Italy 2023

Opulent displays of wealth! Privatization! Megolamania! Suffering and salvation! We almost skipped the Uffizi today but my FOMO got the best of me. The crowds were worth it ultimately to see the Renaissance master’s evocation of light and shadow. My faves: the fine details of Botticelli’s botanicals (limned with gold, which also made me think about lush detail/imagery in writing), violent intensity, weird monsters, skin (Rubens and Titian), and bacchanalian excess. The will to power on display at the Palazzo Vecchio is certainly not specific to Italy, but it’s one of the more extreme examples I’ve seen up close. I noticed so much privatization — the churches are free, but unlike London and New York, the gardens felt walled and inaccessible. Yesterday we saw the private collection of the Bellini family, whose great-granddaughter is our Airbnb host. Hundreds of millions of dollars of art, held in a musty velvet-ensconced private room. Haunting and enchanting - when is art for its own sake and when is it for the sake of status, fealty, and compliance? Is there something democratizing about the capitalist rationalization that stems from Protestantism? I think the Medicis had the Jews do their dirty work (usury), and this is something I also want to understand better. To think all of this started with profits from the wool trade. So much to consider and mull over - Ollie kept me laughing all day.Les mer