Florenta must see

7/27/2019 Florenta must see

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Michelangelo's DavidThe Accademia

Florence's Galleria dell'Accademia has long lines for one reason

Michelangelo's Davidbut is packed with other artistic delights,fromMichelangelo's amazing unfinishedSlaves to works by

Giambologna, Andrea del Sarto, andBotticelli

Many visitors come to Florence and don't care about theUffizior theDuomo. Theyjust have one question on their lips "Which way to the David?"

The Accademia Galleries contain many paintings (by Perugino,Botticelli,Andrea del Sarto, Pontormo, etc.), and Giambologna'splaster study for the

Rape of the Sabines, but most people come here for one thing only.

In 1501Michelangelotook an enormous piece of marble that a previous sculptor had chipped at beforedeclaring it unworkable, and by 1504 turned it into a Goliath-sized David, a masterpiece of the male nude.

The sculpture is so realistic, so classically lifelikeshifting its weight onto one leg and holding its sling

nonchalantly on its shoulder

that it completely changed the way in which people thought about sculpting thehuman body.Davidwas for a long time in front of thePalazzo Vecchio(a replica stands there now), and stuckinside like this room it looks a little over-large, giving it an oafish air.

The hall leading to theDavidis lined withMichelangelo's nonfiniti(unfinished) Slaves, or Prisonersto

many people more interesting than theDaviditself.

These Slaves are in varying degrees of being worked on, and give a critical insight into howMichelangeloapproached his craftchipping away first at the abdomen and fully realizing that part before moving on to

rough out limbs and faces. Their title, Slaves, is rather appropriate as these muscular, primordial figures seem tobe struggling to emerge from their stony prisons.

The Palestr ina Piethere was long attributed toMichelangelobut most scholars now believe it is the work ofhis students. The statue ofSt. Matthew(begun in 1504) is, however, by the master.

A number of 15th- and 16th-century Florentine artists are here; search out the Madonna del Mare(Madonna of

the Sea) attributed toBotticellior his student Filippino Lippi.

The Uffizi Galleries

Visiting the Uffizi is like taking Renaissance 101: a smorgasbord of paintings by Giotto,

Leonardo da Vinci,Michelangelo, Fra' Angelico, andBotticelliincluding his iconic Birth of

Venus

The Uffizi Galleries serve as a kind of real-life textbook on the development of the Renaissance from the 13thto the 18th centuries.

That's a fancy way of saying that this (relatively) tiny museum has some of the greatest paintings by some of the

greatest artists of the early and High Renaissance, fromGiottotoBotticellitoMichelangeloand beyond. It canbe downright exhausting.
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Although only a fraction of the size of galleries like the Louvre or Vatican, the Uffizi ranks in the world's topechelon of museums. What it lacks in quantity, it more than makes up for in quality, with room after room of

unequivocal masterpieces.

These rooms open off corridors lined by ancient sculptures and elaborately painted to celebrate the history ofFlorence and the rulingMedici clan, whose private offices ("uffizi" in old Florentine dialect) these were and

whose final heir, Maria Luisa de' Medici, in her will stipulated that this, the family's private art collection, beopened to the public.

Thank you, Maria Luisa.

The first corridor

Giotto's Ognissanti Maest (c.1310). You get off to a roaring start with the trio of giant Maestpaintings in the

first room. Together, these "Madonna in Majesty"the Virgin Mary seated on a throne as the Queen ofHeaven, often bobbling a baby Jesus on her lapshow visually how the Renaissance began, what made it

different from everything that came before.

Painting quickly moved from the rigid, Byzantine style ofCimabue's versionthe so-called Santa Trinita

Maest

through some more earthy (and decorative) Gothic elements courtesy of the Sienese great Duccio, tothe point where painting is completely transformed by the artist who broke all the rules and in the processcatalyzed Renaissance painting,Giotto.

Giotto's Mary (right, bottom)the Ognissanti Maesthas actual and weight bearing down and bulk under herrobes, the fabric of her silken blouse pulling against her breasts in a realistic waycompared with Cimabue's

Madonna (right, top), who is free-floating above her throne in a typically Byzantine drapery of blue and redrobes finely incised with a hatchwork of gold leaf.

Giotto's Mary face is a naturalistic study of a sturdy peasant woman, not the almond-eyed, arrow-nosed

Byzantine ideal of unearthly beauty in Cimabue.

The attendant angels in theGiottoare all individuals (their faces unique) and are milling about, halos bumpinginto one another, while standing firmly on the ground, not identikit angelic clones floating around merely to

decorate the margins.

(Also,Giottothough still a generation from the development of true perspectiveuses ingenious little tricks

to show depth, like having two of the deep background angels peer at the scene through the windows in the sideof the throne.)

The differences between these two works is staggeringnot because one is "better" than the other (it isn't), but

because of what each has to say about how a painting should be done.

Both artists were great masters. It's just thatGiottowas the master who was pointing to the future, whileCimabue had only mastered what had come before. That this quantum leap in art happened within a single

generation makes it all the more remarkable. The works were painted a mere 25 years apart.

