I have reached the halfway point in my ten-week program and I’m having some conflicting emotions. I’m torn between homesickness and exploring, museums and homework, sleep and daylight, sickness and cold weather. There’s simply not enough time in the day and it’s beginning to catch up to me.
February 6
After drying out from Rome, we were back in class. The Saints class met up at Orsanmichele to have a more in-depth look at the tabernacle the holds the miracle-working Madonna. We went across the street to another church to discuss Saint Anne, the Virgin Mary’s mother, but we were kicked out because mass was starting. After a short break (and some cappuccino), we reconvened in the frescoed halls of Santissima Annunziata, the church that I had stumbled into a week or so ago. Turns out that the baldacchino that I was so fascinated by is extremely important. It protects the image of the Annunciation, which is believed to be the oldest miracle working Madonna in Florence (there is controversy over when it was created, but the members of the church don’t want tests done on the fresco so that they can continue to believe their original claims. There’s a lot of that going on here. Original this, first one to do that, and to say otherwise—blasphemy! But I digress). We were kicked out again because mass was starting, so we ended up back at Linguaviva, where it was warm.
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| Santissima Annunziata |
February 7
The first session of the Medici class met at the Bargello Palace. Like many of the other museums we’ve visited, the building has gone through a number of different uses, including a jail (which is why all of the walls were whitewashed and most of the frescoes were lost). But today, it is a sculpture museum of some of the most famous works in Florentine history. Such as Donatello’s David and the original competition panels of Isaac’s Sacrifice that Donatello and Brunelleschi created in the competition for the Baptistery doors. Then, upstairs we saw Verrocchio’s work. Verrocchio experimented in almost every medium, but he is best known for being one of the greatest teachers of the Renaissance. His most famous pupil: Leonardo da Vinci. After lunch, we had a makeup session in which we got to go back into the off-limits area of the Duomo again—not to see Saint Zenobius’ relics, but to study the decorative wooden inlay of the Sacristy more closely. We did the same thing in the Baptistery as well—I still can’t get over how elaborate that ceiling is.
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| The courtyard of the Bargello |
After class, I rushed home to change for dinner before attending my first professional ballet. After a quick meal (prosciutto and funghi calzone) with some friends, we all walked over to the theatre to see a production of “Il Lago dei Cigni” (Swan Lake). It turns out that this particular performance was a conceptualization. At the intermission, the group of ACMers who had gotten tickets together all turned to each other and asked, “So…do you know what’s going on?” Turns out that Tchaikovsky, the composer, was also a character in the show…? I think. Nevertheless, the dancing was beautiful (how is the human body so flexible?) and the visualizations were astounding (lights, rain, costumes, simple yet effective).
February 8
The Saints class met at the Uffizi to study altarpieces. We spent almost three hours going over various interpretations of the Madonna, the Crucifix, and different saints’ lives—and we only made it through four rooms of the entire museum. This is the kind of learning that I came to Florence for! (Something I had to remind my aching feet and grumbling stomach.) Life after Italian class consisted of trying to catch up on homework—including my first paper. For Saints, we had to write two pages, analyzing one panel from either Ghiberti’s north doors or Pisano’s south doors of the Baptistery. I have not written an art history paper since last spring (the Greek art class that I took in the fall did not require any papers, just tests), so I was actually a little too excited to write this paper. An added bonus: I can go and look at the real door in order to write this analysis. Not a pixilated slide on a projector or a discolored photograph in a book—the actual, physical, real door panel. I could have even touched it if I were so inclined (and a little bit taller). I’m still trying to wrap my head around this opportunity.
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| The Temptation by Ghiberti |
We ended up watching the news at dinner. While I missed practicing Italian, it was interesting to see what’s going on in Italy (snow) and how Italian news differs from American news (erm, non lo so). Basically, it looks like all the snow that was supposed to fall in the Midwest over the last year got dumped all over Italy. There’s over a meter of snow in some places that barely ever get any flurries and no one (understandably) is prepared. Thankfully, Florence is situated in just the right place in the mountains so that the snow isn’t reaching us. But the cold is.
February 9
The Medici class visited the Brancacci Chapel at Santa Maria del Carmine, which was another example of, “Oh, I’ve seen that in a book before, but I didn’t realize it was in Florence!” I’ve been here for five weeks and I still haven’t discovered everything (this makes me happy). The chapel was collaborated on between Masolino and Masaccio, who were helped out by Fra Filippo Lippi when he was a young boy, whose son Filippo Lippi actually ended up finishing the Chapel, which was studied by Raphael and Michelangelo (who had his nose broken there for making fun of another artist). The connections! The influences! The beauty! Ahhhh!!
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| The Expulsion from the Garden of Eden |
Then we walked over to the Basilica of Santa Maria del Santo Spirito. I wish that this church had been finished according to Brunelleschi’s original plans, but he died just as the first columns were going up. But it should have been very Baroque (curvy, convex, concave) from all of the apses that line the entire nave. There’s even a crucifix that some art historians speculate could be one of the very first works by Michelangelo (although it really doesn’t look like his style).
February 10
Palazzo Pitti is enormous and I’m beginning to wonder if I’ll have enough time to explore all of its museums. After lunch with some of my classmates, I headed over Ponte Vecchio to the former Medici residence to see the Modern Art Gallery. And I must say, it was a bit of a culture shock to walk into a room that wasn’t filled with depictions of the Madonna, or altarpieces, or mythological allegories. I was a little lost among the portraits and landscapes of the eighteenth century. But then I found the Italian Impressionists room and felt more at home.
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| Pure chocolate |
Then, on the walk back into the center of town, I discovered the Chocolate Festival in Piazza della Repubblica. Win! So I bought a cup of hot chocolate to warm up. Richest substance I’ve ever tasted, I could barely finish it. It looks and tastes like someone melted bittersweet chocolate-chips into a cup. Over dinner, we discussed pets. In Italy, rabbits are only used for food, not domestic animals. And now I miss having pets around even more.
February 11
Jodie made special reservations for us to view the excavated remains of the Roman amphitheatre below Palazzo Vecchio. I hadn’t realized that what still exists in Rome used to exist in Florence. The space has only recently been excavated and has only been open to the public (by appointment) for the last two or three years.
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| Oh, and somebody's skeleton was discovered down there |
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| According to the myth, it took Judith two swings to behead Holofernes. If you could view it at eye level, you could see that there's already a cut in his neck |
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