Sunday Walk

Sunday afternoon was warmer and sunny (in the low 50s). After the laundry was finished, I took a walk in a different direction. Usually when I go out alone, I am drawn toward the Duomo (you can probably tell from the number of photos of it!). So I decided to head more northerly and see what is out there. (I have to say, Dan walks a lot more than I do and he has covered all this territory already.)

A few blocks away there is a lovely large park, the Piazza dell' Indipendeza, celebrating the 1859 alliance of Florence with Tuscany. It was so nice to see trees, which are sorely lacking elsewhere in the city. The other piazzas are just stone surrounded by buildings.

A woman on a bench was feeding the pigeons. They had just began to scatter when I took this.

Statue in the piazza

Lovely tree-filled view

Strange kind of trees

After I left the piazza and headed back toward our apartment, I passed an Indian restaurant (the menu looked good) and several small Asian groceries. The smell of Indian spices in a store is so nostalgic for me.

A small church dedicated to St. Barnabas was on a corner. Above the door is a Madonna by Giovanni Della Robbia. The altarpiece is by Botticelli, but is now in the Uffizi Gallery. I'll try to stop by another day to see if it is open.

Accademia, Part Two

As I mentioned yesterday, the Accademia had an enormous number of paintings in the upstairs gallery. Many of them were altar pieces. An unusual thing I noticed was the subject of the coronation of Mary appeared multiple times. Christ is shown placing a crown on Mary, the Queen of Heaven.

Altar piece with Annunciation at center

Fresco fragment of shepherd by Giotto

Saints Agnes and Domatilla

Detail from enormous tapestry (altar hanging), tiny embroidery stitches

Scenes from Mary's life

Not at the Accademia; the next day I was out for a walk in the late afternoon and caught the sun on the Duomo with the Baptistery in front.

Accademia Museum

Friday we went to the Accademia, the museum that is known for housing Michelangelo's David, arguably one of the greatest sculptures in existence. It also has an extensive collection of Florentine art from the 13th to 15th centuries. (Michelangelo worked primarily in the first half of the 16th century.)

The entrance to the museum is a corridor that is lined with other Michelangelo works. Several statues are called the Prisoners, as they are not complete, and look as if the person is trying to escape from the marble.

Known as "The Bearded Slave"

This Pieta statue was done much later than the well-known one in St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City.

And, of course, David. The statue is about 17 feet tall and stands under a dome at the end of the entrance corridor. It is truly breath-taking.

Here is a view of the head and upper torso. The left hand holds the slingshot; the right has a stone.

There are many paintings, some of which I will post tomorrow. This Tree of Life is from the Convent of Monticelli and is dated about 1310-1315. Christ is shown crucified on a tree whose branches show scenes from his life. At the bottom are small painted scenes from Genesis.

Santa Croce

One of the best-known things about the Santa Croce Church is that it has the tombs of a number of famous Florentines. I'm not a huge fan of visiting cemeteries, although the symbolism can be important. But it is awe-inspiring to see the actual burial sites of Michelangelo, Galileo, Dante, and more. One thing we noticed here was that the stained glass windows appeared to have more access to outside light than most of the places we've been in. Many of the buildings are very close together, blocking the sun.

Facade of the church; the piazza in front is very large

Unknown tomb in entryway; I was drawn in by the sad heads of the statues holding it up

Front of the church from the back

The altar area

Close-up of the altarpiece

Tomb of Galileo

There were many tombs in the floor: some were in relief and roped off

Tomb of Michelangelo

Close-up of statue on Michelangelo's tomb

Tomb of Dante

Tomb of Machiavelli

Annunciation relief sculpture by Donatello

In 1966 the Arno flooded this area to a depth of five meters. Many artworks were damaged or ruined. A symbol of the recovery is this crucifix by Cimabue. It was damaged and put into storage for 50 years. It has fairly recently been restored and hangs in a chapel.

As we left the main church and went into the cloisters, there was a sign for a Dante exhibition with the door covered with curtains. We went in to see a stunning show. The walls were covered in pictures of Dante's Divine Comedy. There was a small screen below that told what was being shown. The photos moved slowly from one scene to another. The background music was beautifully haunting.

The bookshop was in the refectory. Again, an enormous fresco dominated the room.