The icing on the cake? Cimabue had actually beenGiotto's teacher. Cimabue discovered the former shepherd as

a lad, using a sharp rock to idly scratch sketches of his sheep into a boulder and took him under his wing.

Simone Martini's Annunciation (1333) And all that's just in the first roomand I didn't even get to the Duccio,or any of the other works in this room.
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Like I said: small museum; major collection. (OK, I promise: no more lengthy art history lessons.)

Move on through rooms featuring the work of early Sienese greats like Pietro Lorenzetti and Simone Martini(love his 1333Annunciation, in which the Virgin Mary draws back violently, looking distinctly disbelieving at

the Archangel Gabriel's news of her impending motherhood), then on to Florentine and other Tuscan masterslike Fra Angelico, Masaccio, Piero della Francesca, Filippo Lippi (debauched monk, bon vivant, and teacher

of a youngBotticelli), and Paolo Uccello (a painter obsessed with the newly discovered technique ofperspective; in one corner of his large, ingeniousand patently uglyBattle of San Romano, one soldier has

even, in the words of one great art historian, "managed to die inperspective").

Leonardo da Vinci'sAnnunciation (1472-75).Now you come to a vastroom dedicated toBotticelli, focused on his two most famous works,

The Birth of Venus(that blonde-on-a-half-shell rising from the seafoam) and The Al legory of Spring.

The tour-bus crowds tend to plant themselves in front of these for 20minutes at a time, so you may have to wait for a good look, but meanwhile you can entertain yourself with the

rooms' lesser-known works byBotticelliand his contemporary Ghirlandaio (who first taught a youngMichelangelo how to fresco).

Leonardo da Vinci'sAnnunciation (1475-80).Beyond this room,

you've got paintings by Luca Signorelli, Perugino (Raphael's firstteacher), and anotherAnnunciation, this one painted around 1475-80 by a young Leonardo da Vinci in his mid-20s.

In the same room you can see a bit more of Leonardo's early workin the form ofAndrea del Verrocchio'sBaptism of Chri st(147578), in which Verrocchio's young apprentice

Leonardo da VInci likely painted the curly-haired angel in the lower left (another, older apprentice

Botticelli

may have painted the angel next to Da Vinci's).

According to Vasari, when Verrocchio saw Da Vinci's angel, he was so humbled by his student's mastery thathe put down his brushes and vowed never to paint again. (Good thing he had a successful career as a sculptor to

fall back on.)

Normally, you can also admire Da Vinci's russet-tinged Adoration of the Maginearby, started around 1481 butleft thoroughly unfinished when Leonardo decamped for Milanevidence that Leonardo was already well into

his habit of rarely finishing what he started. [Note: This painting was taken to the Opificio delle Pietre DureFlorence's main restoration studioin late 2012 for study and a subsequent restoration that is estimated to last

one to two years.]

The Tribune (and rest of the first corridor)

Take the time to cycle through the small octagonal room called the Tribuna, designed by Buontalenti in 1584with apietra dura (stone inlay) floor, mother-of-pearl ceiling dome, and bloodred walls covered with High

Renaissance and Mannerist paintings.

You shuffle around the perimeter of the room, admiring the saints and Medici portraits by the likes of

Pontormo,Rosso Fiorentino, and especially Bronzino (the best: a portrait ofEleonora da Toledo, wife of
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Cosimo I, with her son Giovanni de' M edici, arrayed fabulously in the same velvet and pearl-laced dress inwhich, it turns out, she was eventually buried).

In the center of the Tribuna is ranged a handful of choice ancient statues, including a pair ofwrestlers

displaying a rather, er, interesting hold that is extremely illegal today (let us just say this hold is only practicableif you happen to be male and wrestle nude, as the ancient Greeks did), and the famous Medici Venus, a 1st

century BC copy of Praxiteles' originalAphrodite of Cnidos (Praxiteles was theMichelangeloof AncientGreece, though most of what we know of his work is through copies like this one).

Following the Tribuna is a series of rooms filled with northern European art from the pre- and early-

Renaissance eras (Drer, Cranach, Hans Holbein the Younger) as well as paintings from Venetian masterslike Correggio, Bellini, and Giorgione.

All of these are fine works, and many would likely be among the centerpieces of other collections. However,this is not other collections, This is the Uffizi, the most embarassingly masterpiece-laden museum of its size in

the world. Most peopleespecially on a first visittend to blow through these northern Reniassance roomspretty quickly.

The connecting hall

Zipping through the Flemish and Venetian stuff is all fine and well, because as soon as you move on around to

the second corridor you're going to be right back into the biggest heavy hitters of Old Masters. First, however,

most visitors pause to take a breather in the connecting hall between the two main corridors.

The Uffizi, built in 1560 by Giorgio Vasari forDuke Cosimo I de' Medici,were built as a long, U-shaped

buildingtwo long corridors connected by a shorter hall at the Arno River end. The painting galleries are up onthe top floor, and the connecting hall (at the base of the "U") offers some fine intimate views of downtown

Florence.

Pause to look out the tall windows in one direction down the Uffizi's elongated courtyard that opens into Piazza

della Signoria at the far end, and then out the opposite windows for a panorama over the Arno River,PonteVecchio, and theCorridorio Vasariano(below).

