The Italy Series: Florence and Art

Why does anyone go to Florence?  Other than the bruschetta and ribollita, that is.

It's the art!  I might even go so far as to say that Florence maaaaay be the greatest art city in the world.  And, it's also the place that made me art-cry again.  ("It's....just...so...beautiful!")

We already covered the importance of the Duomo to the Renaissance, but Florence also has the unsurpassed Uffizi Gallery, Academia, and Bargello.  Not to mention all the statues under the Loggia in the main square.

Loggia, with Perseus and (decapitated) Medusa

It's hard to say which gallery I loved the most.

Primavera, Botticelli

The Uffizi had The Birth of Venus and Primavera by Botticelli (they were so much larger than I expected them to be).  It also had Da Vinci, and Michelangelo's Holy Family, and Rafael, and Cranach, and Giotto, and Cimabue, and Martini, and Fra Angelico, and Tintoretto, and Rubens, and and and and and.  It was like watching a show called Painting All-Stars.

The Annunciation, Da Vinci

The Bargello had Donatello's original David (we saw all the big David versions on this trip) and St. George.  It had the original and restored bronze panels from the Baptistery, including the losing panels from Brunelleschi for comparison.  It had a whole bunch of statues.

St. George, Paul, Gelatto

Bargello Gallery

But, the Academia...the Academia made me cry.  Which I didn't expect at all.  Mostly because the Academia is famous for one thing: Michaelangelo's David.  I didn't expect it to be so overwhelming because we'd seen the replica David out on the main square already (see photo above) and it's probably the most recognizable statue in the world.  No surprises.

But, well, descriptions will never be enough, but you turn a corner and you see down a long, high-ceiling gallery lined with Michaelangelo's unfinished Slaves, each one looking like a man struggling to escape his marble block.  And at the very end, a single domed room where David stands 17 feet tall in the center.

Both of us gasped, and not even a little bit ironically.  We couldn't help ourselves. The replicas...I can't explain it...they aren't like the real thing.  There's something special about it, something different.  The eyes or something.

We stared at that statue--at that single statue--for a really long time.

And want to know when I cried?  I cried when we were leaving, because I knew that no memory or postcard or replica would ever be anything close to the same.

The Italy Series: Il Duomo

The famous dome of the Cathedral of Florence was a big deal for us.  The first dome constructed since the Romans, it's also sort of a big deal for a lot of other people.  

But, the dome isn't the only historically awesome thing about Florence's Cathedral.

We also saw the baptistery doors--the relief sculptures done by Ghiberti (he won in a competition with Brunelleschi, which is good because Brunelleschi then had his free time to construct the dome).  Anyway, these beautiful bronze panels (1421) and the dome (1436) are pretty much the symbols of the birth of the Renaissance and we were pretty darn excited to be there seeing them in person.

Then, of course, there's the campanile (bell tower) by Giotto, who was one of the proto-Renaissance painters of Florence who got some things going in art like individualized faces, emotion, and perspective.  (Here's a link to his most famous painting--Madonna Enthroned--which we saw in the Uffizi Gallery.  It was huge.)

A final shot of the Cathedral with its three famous components--the octagonal baptistery at left, the dome in the middle, and the campanile to the right.

Gorgeous Duomo.