Art, Art, Art...

When in Florence, pose like a goofball in Pope Leo X's room!!

There are not words to describe the last few days. I just returned from the Uffizi Gallery, one of the three unfathomable art galleries here in Florence. Yesterday, I went to the gallery at Pallazo Vecchio, another incredible gallery. This place is just saturated with art!!

I’ll recap the last couple days since I haven’t blogged in a few:

Monday, we began our Italian language classes. Having never taken a foreign language class, I was truly thrown for a loop. Our two teachers, Elena and Sara, are very kind and helpful, though. They speak almost always in Italian, but then switch to English if we don’t understand. Honestly, I have picked up on more than I thought I would have after three days. The things I don’t understand usually have to do with “conjugating verbs,” which everyone else seems to know everything about except me, but like I said, it’s because I never took a foreign language. I can piece together and understand most of what they say in the classroom, but when it comes to speaking the language myself, it is another matter entirely.

Also on Monday, a group of us hiked up to Piazza Michelangelo, which is located on a hill overlooking the city of Florence. We had to walk a LOOOONG way and ascend a few hundred stairs, but the vista from atop the hill made the trek well worth the effort. On top of the hill was also a still-functioning monastery and church originally established in the 5^th century. In the lower picture is my friend, Reilly, and myself.

After class on Tuesday, some of us went to Palazzo Vecchio, one of the Medici family’s residences during their 300-year reign over Florence’s political scene. It has also been the town hall of Florence since the Medicis assumed power. Our tour guide led us up some secret stairways into the private apartments of Francesco de’ Medici, where he had constructed a system of secret doors and hidden panels built into his shrine to the four elements: Earth, Air, Fire, and Water.

This is a painting I know I have seen in a textbook of alchemists trying to turn lead into gold. Francesco was himself an alchemist, being in the painting on the lower right.

The coolest room in the Palazzo was the Great Hall, a 50 m long, 30 m tall and wide mammoth of a room. The Medicis used it as their living room (imagine that!) and their ballroom for special occasions. The room is lined with several sculptures, one by Michelangelo. The walls are covered by six gigantic frescoes of Italian battles dating to the 16^th century. The ceiling is covered with scores of paintings on wood panels, surrounded by wooded frames covered in gold leaf. Our guide told us that 200,000 gold coins were melted down to make enough gold leaf to cover all of the frames. Vesari, the architect of Palazzo Vecchio, devised a revolutionary system of suspending the ceiling by using the paintings themselves to counter the weight of the roof. It is an old idea nowadays, but Vesari invented the system with this building. This picture does no justice to the vastness of the room.

I became REALLY excited when I found Leo X’s private rooms! Leo X was a Medici who was elected Pope in [1512]. I remember discussing his impact a lot in European History with Mr. Cook, back in High School. The Palazzo had an entire room dedicated to him and his impact on the City-State of Florence. 

And last, but CERTAINLY not least, today we visited the Uffizi Gallery, the oldest museum in the world. I counted at least twelve paintings that I had seen in previous fine arts and/or history textbooks. We got to see Botticelli’s Birth of Venus and La Primavera (Spring), da Vinci’s Adoration of the Magi, and Gentileschi’s Judith and Holofernes among thousands of other paintings and hundreds of sculptures, both of Antiquity and the Renaissance. Unfortunately, Caravaggio’s The Sacrifice of Isaac was on loan to a museum in France. L And you all know how I feel about Caravaggio…

The net worth of the art collection in this building has to equal billions of Euros! It was unfortunate that we had to hurry through in order to see all of the masterpieces, but with a collection that large, we had no choice. It is honestly on par with the Louvre in Paris.

To sum up, what I have seen in the past two days far outweighs my life previously on the artistic importance scale by a LONG shot. I am truly blessed to be in a place like this that appreciates art to this degree. Next Thursday, we will visit the Accademia gallery, where Michelangelo’s David and more priceless works are kept.

Tomorrow, I’ll try to talk more about day-to-day life for me and things like gelato and pizza. :-)