The second corridor

Michelangelo'sHoly Family orDoni Tondo (150405).Michelangelo'sbright and colorful Holy Family(a.k.a. theDoni Tondo, after the family that

commissioned it for a wedding) signals our dive into the High Renaissance.

The startling colors and attention to the musculature of twisting bodies thatMichelangeloused in groundbreaking works like this one influenced a

whole generation of artists called "Mannerists"Rosso Fiorentino,Pontormo, Andrea del Sarto, and Parmigianinowhose works fill next

few rooms.

(Proof that all art is 'modern art'...at least in its own time. The High Renaissance offshoot movement we nowcall "Mannerism" is an abbreviation of how the works by these artists were referred to at the time: as painting

done "nella maniera moderna,"which means "in the modern manner." Hence, "Mannerism." It could have justas easily been called "modernism," but then what would we have called the new styles of art birthed in the late

19th/early 20th century? Actually, the irony of terming everything from the Impressionists to AbstractExpressionism "modernism" has led us to use the ridiculous and meaningless phrase "post-modern" to describe
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art from about 1960 on. Does that mean art now lives in an eternal future state, beyond the modern present? ButI digress. Also, I broke my promise about no more art history. Sorry.)

They are continually rearranging the rooms in the latter half of the second corridor. Ever since a bomb damaged

part of the Uffizi in 1993 (it was a political hit by a home-grown terrorist, nothing for you to worry about)they've been expanding and reinventing the museum to fulfill a new vision of the "Grande Uffizi," the project

moving along with typical Italian speed and vigor, which is best described as "glacial, only without so muchactual movement forward."

All this means is that you never quite know where the balance of the works will pop up, but you will be treated

somewhere to paintings by other big guns of the High Renaissance and early baroque, like Raphael, Titian, and

Caravaggio.

The Ponte Vecchio

Florence's "Old Bridge" is a medieval span lined by tiny goldsmith shops

The Ponte Vecchio (Old Bridge) links the north and south banks of the Arno River at its narrowest point.

The bridge has long been a landmark symbol of the city, overhanging with little shops the way most European

bridges were in the Middle Ages (though precious few have survived).

The Ponte Vecchio was destroyed and rebuilt many times before the construction of the 1345 bridge you seetoday, designed by Taddeo Gaddi, and has been lined with these same goldsmith's shops for centuries.

Many of the exclusive gold and jewelry stores are owned by descendents of the 41 artisans set up on the bridge

in the 16th century byCosimo I de' Medici. Cosimohad Giorgio Vasari build him an elevated corridor so hecould hurry between his downtown offices ("uffizi"in local dialect; now a world-class museum) and the new

Mediciresidence in thePalazzo Pittion the other side of the river without mixing with the crowds. This corridor

still crosses the Ponte Vecchio atop the shop roofs on the eastern side (part of theUffizi, it is still occasionallyopened the public more).

Not long after his corridor was complete, however,Cosimofound something else to complain about: the stench

rising to his private skywalk from the butchers and skin tanners beneath, whose workshops had traditionallylined the bridge.Cosimosummarily booted out the butchers, moved in the classier goldsmithsand, naturally,

raised the rent.

Many people don't even realize they're actually on a bridge until they get to the center, where suddenly thephalanx of shops on either side is interrupted by two small terraces, one on each side, for gazing up or down

the river.

One has a bust of famed Renaissance silversmith and autobiographer Andrea del Verrocchio. Both are oftenfestooned with padlocks (see the box on the right).

How the Ponte Vecchio survived the Nazis

Florentines tirelessly recount the story of how in 1944 Hitler's retreating troops destroyed all the bridges

crossing the Arnoall since reconstructed, often with the original material fished out of the river, or at leastaccording to the archival designs and with stone extracted from the same ancient quarrieswith the exception

of the Ponte Vecchio.
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Supposedly, the Nazi in charge of the retreat was overtaken by a momentary fit of whimsy, felt that the PonteVecchio was simply too beautiful to blow up, and countermanded his orders. (Disobeying orders is not

something any officer does lightly, especially not a Nazi.)

Instead, the fleeing German troops bombed both bridgeheadsand the surrounding buildingsto block theway across and slow the Allied advance.

This is why most of the buildings on either end of the bridge in the otherwise thoroughly medieval areas of Via

Por Santa Maria and Via Guicciardini have a distinct, 1950s look.

The Duomo group

Florence'sDuomo (Cathedral),Baptisterywith its Gates of Paradise,Bell Towerdesigned

by Giotto, and theMuseo dell'Opera del Duomo museum

TheDuomo(cathedral) of Florenceofficial name: Santa Maria del FIoreis clad in festive white, green, and

pink marbles, with a flamboyant neo-Gothic facade from the 18th century, all capped byBrunelleschi'smassive brick-reddomethat rears nobly above the city skyline.

The cathedral is joined on its lively square by thebaptistery,Giotto's bell tower, and amuseum, a group ofbuildings that together will gobble up about one to three hours of your time.