Wednesday Outing

Florence has so many churches and museums, it is totally overwhelming. We are fortunate to be here long enough to take things slowly, absorbing one place per day (or every other day, depending). Two places we wanted to see are farther away than most we've been in so far, so we decided to do them both in one day:  Santa Croce Church and Casa Buonarroti. The idea was to do one in the late morning, have lunch, and then the other. But in the end, we did them both and came home for lunch. It was a long three hours of walking and viewing! But it was good to be back at our place for lunch and some rest time.

After reading The Agony and the Ecstasy by Irving Stone, I was eager to visit the Casa Buonarroti to see some of Michelangelo's earliest work. This home is not where he lived, but was the family home later on. His great-nephew was an avid collector of art, and the building is truly a museum as well as his home. 

Michelangelo's earliest known work was done while he was apprenticed to the painting workshop of Ghirlandaio. It is called the Madonna of the Stairs. He was 15 years old.

Not long after, he carved the Battle of Centaurs, which was commissioned by Lorenzo de Medici.

Those two carvings were in a room by themselves and I sat there for quite a while just taking them in. They aren't very big, the Madonna about two feet tall and the Centaurs about 3 feet (less than a meter) in both directions.

Around 1890 Cesare Zocchi carved two sculptures of the young Michelangelo. This one is working on the head of a faun. I think it makes Michelangelo look even younger than he was when he began sculpting.

One of the rooms in the Casa had a fresco frieze on all four walls. It was as if the people of Florence were looking down on us as they went about their daily business.

The two  Noli me Tangere paintings shown below, one attributed to Pontormo and the other to Battista Franco, derive from a lost cartoon by Michelangelo, executed in 1531, which depicted the risen Christ appearing to the Magdalene. (Noli me tangere ('touch me not') is the Latin version of a phrase spoken, according to John 20:17, by Jesus to Mary Magdalene when she recognized him after his resurrection.) The cartoon was made into a painting by Pontormo at the suggestion of Michelangelo himself. Entering the Medici collections, it was used again by Battista Franco (1537), who reproduced the landscape of Albrecht Dürer’s print of Saint Eustace in the background.

Pontoformo

Franco

The museum has an extensive collection of drawings by Michelangelo, primarily sketches for his works. Only a few are shown at any one time, and they weren't very photogenic. I think they would only be of interest to scholars.

This wooden model of his design for the San Lorenzo church facade was interesting.

Tomorrow:  Santa Croce

Santa Maria Novella, Part 2

As promised, more from Santa Maria Novella.

Just one more photo from the main church. This carved pulpit is more like what I was expecting when we saw the Donatello ones in San Lorenzo. It was designed by Brunelleschi and executed by his adopted son Cavalccanti.

In Rick Steves' Florence guidebook, he tells us not to miss the bookshop in SMN, the most beautiful one in the world. He is obviously right! It must have been a chapel at one time. I always enjoy browsing the bookshops everywhere we go, but haven't bought anything yet. I've been tempted by some gorgeous jigsaw puzzles, but we don't have any place to put them here.

Walking outside the main church, the first area is the Cloister of the Dead. The entire area was a cemetery until the mid-1800s. This is just one of the four sides. The center area was green.

After touring around the areas that were open to us, we came out onto the green courtyard. What a lovely sight! The exit is in the far corner.

As we neared the exit, the view back toward the church showed the lovely steeple. There is work being done on the exterior of the side of the church, and you can see the scaffolding peeking up.

Santa Maria Novella

Monday we went to the Church of Santa Maria Novella. This large church is very close to the train station and about four or five blocks from us (distances are hard to judge, as the streets are neither straight nor have regular crossings). 

The church is full of early Renaissance art works, more than I can post here or even take in; it is overwhelming.

The crucifix hanging over the nave is by Giotto. It includes small pictures of Mary and John on the outstretched arms.

One of the most famous paintings here is The Trinity by Masaccio. This is one of the first pieces of art to show true perspective, with the illusion of a chapel behind Christ.

Ghirlandaio painted many of the frescoes in this church. I thought this Annunciation scene was one of the most beautiful. It is interesting that the angel Gabriel is shown behind a screen talking to Mary.

Another small portion of the Ghirlandaio frescoes surrounding the choir area in the apse. It's amazing how bright the colors still are after more than five centuries.

The choir area also had this enormous lectern. You can't tell from the photo, but it has three sides. The large music manuscripts could be placed here for all to see; there would not have been small hymnals.

The backs of the seats in the choir were all different patterns of inlaid wood. The signage said that they were created before the seats and arm rests were built.

Tomorrow: more from SMN, as the train station is familiarly known.