Tom`s travels: Florence (19-24/11/2015)

This time I was in Florence, guest at my portuguese friend Carolina's house, who was there studying for a semester. My good friend Simona from Bulgaria had also come, so it was a great occasion to meet up again. I took a really cheap ride with Megabus from Padova which cost me only 17 euros with return included. I arrived at 1:30pm and waited about an hour for Simona to arrive, we then went to sleep to be able to start visiting in the late morning. The house was located just by the train station so it was easy to get right at the heart of the city. We obviously woke up pretty late but by noon we were out having brunch and ready to stroll around. We reached the Basilica di San Lorenzo first, and just gave a quick look at the cloister since to visit the church we needed to buy a ticket. Walking a few hundred meters we reached the beautiful Piazza del Duomo, with three beautiful monuments at its center: the Cathedral, Giotto's Campanile and the Baptistry. We entered the amazing Cathedral and walked seeing its impressive nave and columns; the way to the altar was blocked so I decided to head out and back in through the prayer entrance where a guard said we could enter only if we wanted to pray. I told him we were and in the meantime enjoyed the beautiful frescoed dome. We then went out and headed for the nearby Piazza della Repubblica, once the site of the Old market and the Jewish ghetto it took its present form when Florence, after the unification of Italy, was capital for a few years. The new capital needed a grand square to show it's importance and this place was considered to be squalid and needed new large streets, thus the decision to create the square. Most of the old buildings were dismantled and only a few important ones such as the Fish market Loggia was reconstructed in another part of the city. Only the Column of the Abundance still remains at the center of the square. Carolina then suggested we climb to the rooftop of the Rinascente, a department store, where we had a beautiful view over the rooftops and of the Cathedral. Once back down in the streets we walked a bit and reached the Loggia del Mercato Nuovo known as the Loggia del Porcellino due to the famous Fontana del Porcellino or fountain of the piglet. This fountain actually representing a boar, is a modern copy of a bronze 17th century copy of a roman marble one, and it is said to bring good luck if its nose is stroked and a coin let fall through the grates from the boar's mouth. We then turned east and reached the beautiful Piazza della Signoria with the famous Palazzo Vecchio. This palace is now the town hall and used to be the seat of power of the ruling body of Florence. It was first built in the 13th century, around a preexisting tower modified in the same century by Arnolfo di Cambio, and had some additional features added the following two centuries particularly in its expansion eastward. Right in front of the palace are several important statues and monuments. The most beautiful of all is probably the Fountain of Neptune built in 1565, right beside it is the equestrian monument of Cosimo I from 1594, then right at the entrance door is the copy of the famous Michelangelo's David which was moved in the early 20th century inside the Accademia and next to it the original statue of Hercules and Cacus dating from 1534. Right beside the statues is the Loggia dei Lanzi, built in the 14th century and used to house the assemblies of the people, it now contains several beautiful renaissance statues like Perseus with the head of Medusa (1545), Hercules and Nessus (1599), copy of Donatello's Judith and Holofernes (which is now inside the Palazzo Vecchio) and several others. We walked further on till we reached the immense Piazza Santa Croce with its impressive Basilica of Santa Croce. The square has been the site of the violent but much followed Calcio Fiorentino ( a type of soccer/boxe/rugby) since the 15th century, and still now every year it is held here when the piazza is completely covered with sand for the occasion.
The following day we took a trip to Prato and Pistoia (which I will write a post about) and at night we decided to go out. Our friend Sebastiano had come to visit too and so with him and Carolina's roommate Rosangela we headed to a place called Red Garter that was a sort of restaurant that becomes a nightclub after midnight. We stayed out quite late and came back around 5am; the following day was rainy and we woke up in the afternoon so we didn't do anything of note. We did walk around the city a bit right after dinner and went to see the wonderful Ponte Vecchio spanning across the Arno river. The following day we decided to go see the Uffizi Gallery, one of the most prominent art museums in Italy and in the world. The museum is huge and it took us quite well over 3 hours and we were visiting quite fast too; since there are two complete floors filled with rooms, and also the last part wasn't even open so it would have taken at least an extra half hour. The visit goes in chronological order and start with some roman sculptures and continues on with the early middle ages with famous artists such as Giotto and Cimabue. Then there's the first renaissance with artists like Paolo Uccello and Piero della Francesca; further on a whole room of Botticelli and another of Leonardo with some incredible works. There is also the tribune which is a heptagonal room that used to be the original museum under the rule of Francesco I Medici in 1584. Then the Renaissance room with artists from all over Italy and Europe such as Durer, Bellini, Mantegna, Correggio, Memling and others. Again other rooms with artits such as Titian, Michelangelo, Tintoretto, Veronese, Caravaggio and european ones like Rembrandt, Velazquez, El Greco, Goya, Rubens, Van Dyck etc. Along the rooms was a beautifully decorated corridor with splendid ancient sculptures dating to the Renaissance and ancient roman times. It was a truly great visit and well worth our time. It was already dark once we exited the museum and we decided to walk across the river to see a bit of the other side. We passed on the Ponte Vecchio, with its wonderful arches and completely covered and sided with shops. The day after it rained most of the day so we decided to relax at home, then right after sunset it stopped so we decided to take the bus to Piazzale Michelangelo, a large square overlooking the city from the south east across the river. The view from up there was amazing, and we could see all the city with its iconic monuments; the Cathderal, the Palazzo Vecchio, the Ponte Vecchio etc. We spent quite some time enjoying the view and then descended down into the city and walked back home. For dinner I wanted my friends to try the typical dish of Florence; the Fiorentina, a really large steak usually around 1.5kg which is said to taste really good. I found some suggestions online and I opted for the Antica Trattoria da Tito which had a really nice informal atmosphere with waiters joking around and making fun of each other. The food was really good especially the steak, and they also offered us a really good Pappa al Pomodoro, a type of tomato soup with bread dipped in.
