Day Four In Florence

We stayed just a couple blocks from the Pitti Palace. This was the palace that Cosimo I (who, if you remember, crowned himself King) and his wife, Elenora who was one of the Hapsburgs lived. This was a rare instance of a marriage beyond just a political or financial agreement. Usually children were promised to fulfill the needs of the families to build and solidify power. Cosimo was only the head of the Medici family because all the family members in succession had died out. He was like a 3rd cousin or something that got the keys to the family having spent his youth unaware of his future status. As such, his marriage had not been arranged. Lorenzo the Magnificent picked three eligible/suitable picks from among royal/blue-blood families from which Cosimo picked the prettiest one.

Elenora, who was mother to 10 children, asked Cosimo to find her a place where she could keep up her health by walking. Cosimo had one of the small palace rooms they currently lived in painted with lots of greenery. Um. Not what she was looking for. The Pitti Palace was actually built by another family that ran out of money. The Pitti Palace was purchased because his had a huge amount of acreage behind it for a vast garden for Elenora to walk. The family who sold the place was installed in house across the street from the palace they had started. It was a good deal as the house across the street was fully furnished and ready to inhabit - unlike the Pitti Palace. It must have been frustrating to watch their small palace turned into a gigantic multi-room, well, palace.

The palace had been renovated and redecorated over the centuries making it absolutely overwhelming. The first exhibit was of costumes from the few centuries. The rest were her wing and his wing with ballrooms, sitting rooms, and dozens of other rooms for god knows what. The walls and ceilings were jam-packed with famous and magnificent artworks in paint, sculpture, fabric, and stone. After about two hours going from room to room, I kinda got mad. At some point, during the Napoleonic period, the palace was just too, too much for me. These very rich and powerful people spent sooo much money and resources embellishing their homes to impress other rich and powerful people. Made me a little sick. Generally, I just couldn’t experience the incredible beauty as it was like going down the cereal aisle at a big grocery store. I needed a break.

We went to this fabulous place we had scoped out a couple days ago for lunch and had some roasted rabbit and steak (shared with Sheryl). Lucious.

We made our way up the hill towards the Michelangelo viewpoint and a beautiful church at the top of the hill. It was surrounded by a well-used and currently in operation cemetery with crypts and sculptures throughout. On the way home we stopped for gelato where I had some dried cherry and chocolate. The best yet.Okumaya devam et