The Duomo

Florence's Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore andBrunelleschi's dome

lorence's cathedral is sort of inside out, prettily decorated on the outside but rather barren within. That's not tosay it isn't worth visiting. Just that its interior is not as spectacular as you might expect from so famous a

church.

What really makes the Duomo so famous are everything butthe church itself: the famousdome by Brunelleschi

the adjacentbell towerandbaptistery, the sculptures in theDuomo museumaround back.

In all, the Duomo is probably best to enjoy from the little piazza out in front, where tourists flock, streetmusicians and artists ply their trades, students strum guitars, and Florentines weave their way through the

crowds with the evening's shopping in hand. (Though in 2012 local authorities tried to break up the scene bycordoning off the Duomo steps during daylight hours so you cannot sit on them.)

The cathedral facade

The festive facade of the Duomo is a particolored Neo-Gothic take on what the overwrought imaginations of19th century decorators imagined the cathedral builders would have wanted.

Until 1871, the cathedral didn't have a proper facade, though every major architect and artist of the Renaissancesubmitted plans or models for it (none were ever executed, but some are preserved in theDuomo Museum).

Know how you can tell the facade is a 19th century mock-up? The color scheme is a celebration of the then-new

Italian flag, done all in red, white, and green to honor the freshly-minted Kingdom of Italy (of which Florencewas, briefly, the capital, from 186570).
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The cathedral interior

Paolo Uccello's fresco of the "Monument" for Giovanni Acuto in the Florence cathedral.When you do go inside,

there are some interesting early Renaissance frescoes.

On the left aisle is a greenish fresco of a man on horseback. It's the condottiere (mercenary leader) GiovanniAcuto (born John Hawkwood in England), hired by Florence to help them conquer much of Tuscany.

The famed condottiere was promised a bronze equestrian statue as a memorial, but Florentines are a famously

frugal lot.

After Hawkwood died, the city figured they'd save a buck by hiring that master of perspective Paolo Uccello to

paint this trompe-l'oeil "statue" insteada fresco of a memorial that never was.

The frescoes inside the dome, on the other hand, are colorfuland packed with agreeably gruesome scenes ofthe Damned in Hell in theLast Judgmentbitbut not terribly good, started by Giorgio Vasari and largely done

by his eager student Federico Zuccari.

Though these days they like to limit tourists to the nave, roping off the transept for actual worshippers, if it's

open do make your way to the back left corner behind the altar to admire the bronze doors (by Luca dellaRobbia) and wood inlay of the New Sacristy.

In the crypt you can see the remains of the earlier church ofSanta Reparata on this site.

Brunelleschi's dome

Hands down, my favorite thing to do at the Duomo is to climb the 348-foot-high dome(la cupola del Duomo),

both for the great panorama across the city you get from the top and to see, from the inside,Brunelleschi'sarchitectural marvel.

You actually clamber up between the dome's two onion-like layersand in the process get some great up-close

views of those crazy Zuccari frescoes (skilled though the frescoes may not be, the scene of the Damned beingtortured in Hell is certainly imaginative).

The dome actually presented something of an engineering conundrum for the cathedral authorities in the early

15th century.

A yawning space had been left open for a dome thatat 45m (150 feet) widewould be far larger than any

attempted since antiquity. Unfortunately, no architect of the time had any idea how to span the space.

No architect, that is, saveBrunelleschi, who unlocked the secrets of Rome's Pantheon to create the largest free-standing dome since antiquity, a masterpiece of architecture, engineering, and lyrical grace.

The cathedral dome

The ingenious construction of Brunelleschi's dome.By the early 15th century, Florence had nearly finished its

ambitious, enormous newcathedral.

There was only one problem.
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At its center was a yawning space, an architectural conundrum that had been kicked down the line ofresponsibility, each architect figuring the next one would have to figure it out.

See, thedomenecessary to cover this space was far larger than any attempted since antiquityand no architect

of the time had any idea how to span the space.

No architect, that is, save Brunelleschi.

All the experts of the day said no one would ever be able to erect a dome that big

not without usingscaffolding and supports that would be far too costly to build.

Among the suggestions to solve this part of the problem was to pile up a mound of dirt inside the cathedral,seeded with small coins. The dirt could be used as a support for building the dome, and then removed at no cost

by inviting the poor to come take away pails of dirt in the hopes of finding some cash in it.

Scaffolding (or dirt pile) aside, even if it the workers had something to stand on while they labored, and even ifthe thing could be built, many were afraid a dome that large would simply collapse under its own weight.

Brunelleschi proved them all wrong

Eggs again

According to legend, Brunelleschi approached the church works authorities claiming he knew the answer andcould build the requireddome, but he refused to reveal his solution until granted to commission to do so.

The authorities were just as stubborn, and refused to grant such a major commission to a relatively untested

architect. Besides, they had a long line of artists eager and willing to take on the task, may of whom hadsketched plans or made models.

They were at a standstill. Then Brunelleschi issued his challenge. He produced and egg and a slab of marble. He

said that if any of the other artists up for the job there could make the egg stand on its end on the smoothmarble, he would tell them how he planned to build the dome. If they could not, and Brunelleschi could, he

would receive the commission with no questions asked.

They passed around the egg, each trying carefully to balance it on its end, each failing.

