Florence

So on Sunday we headed into Florence.  I was excited about heading there because I have heard so much about this town, I couldn't wait to see if it lived up to its name.

Once we got there and found parking, we had to take a bus to the down town area.  I love that AJ is enjoying reading so much!!!

Our first view of the town area, very pretty to start!!!

This is the Ponte Vecchio, or "Old Bridge," made of stone.  It was built in 1345 after the old wooden bridge was walked away.  It was built on the east to west and north to south trade routes.  Right in the middle of everything.

The river is so peaceful and calm.

Our first stop of the day is the Uffizi gallery.  There are quit a few 19th century statues along the courtyard.  I read in Rick Steve's guidebook to buy my tickets before hand and it was a great idea.

 because the line to get in was extremely looooong!!  This building was not built for a museum, it was built for offices.  When this was built in 1560 they actually had to demolish many buildings to build it, one of them on old Romanesque church..

As you can see even the ceilings are beautifully painted.

This is Giotto's Madonna and child from 1310.  Mary and baby Jesus sit on a throne in a golden never-never land symbolizing heaven.  This is the first inkling of learning to paint a 3-D world on a 2-D surface.

This is one from 1333 - Simone Martini - The Annunciation.  This is where the angel is telling Mary that she'll be the mother of Jesus.  In the center is a vase of lilies, a symbol of Mary's purity.  Above is the Holy Spirit as a dove about to descend on her.  What is interesting is that Mary doesn't look exactly pleased.

This is the Adoration of the Magi (1423)  by Gentil da Fabriano.  Here there is incredible detail of the Three King's costumes, the horses and the cow in the cave.  The religious subject is just an excuse to paint secular luxuries like brocade-pattern clothes and jewelry.

This is Madonna and Child with Two Angels (1465) by Fra Filippo Lippi.  What stands out in this one is the mischievous face of one of Lippi's little angel boys.

David and I were enjoying look at all the different paintings and their different style.  David loved the detail of this painting, especially the beard.

This is where the paintings change.  This is showing Greek gods in a lush green orchard painted in 1478.  It shows them in the springtime in a citrus grove.  Madonna is out, Venus is in.  Adam and Eve hiding their nakedness are out, glorious flesh is in.

This is Botticelli's most famous work; the Birth of Venus.  According to the myth, Venus was born from the foam of a wave.  This is the purest expression of Renaissance beauty.  Botticelli thought that physical beauty was a way of appreciating God.

This painting, Slander, spells the end of the Florentine Renaissance.  There are a ragtag, medieval looking bunch, a Court of Thieves in an abandoned hall of justice.

This statue is the Venus de' Medici.  The position of the statues is the same as Birth of Venus.  This statue has been the epitome of both ideal beauty and sexuality.  France's Louis XIV has a bronze copy made.  Napoleon stole her away to Paris for himself.

This is another view of the Ponte Vecchio from inside the Uffizi.

These two statues are of Marsia hanging on a tree and represents the satyr in the process of being skinned alive by Apollo, who had defeated him in a music contest.  They are Roman works of the 2nd century AD.

This is a sarcophagus, carved in Rome, showing the first six of the twelve labors that King Eurystheus assigned to Hercules.

This female figure, long thought to be Cleopatra, actually portrays Ariadne  (who was abandoned by Theseus after he slew the Minotaur).

This is the only completed easel painting by Michelangelo.  It is called the Holy Family, which is the main subject - Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus - and in the background are two groups.  The background represents the old pagan world, while Jesus in the foreground is the new age of Christianity.  The figure of young John the Baptist at the right is the link between the two.  He painted this for a business man for 70 ducats, but when delivered he tried to talk Michelangelo down to 40 ducats.  Michelangelo threatened to take the painting away unless the cheapskate paid double and he eventually got his price.

This is The Madonna of the Goldfinch by Raphael.  It is Mary with baby Jesus (right) and John the Baptist who have a bird to play with, adding a human touch.  The two halves of the painting balance perfectly.

This is Pope Leo X and Cardinals by Raphael.  He was called to Rome at the same time as Michelangelo, working next door while Michelangelo did the Sistine ceiling.  Raphael depicts the pope as big as Michelangelo statue.  And, in the two cardinals, Raphael captures some of the seamier side of Vatican life by the look in their eyes - shrewd, suspicious, and somewhat cynical.  Both David and I were so interested in the art here.  Neither one of us knew what to expect, but it was fabulous!!

After spending a couple of hours in there, we knew the boys needed to recharge before our next tour.  So off to a little restaurant to have some pizza and pasta!!!  It was a great lunch!!!

This is Donatello, holding his hammer and chisel.  His lifelike statues on Giotto's Tower and Orsanmichele, set the tone for Michelangelo.

This is the entrance into their city hall.  Here they have a fake David since the original was damaged in a 1527 riot, when a bench thrown out of a palace window knocked his left arm off.

AJ and a lion - have to love the lion statues!!!!

