Florence

Writing 2008.06.01.0805 Classic Hotel, Florence, Italy

This was the last day on our own before the Country Walkers tour kicks off. We were at some loose ends and I thought about trying to figure out how to get to Fiesole, the Roman/Etruscan hill town that predates the settlement by the river. Ultimately we filled the day and didn’t get there on this trip.

We started the day going back to the internet café where we caught up on our email, and while Jonathan read some of his favorite blogs, I was catching up on the news. Swinging back by the hotel to grab our cameras and umbrellas (just in case), we headed off to the Duomo.

Admission to the cathedral is free and they allow cameras (no flash). This space had the same feel as San Lorenzo, although a bit more ornate. There was a mosaic over the entry door with frescos on either side – a Byzantine piece surrounded by what looks like Renaissance work. The church’s proper name is Santa Maria del Fiore – St. Mary of the Flowers, and the mosaic depicts Christ crowning Mary as queen of heaven. The nave was cordoned off so that we couldn’t get under Brunelleschi’s dome although you could catch a glimpse of the frescos that decorate its underside. We went downstairs where the remains of the predecessor cathedral, St. Reparata, have been excavated, but we decided not to pay the admission to enter the exhibit. Leaving the cathedral, we went to check on the line for going up into the dome (while we were in the cathedral, you could see people up there), but the line was long and it didn’t look like it was moving very fast at all. So we went in to the Baptistery (at a cost). The Baptistery is the oldest of the building in the square and the gold on the brightly colored mosaics gracing the interior of the dome speak to Byzantine influences.

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The East Doors of the Baptistery; statues above the door depict St. John the Baptist baptizing Christ.

The view inside the cathedral.

The mosaic above the entry door - Christ crowning Mary queen of heaven.

Frescos to the left of the mosaic.

The entire piece above the entry including the mosaic, frescos, and 24-hour clock.

Jonathan bracing his camera on a pillar - necessary to secure clear (as opposed to fuzzy) images in this light.

A view of the marble work on the floor.

Looking up into the dome - the balustrade marks a walkway where you could see tourists up in the dome.

The mosaic of Christ on the inside of the dome of the Baptistery.

The Last Judgement - panel to the right - check out the devil eating the sinner on the lowest level.

The Last Judgement - panel to the left.

A view looking up to the occulus - the Christ figure is on the lower edge of this image.

We went around the cathedral to the museum of the cathedral. In this museum they have the original panels from the baptistery’s famous east doors (facing the cathedral) crafted by Lorenzo Ghiberti. I remembered these panels from my earlier trip to Florence 35 years ago when they were still mounted on the doors of the baptistery. The replicas in place are gilded and very bright, while the originals have lost that luster. The old panels are displayed in individual Lucite cases under nitrogen atmosphere to protect them from further oxidation. [There are a total of 10 panels, but only eight were on exhibit.] Also in the museum is an unfinished Pietà by Michelangelo – once again I find that raw element adds power to the sculpture. The face on the figure of Nicodemus in this piece is a self portrait of the sculptor – apparently Nicodemus was supposed to have been a sculptor and painter himself, and it was not that uncommon for artists depicting the scene to use Nicodemus as a self-portrait due to the affinity.

The east doors of the Baptistery (transcribed from a panel in the museum):

Michelangelo called the east doors of the Baptistery “Gates of Paradise” on account of their beauty. They were commissioned to Lorenzo Ghiberti by the Arte di Calimala or Merchant’s Guild, and illustrate stories from the Old Testament that complete the cycle of human salvation and the omnipotence of God proposed in the first two sets of doors. Those in the south prortal by Andrea Pisano, signed and dated 1330, contain Stories of the Life of Saint John the Baptist, and thos in the north portal, also by Ghiberti, Stories of the Life of Christ, with the four Evangelists and the Doctors of the Church, made between 1401 and 1424.

The humanist Leondardo Bruni prepared the iconographic program of the doors in a project consisting of 28 panes, analogous to the two pre-existing sets. For unknown reasons, Ghiberti condensed the program into then square reliefs, each of which contained more than one episode of the biblical story shown. The contract for the doors was signed on January 2, 1425, and work is known to have begun at the end of 1429. It was finished on April 2, 1452. The workshop, under Lorenzo Ghiberti’s direction, included many collaborators. Of note, in addition to his sons Tommaso and Vittorio, were the sculptor Michelozzo, the painter Benozzo Gozzoli, the goldsmith Bartolomeo Cennini. During the flood of 1966 some of the panels were detached from their frame and restoration was immediately begun. Ghiberti’s original gilding was found to be intact and all the restored panels must now be kept in a nitrogen atmosphere to preserve them unaltered. During the lengthy restoration process, the doors were replaced by copies (1990).

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Another view of the east doors of the Baptistery - these are reproductions.

Various pieces of statuary that had once been part of the catheral.

Baptistery door panel: The Story of Moses.

Baptistery door panel: The Story of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba.

Baptistery door panel: The Story of Abraham.

Baptistery door panel: The Story of Joshua.

Baptistery door panel: The Story of Adam and Eve.

Baptistery door panel: The Story of of Joseph.

Baptistery door panel: The Story of Isaac with Esau and Jacob.

Baptistery door panel: The Story of Cain and Abel.

The unfinished Pietà.

A closer view.

An outside view showing the difference that cleaning the exterior makes.

A statue of Brunelleschi - looking up at the dome he designed.

The open air market.

The statue of the boar again - the fellow was collecting all the coins in the fountain.

A street view.

A view of the Palazzo Vecchio with the two statues in front.

Outside the Pitti Palace.

And into the Boboli Gardens.

Jonathan walking a path.

A somewhat beat-up denizen of the garden.

A view of the palace / fort walls from the fort.

A garden in the fort.

A piece of porcelain in the porcelain museum that wasn't in the vein of 'little old lady' tea cups.

A large contemporary piece.

A view down the lane.

Clouds over Florence.

A domed structure tucked in among the vegetation of the garden.

A close up of the moss growing on the seams of the tiled roof.

After eating lunch just off the square, we headed off to the Pitti Palace to spend the rest of the afternoon wandering through the gardens. We returned to the hotel for a quick nap before searching for dinner ending up in Piazza del Carmine at the Trattoria del Carmine, where the menu was all in Italian with no translations. We both started off with proscuitto and melon, which I followed with a squash flower and pea risotto. I had grilled lamb as my second – which was a bit dry – while Jonathan followed his soup with a fried seafood platter that he devoured with much enthusiasm.