Firenze, part two

To "w", who posted a question to the last post regarding my ability to remember details, I do actually jot down things occasionally throughout the day in this manner to help jog my memory later on as to what I've done earlier: "Arch. museum; Holy Cross (2nd church); Duomo: Neato, gaudy facade but awesome view; excellent dinner at end of day," but all the additional details about my activities throughout the day come straight from my memory. It's really not that difficult for me to recall what I've seen throughout the day; I tend to retain visual details really well.

So anyway, on to our second day in Florence, last Friday! We spent most of the day at two of the major museums in Florence, the Uffizi Museum and the Accademia. We went to the Uffizi first, and were greeted by a colleague and friend of our professor's, Liliana. She is a professor as well, and an expert on Renaissance painting, and she had generously offered to lecture us on Renaissance art as we went through the museums throughout the day. In the Uffizi, she took us all on a whirlwind tour of art from the late Medieval period to Mannerism. We were all dazzled by the works of Botticelli, Paolo Uccello, Michaelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Titian, etc. We more or less started off in a room filled with very large, beautifully intact altarpieces by Giotto, Cimabue and Duccio respectively, and I actually burst into tears upon being surrounded by these works of art that I'd studied for several semesters in the past. As we moved through the museum, we saw major icons of Renaissance art--Botticelli's Birth of Venus and Spring, Leonardo da Vinci's Annunciation, Albrecht Dürer's Adam and Eve, Michelangelo's Doni Tondo and many more lovely works of art that I could keep listing on for quite some time. Throughout the Uffizi, I had to keep fanning myself with my tacky souvenir fan to keep my eyes dry. Below-- some of the paintings listed above, and the photos do them no justice whatsoever.









One thing that annoyed me in particular was that there were large panels of plexiglass over some of the more famous pieces, due to recent incidents in which individuals have punched holes, defaced or otherwise mutilated well known works of art for no reason. There's a definite glare on the plexiglass that keeps one from being able to see details such as the patina on the surface of a painting, the quality of the paint, brush marks, smaller details being blocked out where the light hits the glass, that sort of thing. So that alone irked me, but I can understand why museums have to take such drastic action these days to protect paintings. There's no knowing what kind of person is going to come through the doors of a museum, and if that person has vandalism in mind or not.

After the Uffizi (we didn't even get to see half of the important works of art there, so I'll just need to make a return trip there someday); we headed off to the Accademia, skipped all the galleries of less important paintings and went straight to the hall containing Michelangelo's most well known sculpture, the David. Yeah, the David. The sculpture of David was immensely impressive, and towered some seventeen feet high. In the hall were also Michelangelo's unfinished Prisoners/Slaves sculptures, which are really fascinating to look at. They're very large, rough blocks of marble with only partially completed sculptures of men in varying poses. Michelangelo was commissioned by Pope Julius II to work on these sculptures for another project (he was supposed to do a series of forty of these massive sculptures to adorn a tomb), but then Pope Julius II changed his mind and had Michelangelo paint the Sistine chapel instead. The fascinating aspect of these sculptures is that the men look like they're struggling to free themselves from the prison of marble holding them, and they also give us an insight into Michelangelo's process work. An example of one of the Prisoners/Slaves, of which there were a whole bunch of in the hall:



After the Accademia, we had some free time until midafternoon, visited yet another beautiful cathedral (Santa Maria Novella), had gelato together as a class, and then were released for the weekend. I spent the rest of Friday evening with my roommates and we all went to bed early, utterly worn out. The rest of the following morning was spent checking out of the hotel and exploring the nearby artisan market for gifts for family and friends. I made a purchase of an inexpensive leather jacket at a leather store, and I had haggled over the price of the jacket for some time. The salesman at the end, kissed me on both cheeks, but then overstepped his boundaries and tried to go straight for my mouth. He had a clear intent to kiss me passionately, probably thinking he had nothing to lose. I very sternly and loudly said, "Oh, no, no, NO!" Fortunately, he stopped as soon as I protested, but I felt really weird about the incident for the rest of the day. In the afternoon, we headed home for Rome and Frascati.