First Day in Florence

After picking up my wayward bag at the Rome airpot, I took the train to Florence. I arrived in time to enjoy a nice 20 minute Sunday evening walk to our AirBnb. The streets were enchanting with narrow alleys and lots of activity - at least compared to our time in Lecce. It felt good to drag my bag along behind me. Sheryl, Kerstin and Lennart arrive a couple hours after to a stocked fridge for our morning coffee. It was late but they (and I) hadn’t eaten much on the train rides so out we went to find some good pizza. We were successful.

I conked out and slept deeply until about 7:15am. After a leisurely morning, we got ourselves out for a 10:30am tour called Medici and Michelangelo. Our guide told us in lavish detail about the Medici family and how Michelangelo got to be so famous and skilled. She also was terribly glad we hadn’t watched the tv series about the Medicis because it is mostly inaccurate.

Here is what I remember from the stories she told - I’m hoping Lennart will correct me upon reading this… in 15th century Florence the Medici family, while not a blue blood family, they were quite wealthy. Francesco Sassetti was the banker for the Medici family. He purchased a chapel in Santa Trinita church, as the wealthy did, to demonstrate their power and also bury their dead. Lorenzo the Magnificent, is depicted on this chapel wall was a powerbroker and cunning politician. He orchestrated how his Medici family would proffer influence and secure a position befitting the uninherited provenance of the Medici family into the aristocracy. He was the one that found a work around for the religious prohibition that Christians could not loan money to Christians. He figured he could make agreements with the Jews to do that business for the Medicis. He then had the two Medici family children educated at the Vatican - both of whom became future Popes! Clever/magnificent indeed!

Michelangelo was a well-born child whose father recognized his talents and paid for him to get an extraordinary education in painting, sculpting and other arts. Lorenzo the Magnificent, who was looking for ways to demonstrate through the only means of public communication available at the time to broadcast wealth and power, found young Michelangelo and sent him to study alongside the two Medici family children. There he learned about anatomy, history, Christian teachings, and everything taught at the time. With this knowledge he could “decorate” the churches and palaces and homes through sculpture and painting. And that was how he started his artistry.

As part of our tour, we got to see Michelangelo’s first sculpture: Christ on the cross. What was fascinating about this statue was its perspective. Viewed from about 5 meters below, and about 4 meters away, facing directly the face of Jesus, it looked just right. Viewed from closer up or from one side or the other, you could see Jesus had no neck, one foot was much, much bigger than the other and his body looked contorted. Ah, all based on the perspective of the viewer! It was a generally new technique first introduced by Donatello a century beforehand. These are the reasons you take tours! Illuminating things that you thing you just don’t notice or know!

Another tidbit was that Michelangelo had peaked in his late twenties and thirties - he was still a teenager when he sculpted the Pieta. He became a bitter and cantankerous fellow in later years knowing he was not producing the same qualitiy of works. His face bore the evidence of his mood by his depiction in one painting with a rather bulbous nose - from being broken more than once.

Especially for my transportation friends, our guide also pointed out the overhead enclosed walkway that the Medici family member, Cosimo I and his wife, used to get from their Uffizi Palace to their newly purchased palace, Pitti Palace. She would walk among the treed hillside of this new palace lands (and probably escape from her 10 children during the day). Besides wanting to not mix with the masses, Cosimo I was not well loved. He basically declared himself King and took power away from the traditional blue blood families. He feared for his life if ever out of the palace walls. The walkway traversed through an actual church where the priest would climb the stairs up to the walkway chapel to give the sacrament to Cosimo I and his wife each day. The walkway crossed the water on top of the Ponte Vecchio (old bridge, literally). Formerly it housed fish and meat shops. This combined with the raw sewage dumped in the river made the bridge very stinky. Cosimo I decreed that these shops on the bridge would sell only gold to keep the smells down. Today the bridge, in keeping with this tradition, houses only jewelry shops.

It was a mighty cold day, but we didn’t let it slow us down (much). It was also Monday, so most museums were closed. So we decided to wander around, mostly getting lost over and over again, outside. Incredible city. We have 7 days here to explore.Okumaya devam et