Then it was Brunelleschi turn.

He took the egg in hand and brought it down firmly, end-first, onto the the slab. The end cracked and flattened,

and the egg stood there, oozing albumin.

The gathered artists and dignitaries were indignant, claiming he was a cheat and that any of them could easilyhave done the same thing. To this, Brunelleschi replied, "And any one of you would have know how to vault thecupola, had you seen my model or plans."

Now there's every reason to believe this story is apocryphal (you may have heard the same tale told about

Columbus), but it is the one Vasari tells, it fits nicely with Brunelleschi's character, and perhaps mostimportantly it neatly brings the broken egg theme back into the story.
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10/23

It is world famous for its three sets of bronze double doors covered with relief panels. The South Doors weredone by Gothic great Andrea Pisano, and the other two represent the life work of Lorenzo Ghiberti.

This humble sculptor accidentally kick-started the Renaissance (with the North Doors, which he spent 21 years

crafting). He then spent 27 years laboring to create the East Doors, so revolutionary and beautiful thatMichelangelo himself later dubbed them "worthy to grace the Gates of Paradise," the name by which they

have been known ever since.

The baptistery doors that started the Renaissance

A three sets of bronze doors are famous, but the grandest are the East Doors facing the Duomo, cast byGhiberti from 142552.

Replaced now by gleaming replicas (the originals are in theDuomo Museum), these large panels display a

remarkable skill in using perspective and composition to tell complicated stories.Michelangeloonce calledthem "The Gates of Paradise," and the name stuck.

Ghiberti was allowed free artistic reign in creating these groundbreaking Gates of Paradisebecause Florence

was so happy with how his first commission had turned out.

Way back in 1401, Ghiberti had won a competition to cast the baptistery's North Doors, beating out the likes

of Donatello and Brunelleschi (who, in a huff, decided to turn his focus to architecture instead; wise move,since he later returned to build the famousdomeover thecathedral, revolutionizing Renaissance architecture).

Since the reasons the judges chose Ghiberti's contest submission were based on the aspects of art (realism,

dynamic composition, perspective techniques) that would become the keystones of the Renaissance, manyscholars chose this date, 1401, to markthe beginning of the Renaissance.

(Why few guidebooks mention this is beyond me, but: two of the submitted bronze panels from that 1401

competitionGhiberti's andBrunelleschi'sare preserved in theBargello sculpture museum.)

The baptistery's interior and the story of an antipope

The Baptistery's interior, open the afternoon, is swathed in glittering 13th-century mosaics. The cone-shaped

ceiling is covered an incredibly detailed Last Judgmentscene presided over by an enormous, ape-toed Christsome eight meters (26.4 feet) tall.

Against one wall rises the Tomb of Antipope John XXIII, designed by Renaissance architectural giantMichelozzo and decorated by none other thanDonatello.

This begs two questions: (1) What is an antipope? and (2) What is one doing with a tomb decorated by suchimportant artists in such a sacred spot?

So, what is an antipope? Starting in the third century, the complicated politics of the church often created two or

three "antipopes" each century, usually rival claimants to the bishopric of Rome (remember, that's the pope'sonly real office: he's the Bishop of Rome), or two top cardinals backed by competing emperors, kings, or other

powers.

Things came to a head in the late 14th century when, to break the string of fairly corrupt French popes out ofAvignon, the conclave of cardinals elected a Pugliese man to become Pope Urban VI. Several of them soon had
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second thoughts, convened again in 1378, declared Urban VI's election to be invalid, and set up Robert ofGeneva as Pope Clement VII, based in Avignon.

This began the Great Western Schism, and I'm just glossing over it here, but things were a mess. There was a

succession of rival popes, one based in Rome and one in Avignon, who spent much of their timeexcommunicating one other and trying to win a critical mass of support from other European powers.

In 1409, a group of cardinals got disgusted enough with both campsafter both popes promised to attend at

meeting to resolve the issue then balked and never showed

that a church council convened in Pisa. It voted todepose both Rome and Avignon's popes andyepelect a third man to become Pope Alexander V.

So now the church had three popes, each claiming to be the only legitimate one. Alexander V died less than ayear into his pseudo-papacy, and he was succeeded by John XXIII.

John XXIII's real name was Baldassare Cossa, and he was a decent enough bloke, the head of the Council of

Pisa that had elected Alexander V. (Though, if you believe famed historian Edward Gibbon, John XXIII wasguilty of incest, rape, sodomy, murder, and, my favorite, piracy. There is strong evidence this was all just

slander, part the cross-continental mudslinging that came with the Great Schism.)

Whatever else he may have done, John XXIII was instrumental in ending the Great Western Schism. At thebehest of Emperor Sigismund, he convened the Council of Constance in 1412. Eventuallyafter a rousing

couple of years that included flights, imprisonment, escape, reconciliation, and moreboth John XXIII and theRoman Pope Gregory XII agreed to authorize the council to elect a single new pope. Then, incredibly, both men

abdicated their papacies (though how willingly is the subject of much discussion). The council quicklyexcommunicated the holdout pope in Avignon, Benedict XIII, and in 1417 elected a Roman cardinal named

Odo Colonna to become Pope Martin V.

