After finding our seats, I am suddenly exhausted… physically exhausted. I want to just lay my head down on the table in front of my seat and sleep for the 1.5 hour (we have facing seats, with table in between). The problem is, we have window seats.. so I move to the aisle and hope nobody has a ticket for the seat I commandeer. Unfortunately some guy sits directly across from me, which inhibits me from laying my head down on the table and sleeping, as well as extending my legs (for fear of touching his). But I try anyway… but not too successfully. This is the typical problem with travel fatigue when you're as tall as I am. The thing is… you can't get comfortable enough to sleep. You would literally have to shoot yourself with an elephant tranquilizer… or seriously overdose on pills… just so that you can finally sleep (pass out, collapse, etc). So you sit/lie/slouch in your seat… too tired for conscious thought… in a dull pain of exhaustion… and unable to do anything about it.
Soon enough we arrive in Florence, and the first order of business is to find a cash machine. Someone tells us there is one down by the McDonalds… and there is… so as Margaret gets some cash, I sit on the ground and lay my back against the suitcase. The physical relief of the lounging is heavenly. The day is cool and breezy. The sky is clear. I start drifting off to sleep while staring at this exotic, dark-skinned East Indian girl as she bitches on her cell phone to god-knows-who. But such bus-stop Arcadian fantasies are short lived, for one must always stay awake and clutching at their belongs, lest some notorious thief steal your passport and money.
We find the taxi stand and the line… though long… moves quickly. The taxi-driver-lottery comes up aces for us, as our cabbie seems nice. As I attempted to remove the duffle from the top of the rolling suitcase, he just grabbed them both and threw them in the back. This is a guy who means business. He zigs-zags across Florence, to the point where I thought he might be extending the ride in order to rip us off. Later, it would become clear to me that the streets of Florence are an impossible warren of alleys, whose navigation was more art than science. Soon enough we arrive at our apartment, which is LITERALLY next door to the Uffizi Gallery. The girl from the real estate office meets us there. She is incredibly nice to us… she even carries one of our heavy bags up THREE FLIGHTS of stairs. Later we would count that there were 65 steps to the top. After long days of walking everywhere in Florence, our eternal reward would be those 65 steps.
Our Uffizi tickets (pre purchased) are timed for 3:30pm. The real estate girl (who is Austrian) walks us over there and rattles off a bunch of Italian questions to the museum staff… who rattle off answers. She then informs us that all our papers are in order, and that when we come back at 3:30 we should go to this particular line. This is unbelievably helpful… the kind of help you read about in books. After we thank her a dozen times, she departs and we take a quick walk about Florence.
I had actually caught a glimpse of the Duomo while the cab zig-zagged us to the apartment. But on our quick walk we go two blocks and are at the Palazzo Vecchio, the colossal town hall of Venice, situated on the vast Piazza Della Signoria. It was in front of the Palazzo Vecchio that Michelangelo's statue of David was originally installed as a symbol of Florentine culture (militarily, artistically, and so on). A copy stands in it's place today, as the original has been moved to the Gallery of the Academy in Florence, to protect it from acid rain. On one side of the Piazza is the Loggia De L'Orcagna, which is a huge vaulted porch-like structure 40 feet high that house many huge sculptures. The Piazza also holds sculptures clustered around the Palazzo.
This particular place is quite famous, and all the objects I just mentioned were long ago installed and have been the subject of other artworks and writings for 500 years. And so it is strange to stand in the very spot that one can see in paintings, and that so little has changed.
We then walk a few blocks and Piazza del Duomo, where the Cathedral of Florence (offically known as the Basilica Santa Maria del Fiore). It is unofficial referred to as the Duomo on account of it's huge dome, famously engineered by Filippo Brunellesch in 1430. The building was begun in 1296 and completed in 1436. That is 140 years. But to see the building is to understand why it took so long. I feel like it is the largest building I have ever seen. This is probably not true, as a skyscraper in New York City probably takes up more volume. But when one considers that the Duomo is made of stone, then it's enormous dimensions become even more significant. It is 167 yard long. Consider that a football field, which is a long field… is only 100 yards long. The width is 98 yards. The height of over the aisles is 75 feet, and the height of the dome is 125 yards, which is the height of a 37 story building.
