After leaving Venice, our next stop was Florence and as soon as we got there, Anna started educating us on all the art we were about to witness in this Home of the Renaissance.
She took us immediately on a Renaissance Walk to the Piazza del Duomo
where the dome of the Cathedral of Santa Maria was the first dome built since ancient Roman times by Filippo Brunelleschi. His dome set the tone for all domes to follow including all the domes of our capitols in our country.
The cathedral is made of pink, green and white Tuscan marble which makes it very unique.
(These doors are copies with the originals in the Duomo Museum)
Michelangelo said the bronze doors were fit to be the gates of paradise. When Ghiberti designed them, it was a breakthrough in perspective. He used mathematical laws to create the illusion of receding distance on a basically flat surface.
Walking along we passed Dante's House, the poet who gave us The Divine Comedy. He is the Shakespeare of Italy and the father of the modern Italian language.
Along our walk we had to stop for some gelato, of course....our guide has her priorities!
This gelateria is listed in Rick Steves' book as a good one and it was! I got pistachio and chocolate. So good!
After our gelato break we arrived at Piazza della Signoria, the main civic center of Florence. On one side is the Loggia dei Lanzi, a collection of sculptures under a canopy
which includes the famous bronze sculpture by Cellini from 1545 called Perseus. It is based on the mythological story of Perseus, the son of Zeus who beheads Medusa. This is where Renaissance Florentines once debated the issues of the day.
The square in mainly dominated by the castle-like fortress called Palazzo Vecchio.
In Renaissance times, it was the Town Hall. Today, it's official name is Palazzo della Signoria - referring to the elected members of the city council and once again functions as the Town Hall.
A copy of David stands at the entrance here because this is where he originally stood.
In the 19th-century, David was moved indoors for this own protection and now stands under a wonderful Renaissance-style dome designed just for him in the Academia Gallery.
Michelangelo was commissioned to carve a large-scale work in 1501 when he was 26 years old. He chose David, from the Bible story. The Israelites were surrounded by barbarian warriors, who were led by a brutish giant named Goliath. When the giant challenged the Israelites to send out someone to fight him, a young shepherd boy stepped forward. Armed only with a sling, David defeats the giant.
We had our date to see David the first day we arrived in Florence.
Michelangelo was commissioned to carve a large-scale work in 1501 when he was 26 years old. He chose David, from the Bible story. The Israelites were surrounded by barbarian warriors, who were led by a brutish giant named Goliath. When the giant challenged the Israelites to send out someone to fight him, a young shepherd boy stepped forward. Armed only with a sling, David defeats the giant.
The 17-foot-tall symbol of divine victory over evil represents a new century and whole new Renaissance outlook.
It took Michelangelo two years to complete his work.
When you look into the eyes of David, you're looking into the eyes of the Renaissance Man.
There were also some other works of Michelangelo here and our guide pointed out how he would mark his work on the back by sculpturing a self-portrait of a side view of his head. You can see it at the righthand side near the middle.
Changes in the paintings occurred from being made from the flat Byzantine style toward realism. In the next painting, Mary is like a Roman statue, big and monumental. Beneath her robe, she has knees and breasts that stick out at us.
This three-dimensionality was revolutionary, a taste of the Renaissance a century before it began. Then we moved into Early Renaissance (mid-1400's). Piero della Francesca's Federico da Montefeltro and Bassista Sforza brings an era of humanism and ordinary people in art showing even the flaws that people may have.
Renaissance is in full bloom here and it's springtime of the innocence. Madonna is out, Venus is in. A Roman copy of the lost original of the great Greek sculptor Praxiteles' Aphrodite was in the octagonal classical sculpture room, called Venus de' Medici. This statue was considered the epitome of beauty and sexuality in Renaissance Florence.
Moving to the High Renaissance (1500-1550) was the Michelangelo's Holy Family, the only surviving completed easel painting by him.
These were just a few of the many, many works of art we viewed at the Ufizzi with our local tour guide leading the way and explaining each piece.
The highlight of visiting Florence for me was visiting a working artist's studio. Our guide has a friend, Caterina Balletti, who works in Florence selling her art and she let us come visit her studio.
His mark was on this unfinished sculpture of Michelangelo's called The Atlas.
The next day we toured the Uffizi Gallery where the greatest collection of Italian paintings is housed.
We started with Medieval (1200-1400) with the Madonna and Child with Angels.
This three-dimensionality was revolutionary, a taste of the Renaissance a century before it began. Then we moved into Early Renaissance (mid-1400's). Piero della Francesca's Federico da Montefeltro and Bassista Sforza brings an era of humanism and ordinary people in art showing even the flaws that people may have.
In the Renaissance (1450-1500), the Botticelli room was filled with masterpieces and classical fleshiness including the famous Birth of Venus
and the Allegory of Spring.
These were just a few of the many, many works of art we viewed at the Ufizzi with our local tour guide leading the way and explaining each piece.
There was a nice view from here of the Ponte Vecchio, Florence's famous bridge.
After we left this tour, Bruce and I did some sightseeing on our own and crossed this bridge which was a meat market years ago with butcher shops using the river as a handy disposal system. Eventually, the powerful Medici family, who ruled Florence for generations, built a corridor over the bridge, called the Vasari Corridor, and the stinky meat market was replaced with elegant gold and silver shops that remain today.
We also went to the Galileo Science Museum (as if we hadn't enough museum touring on this day...). Bruce was interested in seeing this museum and it was a very nice, well-done museum.
In the 1600's when visual arts started to decline in Florence, music and science flourished. The first opera was written in Florence and Florence also hosted many scientific breakthroughs. This museum included various tools for gauging the world from a compass and thermometer to Galileo's telescopes.
Then, it was time for lunch - spaghetti, of course! I didn't mention that we also drank a lot of the fresh squeezed orange juice on this trip. Places would have orange juicing machines and offer it on their menus. We would see them juicing the oranges right before serving us and sometimes it was just what we felt like drinking, like on this day.
The highlight of visiting Florence for me was visiting a working artist's studio. Our guide has a friend, Caterina Balletti, who works in Florence selling her art and she let us come visit her studio.
Her art is called Flash Art and she painted four pieces for us while we were there.
She starts with either a black piece of paper or white, then she paints over it with various colors
and then uses a tool to make her designs.
It's amazing how it comes out.
She also paints on wooden shutters and leather.
I bought one of her painted leather bags and a 5 x 7" print and she was very appreciative about it.
You can follow her on Facebook - Caterina Balletti and she also has a Youtube: Flash Art by Caterina Balletti. Art continues to thrive in Florence.
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