The Great Western Schism was over.

Baldassare Cossa, the man who gave up the papacy (or at least a papacy) and helped restore the church, died in

Florence on December 22, 1419, just six months after Martin V made him a cardinal again in the restoredchurch.

So, why the grand tomb? Cossa had made a key ally of Florence in 1504, when he helped the city conquer Pisa.

He also made a key alley of Florence'sMedici clanwhen, as pope, he designated that the family become theofficial bankers for the papacya legacy upon which theMediciwould found centuries of fame, fortune, and

power.

TheMediciwere too shrewd as politicians to forget their friends.

This is why Cossa's executorsmost prominentlyMedicidynasty founder Giovanni di Bicci de' Medici and his

son Cosimo

chose to honor the pope they had backed with a magnificent tomb, one that reportedly cost morethan 1,000 florins, was crafted by the city's foremost artists, and was installed in the very ecclesiastical heart of

the city: inside the ancient baptistery.

It was the last time any pope was buried outside of Rome.
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Giotto's bell tower

Giotto's Florence campanile is one of Italy's loveliest bell towers

To the right of thecathedralfacade is what's known as Giotto's Bell Tower, even though that early Renaissance

painter only designed and built the first two levels of it.

Several architects and styles later, it emerged as "The Lily of Florence," a 277-foot-high pillar of marble piercedwith slender windows and ringed by marble reliefs.

(Most of the sculptures have been rescued from the elements and replaced by replicas. Want to see the originalsup close? They're housed in theMuseo dell'Opera del Duomobehind thecathedral.)

If climbing theDuomo's domewasn't enough for you, you can scale this baby, too, in 414 steps and without

the crowds the Dome's ascent draws.

The view's not quite so high, but you get a great close-up shot ofBrunelleschi's dome.

The Duomo Museum

Florence's Museo dell'Opera dell Duomo is filled with works byMichelangelo,Donatello,

Brunelleschi, Ghiberti, and other Titans of the early Renaissance

The Museo dell'Opera Del Duomo (Museum of Cathedral Works) is directly behind the cathedral at Piazza del Duomo

9perhaps hiding back here is how this rich and informative museum remains largely undiscovered and devoid of

crowdsthough the expanded and more obvious entrance helps.

All the statues removed from thecathedral facade(including the original, 15th century one), from Giotto'sbelltower, and from thebaptisteryin order to preserve them out of the elements are kept hereincluding the

original panels from Ghiberti's famous Gates of Paradise.

The best of the statues

What all that means in practical terms is that the rooms are filled with early works by Andrea Pisano, Arnolfo

di Cambio, Luca della Robbia, and especially the expressive and emotional statues ofDonatello, including aweeping wooden Mary Magdalene, looking creepily haggard, and the leering bald prophet Habakukthat localscall "Pumpkinhead."

Look up high on the walls in the first room up on the first floor (second story to Americans) and you'll see two

cantorie(choir lofts, though they might have actually been organ lofts) made in 1430 and filled with dancing,

singing, and running children.

The one of the left was done by Luca della Robbia, each panel crowded with a little Renaissance boy band or

girl group strumming lutes, banging drums, and belting out the hits (the actual panels are collected down at eyelevel, with replicas taking their place in the choir loft above).

The cantoria on the right was done byDonatello, who carved the little cherubs as racing across the surface

behind the columns, one panel spilling into the next to create a single long scene, the kiddies flitting in andaround the columns and peeking out from behind them, pushing and shoving and laughing away.
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Two very different styles, both delightful.

Ghiberti's Gates of Paradise

The star exhibit is the collection of original gilded bronze relief panels from Ghiberti's Gates of Paradisefrom

thebaptistery.

They removed to save them from the wear and tear of the weather; those now on its doors are replicas), whichare slowly being put on display here under glass as they are cleaned and restored.

(I remember them still back on the actualbaptisterygates themselves in the mid 1980s, when the piazzasurrounding them was, believe it or not, a parking lot. Each panel was caked in so much sooty black dirtthe

legacy of car exhaust from before Italy had catalytic convertersyou could barely tell what was on them. Just afew shiny parts poked out here and there, marking the bits where decades of tourists' curious fingers had rubbed

away the grime.)

Michelangelo's (?) Piet

On the landing between the first and second floors sitsMichelangelo's Pietgroup

the figure of Nicodemusat the back is said to be a self-portrait.

Then again, it is also said of this work that either:

(a)Michelangelotook a hammer to it in a fury because it wasn't turning out right and was only stopped fromdestroying it when his assistants physically restrained him (and then later finished off the grouping of figures

their master had abandoned), or

(b)Michelangelodidn't touch his chisel to any part of the sculpture and that it was entirely the product of hisworkshop.

Who knows? What is pretty certain

based on obvious stylistic differences

is that his followers probably didcarve at least some of the figures.

Brunelleschi's dome

There are also a series of intriguing exhibits related to the building of the cathedral, including some of the actualgear and block and tackle invented byBrunelleschito engineer his revolutionary Cathedraldomein 142036

(along with a plaster cast of his death mask).

The full story is told on the page aboutBrunelleschi, but in brief, there were two problems to solve.