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| The Duomo |
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| The Duomo |
Now imagine a structure of such hulking and thrusting dimensions, made of stone and assorted masonry with an exterior clad in green and white marble. Now imagine it flanked by a matching bell tower 27 stories tall, and an octagonal baptistery of similar overpower size…. Now further imagine these great buildings dominating a public square, surrounded by 4 story buildings that they dwarf in their close proximity. As you stand there, it's is as if some alien THING has landed in the city and decided to never leave. This THING of immovable stone and marble and tile and concrete and plaster… massive and unmovable. I am in awe of this.
At this point we need to head back to the apartment for a quick break, before getting to the Uffizi for our 3:30 ticket. The break is essential, as we have been running ourselves pretty ragged. The rush to get to the Uffizi is due to it's not being open on Monday, and our need to schedule a whole host of sites into our short time there.
The Uffizi is (by all accounts) one of the top museums of art in the world, and certainly the most significant museum of Italian Renaissance art, bar none. The highlights of the collection literally define the Renaissance, which is not surprising, since the Renaissance is defined by the 15th century Florentines. Of particular note is the extensive collection of works by Botticelli, Fra Filippo Lippi, Filipino Lippi… all masters of the grand and beautiful altar piece and/or allegorical painting.
I found Filippo LIppi and his sone Filipino to be a revelation. The solidity of their compositions and the delicate beauty of their precise style… on the large scale of altarpieces, changed my perception of Renaissance religious art, which I had formerly considered (most often) boring and didactic. The problem was two-fold. First, the environment of Florence (and Rome) provides a rich context for considering the real purpose of the works. Secondly, the works here are the biggest and the best. In the U.S., we have plenty of Renaissance art and religious art… but it is never in context, and it's not usually the best. So it just sits there on the wall like some history lesson.
The Uffizi has nearly a dozen large Botticelli's, including the all-time favorites "The Birth of Venus" and "Primavera". Both of these paintings benefit immensely from being viewed in person, as the large size of the canvas allows one to relate to the figures and in ways not possible in photographs. I found myself really drawn into the strange, fragmented figure groupings in "Primavera"… an in particular the "Three Graces", whose interactions with each other come through powerfully when viewing it in person… whereas I had never felt it via photographic viewing. So this was all very enlightening for me.
I should go back in time here and metion that the very first room you encounter in the Uffizi contains three HUGE paintings (as in 10 feet high), one each by the pre-Renaissance painters Duccio, Cimabue, and Giotto. The paintings are all of the same subject… the Madonna and Child (known as the Maesta). Giotto is understood as the progenitor of Renaissance art, owing to his move away from gothic stylization and toward the kind of naturalism that would emerge in Renaissance painting. The purpose of this room in the Uffizi is to allow one to view the development of this movement, by comparing and contrasting the three painters. One can see that Giotto's Maesta is both cruder (less stylization) but more naturalistic (more realism in modeling the figures) than the other two… whereas both Duccio and Cimabue (though evolving in their own way) are still very much in the stylized approach of gothic art. This room… dominated as it is by these three huge paintings… is very instructive on this often elusive point from art history.
Now moving forward in time again… after the Renaissance art is completed (all contained on the third floor), there exist galleries on the second floor with post-renaissance masterpieces. Oddly, it is somewhat difficult to find these galleries, and (as with the Vatican museum) you could easily exit the Uffizi without seeing them. Three of the more notable paintings in this area are "Baccus" by Caravaggio, "Judith and Holofernes" by Artemisia Gentileschi, and "Venus of Urbino" by Titian.
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| Birth of Venus (Botticelli) |
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| Ognissanti Madonna (Giotto) |
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| Madonna and Child (Filippo Lippi) |
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| Primavera (Botticelli) |
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| Judith & Holofernes (Artemisia Gentileshi) |
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| Bacchus (Carravaggio) |
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| Venus of Urbino (Titian) |
After three hours in the Uffizi, we walk over the famous Ponte Vecchia bridge and go to a supermarket located on the other side of the Arno River (known as the altrarno.. or "other side of the arno"). This is a similar theme as Trastevere was in Rome. We pick up groceries, go home and crash. Then later we take a long walk and get some gelato. Everywhere we walk, the crowds are glue to the TV sets in cafes, which are showing the final game of the world cup… German vs. Argentina. When we get home, we turn it on too. It is a 0-0 game that have gone into overtime. As the endless futility of the match wheres on, Germany suddenly kicks the ball in the goal. Margaret almost leaps out of her seat in surprise. She says… "He just scored and I saw it". Yes you did, little Margaret. Now sleep tight.
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