Continuing Adventures

Wednesday, Nov. 10, 2004
9:05 PM

And the adventures continue... (for Part I, check out the previous entry).

Tuesday saw our intrepid travelers braving the Galleria dell'Accademia. It was a really freaking good idea to have our hotel reserve tickets for us, because that meant we only had to wait a few minutes to get in as opposed to a few hours. The lines for the unreserved masses were around the block.

Anyway, the Galleria has some very cool 14th and 15th century art. I was bummed that the Adimari cassone was out on loan to some other exhibit, but there is not much one can do about that. It also seemed that the main 15th century room was closed for some reason. Bummer. I did see some cool 16th century art - Francesca, I saw a painting by Alessandro Allori that showed a whole bobbin lace set up, bobbins and pillow and everything. I'll have to see if that picture is in the Galleria book to show you, if you haven't seen it already.

Random side note: Why is it I've never heard of Alessandro Allori before? We saw his work everywhere in Florence. I got so I could just recognize his style without having to look at the ID tag. Really cool Mannerist art... Apparently he was a nephew of Bronzino or adopted by him or something like that. Naturally, I can't find much information on him. I have a new pet artist now. =)

Anyway, the Galleria was indeed very nifty. Sorcha and I geeked on all the details in the 14th century stuff and left Andrew happily sketching belt ends. Oh yeah, and there was this big marble statue of David by some guy called Michelangelo. Heh. Actually, the David was really cool. You can go all the way around him so you get a 180 degree view. The real thing is much more impressive than the copy in front of the Palazzo Vecchio. I guess I'm just a little cynical because probably 95% of the people in the Galleria were only there to see that one piece. My hypothesis was borne out by the fact that the second floor was much less crowded than the first. OK, I'm a snob, I admit it.

After the Galleria, we tried to go to the museum at San Marco, but it closed in the early afternoon, which is pretty common for the smaller museums in Florence. So we went to the Baptistry instead. The Baptistry is very cool - it was built somewhere between the 7th and 9th centuries (I'm covering all my bases here because I can't remember exactly when) but the Renaissance Florentines thought it was a Roman temple. The ceiling is covered in 13th century mosaics which are really impressive. While we were there, there were some guys up in the upper windows, restoring the mosaics there. I wish I could have gotten closer to watch them work. Looked like some major restoration going on (a recurring theme, as I said).

After that we tried to go to several other places, all of which were closed by the time we got there. Late afternoon is not a good time to go sight seeing, apparently. We did go in the church of San Lorenzo, which was the parish church of the Medici. It's a really neat church, designed by Brunelleschi (though the facade was never finished) and containing artworks by some of the heavy hitters, like two bronze pulpits by Donatello, begun when he was somewhere in the neighborhood of eighty years old. There's also a really cool painting of the Annunciation by Filippo Lippi, which amuses me because Mary has her hand out in a way that makes it look like she's saying to the angel, "Hold on, let me check my calendar. I'm not sure if I have time to bear the Son of God right now. Maybe next spring?" OK, so I'm goofy. I also saw the graves of some of the Medici family members.

The next day was more major museums. First we went to the Bargello, which is really freaking cool. The other museums have tons of art, the Bargello has tons of stuff. All kinds of stuff. There is a lot of sculpture, which while cool really only captures my attention if there are interesting costume details (fortunately, some of the sculpture had just that). There were also a number of cassoni, tons of ivory carvings, lots of maiolica, coins, medals, armor, etc. It was pretty overwhelming, but man there was a lot of cool stuff there! I went back the following week with my own sketchbook and jotted down some notes and details. Pooh on not being able to take pictures.

We had a time limit at the Bargello because we had to hightail it over to the Uffizi for our reserved tickets there. Again, reserving ahead of time was a fabulous idea. We had to wait a little longer here than at the Galleria, but it still did not take 3+ hours like it did for the unreserved folks. I was starting to drag ass by this time, so shortly after we got there we headed for lunch at the cafe on the roof top of the Loggia dei Lanzi. Too bad the loggia was covered in scaffolding and plastic sheeting. Not a lovely view, sigh. Then back to the art overload. The Uffizi has so many amazing pieces of art, it is really overwhelming. The Botticelli room alone is mind blowing. I dig Botticelli. In a way it was nice to have been there before, so we had an idea of what we wanted to really concentrate on looking at and what we could breeze through.

I spent a lot of time (and money) in the bookshop, naturally. I was flabbergasted that I couldn't find a book on Bronzino there - there are like fifty zillion Bronzino paintings in the Uffizi. Sheesh. I did get a lovely book on the palazzi of Florence, which I have not yet had time to do more than skim. Lots of really cool pictures though, and it's in English! I can't say the same for all of the books I got. Anyway, then my sweetie surprised me by buying me a pair of earrings copied from a Bronzino portrait (of Bia de' Medici). They are totally awesome and I plan on wearing them with my Twelfth Night outfit (if I get it done in time!). Period jewelry, w00t!

Then we headed back to the hotel for much needed relaxing. Even cooler than the earrings, Kevin gave me a footrub. This may not sound like a big deal, but believe me, it's monumental. Kevin hates feet - hates looking at them, hates touching them... my feet, his own feet, anybody's feet. So for him to willingly give me a footrub is huge. I think it's the first time he's done that in the entire time we've been together. It was absolute bliss.

We went to dinner at a place called Le Mossacce, which was very cramped and the wait was long. The estimated ten minutes turned into thirty. The ribollita was good but everything else was mediocre. At least it was cheap!

Coming next... Siena!