1) Architectural: Everyone said the empty space to be capped by a dome was too big and any dome wouldcollapse under its own weight. Based on the best architectural practices and theories of the time, they were

right.

Brunelleschi, however, had studied thePantheoninRomeand came up with an elegant architectural solution.

He built the dome in two shells of bricksinterlocked in a herringbone pattern and supported by vertical ribsand had the shells thin and become lighter as they approach the top (and each other).

2) Engineering: Everyone said, fine, even if you couldbuild a dome, it would still be prohibitively expensive

and cumbersome to fill the entire church with enough scaffolding atop which to build the dome. Again, this was
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the best engineering solution available to them at the time, and they were right.Brunelleschi's outside-the-boxsolution was to do away with the traditional forest of scaffolding entirely. Remember those interlocking bricks

(molds for which are on display here)? They also made each level of the dome self-supporting, allowingBrunelleschi's team to work on just one level, or layer at a timewhich they did from small scaffolds hung

from the inside of the partially completed dome itself. In effect, they used each recently-completed layer tosupport the workers while they built the next one. Ingenious.

(Fun aside:Brunelleschialso installed a tavern up in the job site itself so his workers wouldn't waste time

lowering themselves back down to the ground and then up again for lunch.)

To ferry workers, equipment, and supplies up to his novel working environment,Brunelleschialso adapted andinvented new pulley systems, cranes, and those hanging scaffolds, some of which are the items on display here.

Yes, these are the actual, 590-year-old wooden devices that revolutionized the world of architecturalengineering in the early 15th century.

The facades that never were

There are also several 16th century wooden models of potential cathedral facades offered by the architectural

greats of the day, including Giambologna and Buontalenti. These were part of a 1588 competition finally to

give the Duomo a proper facade, and as part of the buildup in 1587, church authorities merrily scraped away theoriginal, partial facade by Arnolfo di Cambio that had graced the bottom third of the cathedral front since 1420.

(Luckily, they saved di Cambio's original statues, now on display in the first room as pictured in the photographup at the start of this page.)

Unfortunately, they jumped the gun with the whole 'destroying the existing facade' move. For various reasons,none of the new plans were selected or built. Subsequent attempts to get a facade program off the ground failed

as well, and the Duomo remained largely faceless for more than 300 years.

Emilio De Fabris designed the cathedral's current, Neo-Gothicfacadein 1871 in the wake of nationalist

euphoria when Florence was (briefly) capital of the newly created Kingdom of Italy.

Santa Croce

Santa Croce church is the Westminster Abbey of

Florence: The tombs of Renaissance giants

Michelangelo, Machiavelli,Galileo, and Rossini (plus

some greatGiottofrescoes

and a renownedleather school)

This big ol' barn of a Franciscan church on Florence's western edge has some great Giotto frescoes (below), but

is also the Westminster Abbey of the Renaissance.

Also like Westminster, Santa Croce now (scandalously) charges an admission fee.
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The tombs

Santa Croce sports the tombs ofMichelangelo,composerRossini (Barber of Seville and the William Tell

Overture, a.k.a. theLone Ranger Theme), political thinker and writerMachiavelli (who's gotten a bad rap forcoming right out and saying a good ruler sometimes has to be sneaky), and Pisan scientistGalileo(the guy who

dropped balls of differing weights off the Leaning Tower and went on to get excommunicated for c laiming theEarth orbited the suns'okay; the pope later forgave him... in 1992; note, however, the Earth properly orbiting

the sun on this funerary monument).

TheGiottofrescoes

.Head to the right transept to see two chapels covered by the frescoes ofGiotto, a former shepherd who became

the forefather of the Renaissance in the early 14th century when he broke painting out of its static Byzantinemold and infused it with life, movement, depth, and emotion.

Never before had monks cried so piteously at their leader's death, holding his hand tenderly and gazingdespondently at his dead face.

The frescoes were damaged in the baroque era when the frescoes were whitewashed away and wall tombs wererudely attached atop them.

To modern eyes, which viewGiottoas one of the most important painters in the history of art, this borders on

sacrilegeand much time and painstaking effort was spent in the 1840s to uncover theGiottofrescoesbut thebaroque thought little of covering up what were, to them, crude medieval decorations.

(Taste is, of course, subjective, and I just hope our descendents don't develop a deep passion for the

overwrought baroque era and become incensed that we destroyed the later decorations just to uncover a fewGiottos.)

The leather school

Off the right transept (or enter at Via San Giuseppe 5r around the left/north side of the church), a corridor leads

through the gift shop to the monastery's famed leather schoola bit pricey, but of very high quality.

You can also ask the workers to emboss your purchasesay, a walletwith initials or a name in gold leaf.(Somewhere around here, I still have a small leather change purse with my initials and the Lily of Florence in

gold that I bought when I was 11.)

The Museo dell'Opera di Santa Croce

After you finish with the church itself, you wend your way through a series of pretty cloisters on the south flankcontaining modern sculptures and the Pazzi Chapel, one ofBrunelleschi's architectural masterpieces.