On my last in Florence I decided to visit the museum complex of the Cathedral. This includes five site with a single ticket, which being part of FAI I had to pay only 3 euros instead of 15. We decided to climb Giotto's Campanile first; the beautiful bell tower that reached 84m in height. It was actually built by three architects the first of which, Giotto, saw only the beginning before his death in 1337. After Giotto came Andrea Pisano who oversaw most of the remaining construction until 1348 when he died from the black plague, several years later in 1359 Francesco Talenti was able to conclude it and this is how we see it today. The view from the top was amazing, one side was the whole roof of the Cathedral with the immense Dome looming out, and all around the beautiful city of Florence with its many palaces and churches. After descending the tower we headed for the next site, which was the church of Santa Reparata that used to stand where the Cathedral now sits. It is now used as the crypt of the cathedral and there are some really nice early christian mosaics and medieval sarcophagi. From there we headed out and into the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, which used to be since the beginning the association that still nowadays oversees the construction and restoration of the Cathedral. The museum is very modern and hosts all the beautiful statues, decorations that were part of the Cathedral and are now kept there safely. Among the many statues, there are some really famous ones such as the Deposition by Michelangelo and the Penitent Magdalene by Donatello. Also on display are the Gates of Paradise, the original eastern door of the Baptistery made by Ghiberti between 1425 and 1452 and completely gilded detailing stories from the Old Testament. Among the many statues there were also models of the cathedral and of the facade that had to be constructed in the 19th century and made to resemble the rest of the Gothic church. We then headed for the last site since the Baptistery was unfortunately closed for filming all day. So we entered the church once again and climbed the flight of stairs leading to the top of the Dome. The so called Cupola of Brunelleschi, was as the name suggests built by the architect Brunelleschi who ingeniously found a way to finally find a solution to the open space that was left over a hundred years after the construction of the church. In fact many architects could not figure out how to close the immense space without the dome collapsing on itself due to its size and weight. Many had rejected the only possible way which was to use flying buttresses since they were believed to be dated and used by their enemies the French. A possible solution was to adopt the ancient roman way of keeping a hole in the middle and then covering it with an external cover, probably in wood, so it wouldn't rain inside. Brunelleschi however found the incredible solution of actual building two domes one inside the other so as to reduce the size and weight of either one. The first was built in light wood and the second in brick which was much lighter than stone, in between he left some space and connected the two domes with iron bars and wooden beams to keep the weight balanced and holding down on the stone structure of the cathedral. It is thus considered the start of a new form of architecture that completely reject medieval forms and ways of building now known as the Renaissance, being Florence the birth of this new style. From then on it was considered for many centuries to be the largest dome in the world until modern techniques came around, but it is still considered the largest brick one in the world. Such an architectural feat was then frescoed from the inside by Vasari and Zuccari in 1579 which we could observe closely while we walked towards the top. The view from up there was probably even better than the one from the bell tower and in addition to seeing the whole city we could see the hills and mountains all along the north some of which were even slightly snow capped. After our extensive visit we were quite hungry so we decided to have a quick lunch at the Antico Vinaio, a really popular place both among locals and tourists, and probably the most famous in Florence, that serves amazing sandwiches with all kinds of things inside them. I had a delicious one with porchetta, soft cheese, salad and truffle which gave it a spicy but great flavor. We could also drink as much wine as we wanted, so we decided to sit outside, since it was full of people, and took a bottle with us. After this impressive lunch we still had time to visit so we crossed the river and decided to visit the beautiful Palazzo Pitti with its even more beautiful Boboli Gardens. We entered the Gardens first, which serve as public park for the residents of Florence but have a cost if entered as a tourist. The beauty of this garden is all about its architecture, since it was built in the 15th century by the Medici family in the Italian way, perfectly mixing nature with architecture and creating a masterpiece. There are statues and fountains and pathways all around, perfectly cut bushes and an immense open air theater with an ancient egyptian obelisk at its center using the Palace and the city as a beautiful backdrop. After a long stroll we visited the several museums inside the Pitti Palace, which was initially- built in the Renaissance style in 1549 for the Medici family, later served as the ruling residence of the Grand dukes of Tuscany and then as royal residence of the kings of Italy until its donation to the public in 1919. Since the museums were many and we didn't have much time we opted for the combined ticket of the Silver museum, the Costume gallery and the Porcelain museum (which we didn't see due to lack of time). The Silver museum had some really nice silvers, cameos and works with gemstones, most of which owned by Lorenzo de Medici. The rooms which contained all the works were probably even more interesting than the pieces themselves, at least in my opinion, since they were richly decorated and painted during the 16th and 17th centuries. The Costume gallery also hosted in nicely decorated rooms had some really interesting costumes dating from the 16th century, like the extremely rare funeral clothes of Grand Duke Cosimo I, and all the way to the modern era. Once our visit was over, since the museum was closing, we headed back home since I had to leave not long after. In fact I just had the time to quickly pack and say goodbye to my friends and got on the bus back to Padova, hoping to come back to this beautiful city to able to finish my thorough visit.