rivoire ~ I haven't tried the famous hot chocolate...yet!. Pausing for a few moments in the center of the piazza, it began to snow very gently and quietly. What a magical, quiet moment!

Michelangelo's Holy Family

Michelangelo's Tondo Doni, Holy Family
Photo from RAI International Online

Donato had warned us about Stendahl's Syndrome: too much of a good thing can be too much and cause frothing of the mouth! We had compared Giotto's Madonna, and Cimabue's Santa Trinita Madonna, Piero della Francesca's Duke and Duchess of Urbino, the Madonna and Child with two Angels by Fra Filippo Lippi, Paolo Uccello's Battle of San Romano, Sandro Botticelli's Birth of Venus and Primavera, and Raphael's Portrait of Pope Leo X. Standing in front of Michelangelo's Tondo Doni, I felt myself black out for just a moment! I managed to catch myself before I fell over! In the Uffizi, it's impossible to look anywhere ~ at the ceiling or the floor or in between ~ and not see something beautiful!

After the Uffizi, I summoned my stamina and raced off to see Santa Croce and the marvelous tombs and frescoes.

In the last three days, I've been transported to the time of the Etruscans, Romans, through the middle ages and thrust into the Renaissance, which is the heartbeat of Florence. It seems that all the historical events that occurred that enabled Florence to thrive and become a major metropolitan city, also helped transform how humans viewed themselves and the world around them, which in turn changed the direction of so many facets of civilization: business, commerce, architecture, painting, sculpture, civic responsibility and religous thought.