The ancient refectory was frescoed by Gothic great Taddeo Gaddi with a de rigueurLast Supperscene

(conventual dining halls often had this most famous of biblical meals painted on one wall) just beneath amassive Tree of Life.

Also here are fresco fragments by Andrea Orcagna, which used to be on the right wall of the church itself;

Donatello's bronze St. Louis of Toulouse (in a plaster niche recreating its original housing on the exterior of the
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Orsanmichele; and a gallery filled with some of the art salvaged from the 1966 Arno flood (which inundatedthe city with 20 feet of water and mud), including a badly damaged Crucifixby Cimabue, Giotto's teacher.

The Orsanmichele

A Gothic granary-turned-church decorated by early

Renaissance sculptures

Given this odd church's location halfway down the historic center's major

street, you'll keep passing as you criss-cross Florence. Might as well popin for a look.

Save for the statues in elaborate marble niches and the oversized, filigreedwindow frames, from the outside this blocky building doesn't look like most churches, because it wasn't always

one.

It was a medieval city granary, built in 1337, and became a church only after a miraculous vision appeared onone of its interior columns in 1380. The statues of saints in frilly stone Gothic niches are by such Renaissance

greats asDonatello, Ghiberti, Verrocchio, and Giambologna.

What's in a name?This was once the site of a garden (orto) for the now-vanished monastery of St. Michael. In other words, it was

the "Orto San Michele," which, over the centuries, elided to "Orsanmichele."Actually, the statues outside arereplicas; most of the the time-bitten originals are kept safe from further deterioration in a museum upstairs

which is, oddly, open only on Mondays (which gets confusing in August, when the church itself is closedMondays). At least it's free.

The two statues that are not in that museum upstairs areDonatello's St. George (in theBargello, complete withhis original niche) and his St. Louis of Toulouse (in the museum atSanta Croce).

Inside the church itself (for which entry is free) is a massive and gorgeous carved Gothic altar (technically a

tabernacle) inside by Andrea Orcagna containing an exquisite 1347Madonna and Childby Giotto followerBernardo Daddi.

The Bargello

A flock ofDonatellosand other great works in this sculpture

gallery annex of the Uffizi

What theUffiziis to painting, the Bargello is to Renaissance sculpturelargely

because this actually was theUffizi's sculpture and applied arts collection, moved

here in 1859 after it outgrew theUffizispace.

This imposing, castle-like palazzo was built in 12551350 as the original"Palazzo del Popolo" seat of government. It remained the mayor's office until

1502, when it became a police headquarters and prison until 1859 (see the boxbelow to the right).
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It now contains the greatest collection of Renaissance sculpture in Florencein fact, one of the best in all ofItaly.

You could spend 45 minutes or two hours here, depending how much you're into the early works of

Michelangelo(a wonderfully tipsy Bacchus, the Madonna of the Stair s, and a Bust of Brutusthat may be asemi self-portrait), or of mannerist Giambologna (hisFlyingMercury and many whimsical animal bronzes

intended to decorate Medici gardens).

There are also collections of fine porcelain, objets d'art, silverwork, and otherdecorative arts,but it is thesculpture that reign supremeespecially the works byDonatello, the first truly great sculptor of the

Renaissance.

The baddest prison in town

After a confession had been rung out of them by the authorities inside, the bodies of particularly reviled criminals were

hung from the Bargello's windows. The great artists of the day would be commissioned to come paint the portraits of

the malefactors on the lower external walls as a warning to others. When Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo abolished the

death penalty in 1786, the Bargello's torture instruments were ceremoniously burned in the Bargello's surviving ber-

medieval courtyard.

A room full ofDonatellos

A huge room on the second floor is filled with some ofDonatello's masterpieces,

including a mischievous bronze Atys-Amorinocupid; the most oft-copied version ofthe Marzocco, the city's heraldic lion; and a terracotta bust of Ni ccol da Uzzano.

There also a noble marble St. Georgecarved in 1416 and long ago removed from its

niche at theOrsanmichele.

Look at the masterfulpanel beneath showing the saint slaying his dragon done in

schiacciato, a technique of working in extreme low relief, lines often barely scratchedinto the marble like a sketch, that presaged by a decade theuse of linear perspective in painting.

The most famousDonatelloshere, though, are two versions ofDavid.

The first a lovely early work in marble. The secondDavidis a remarkable bronze that depicts the Biblical hero

as a prepubescent young boy, naked save for his helmet and massive sword, foot resting casually atop the headof the slain Goliath. It was considered even at the time to be one of the greatest masterpieces of early

Renaissance sculptureand was the first free-standing bronze nude cast since antiquity.

The room has more than just theDonatellos. There are stellar sculptures by Desiderio da Settignano, Agostino

di Duccio, Vecchietta, and Michelozzo, as well as some of the the patented glazed terracottas ofLuca dellaRobbia and Andrea della Robbia.

I also like to point out a small work on the wall, a tumultuous Batt le Sceneby one of Donatello's star students,

Giovanni di Bertoldo. Bertoldo would later go on to teach a talented teenager namedMichelangelohow tosculpt. (Look at the similar work by a youngMichelangeloin theCasa Buonarottiand you'll see Bertoldo's

influence.)
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