This huge triumphal arch marks the place that, in Roman times, was the Forum, or city center.  The lone column - nicknamed "the belly button of Florence" - once marked the intersection of the two main Roman roads.  It was built to celebrate the unification of Italy, when, for a brief time, Florence was the new country's capital.

This is their Duomo, or church, that is 500 feet long.  Donatello sculpted four prophets for the church.  We didn't go inside it, one because the line was long and two because we were told the interior is big, bare and a bit disappointing.

The next place we were headed was the Accademia.  I also bought tickets for this online before hand.  We had a specific time to get in and even with that we were 30 minutes past our time, but it was better than not having them because again the line was HUGE!!!  While we were waiting AJ was having fun taking pictures of Michael's many faces!!!!

Michelangelo's David is the big exhibit in the Accademia.  In 1501, Michelangelo, a 26-year-old Florentine was commissioned to carve a large-scale work for the Duomo.  He was given a block of marble that other sculptors had rejected as too tall, shallow and flawed to be of any value.  Michelangelo has caught the moment when David is saying to himself, "I can take this guy."

His gaze is steady - searching with intense concentration, but also with extreme confidence.  Originally, this 14 foot tall statue was supposed to stand on the roof of the Duomo.  But during the three years it took to sculpt, they decided to place it guarding the entrance of the Town Hall.

In 1991, his right foot was damaged when the statue was attacked by a deranged visitor.

This is Sacrifice of Isaac painted in 1585.  It was interesting to see this painting because we had just read the story about it with the boys.  A great teaching moment. 

This is the back of David where you can see his sling over his back and all the detail of the muscles, veins, etc.

These are called the Prisoners, unfinished figures seem to be fighting to free themselves from the stone.  Michelangelo believed the sculptor was a tool of God, not creating by simply revealing the powerful and beautiful figures God put in the marble.  His job was to chip away the excess to reveal.  Michelangelo, unlike other sculptors, always worked freehand and not building a model and then marking up the block of stone.

I just find it amazing that this book is over 700 years old from the Vatican and still in pretty good shape.

David in front of David!!!  :-)

Taking a selfie with David in front of David!!!

This bronze bust of Michelangelo was done by one of his pupils.  It shows a craggy, wrinkled Michelangelo, just before his death at age 89,

The boys walking down the streets of Florence.

These bronze doors are on the Babtistery.  The first set there was a contest to see who would make them.  This second set here was made by the same artist, Ghiberti.  Michelangelo said the doors were fit to be the gates of paradise, and they revolutionized the way Renaissance people saw the world around them.  Ghiberti spent 27 years working on these panels.

Italy has some of the best gelato and I was told Florence was the best there is and so of course we had to try some!!!

Michael and I just chilling since he wasn't eating gelato anymore.  Still not sure why.  ;-)

The Orsanmichele Church is a combination church and granary.  Originally, it was built as a covered porch.  Shoppers could come and go through the open arches, shopping for grain that was stored upstairs in a huge warehouse.  They could also worship here, at a painting of the Virgin Mary that stood inside.  In the 14th century, the arches were filled in and it became a church.

You can see on the left the grain chutes to deliver the grain.  You can see on the one in the right the rings hanging from the ceiling.  These were likely used to make pulleys for lifting grain.

There were fourteen niches around the outside of the church that were eventually all filled in with statues, sponsored not by the church but by the rising middle class of merchants.  They commissioned statues as PR gestures, hiring the finest artists of the generation.  On the bottom rectangle is the symbol of the guild that paid for the art.

This is a robed John the Baptist by Ghiberti, the man who did the bronze doors.  This statue of the patron saint of Florence is considered the first freestanding bronze since antiquity, a triumph of metal-casting technology.

Their Palazzo Vecchio - or "Old Palace" - was the fortress-like City Hall.

The Rape of the Sabines shows a Roman warrior trampling a Sabine husband and carrying off the man's wife.  The sculptor, Giambologna, proved his mastery by sculpting three entangled bodies from one piece of marble.

This is Cosimo I one of the post-Renaissance Medici.

This is a plaque about where Savonarola, who took power of Florence and tried to return to the medieval past, was executed.  He was tortured for two days trying to persuade him to see their side of things.  Finally, they defrocked and hanged him and then burned him.  This signaled the end of the Florentine Renaissance.

After our walk through town we had to get back to our car.  So off to the bus we went.  I LOVE this picture of AJ reading to Michael and they are so enthralled!!  They read the whole way back to the car, which was quite awhile.

When we arrived back at the parking lot, David found his next car.  The boys agree that it should be Dad's next car.  :-)

They seemed to have a lot of "David" statues throughout the town.

Back to the apartment and with the weather so nice we decided to eat outside!!!

And of course the boys begged us to go swimming after dinner again, and who am I to say no to more fun!!!

David joining in on the fun!!!

Michael decided to try and cannon ball David, it worked!!!

After that, the boys decided to have races across the pool!!  I still don't know where they get all their energy!!  Another great day for the books, even if the boys were a little bored in the first museum, I think the day ended just how they wanted it to!