ITALY, Day 6, July 13, 2011

ITALY, Day 6, July 13, 2011

Today was one of those red-letter sightseeing days of one of the most important cities of Italy and a major center of Renaissance art. After breakfast, we started walking towards the city center. Greater Florence spreads several km down the Arno Valley and up onto the hills north and south of the city, but the major sights are contained within an area that can be crossed on foot in little over half an hour. A short walk from our hotel brought us to the Baptistery, Duomo, the Piazza della Signoria, and the Ponte Vecchio.

First, the Duomo, where a guide met us. Sometime in the 7^th c., the seat of the Bishop of Florence was transferred from San Lorenzo to Santa Reparata, a 6^th c. church which once stood on the site of the present day Duomo. Later generations modified this older church until 1294, when Florence’s rulers were stung into action by the magnificence of newly commissioned cathedrals in Siena and Pisa.

A plan to remedy this situation was ordered by Arnulfo di Cambio, who drafted a scheme to create the largest church in the Roman Catholic world and surpass anything of its kind in the world at that time. Progress faltered after Arnulfo’s death, but a string of architects carried out his ideas, making for an amazingly large, ornate cathedral, campanile, and baptistery that dwarfs anything else in the square. As the line for the interior of the Duomo snaked around the building, our guide took us, next, to the church of Santa Croce. Florence’s two most lavish churches after the Duomo were the headquarters of two preaching orders: the Dominican and the Franciscan. Santa Croce belonged to the latter order, and it evolved into the mausoleum of Tuscany’s most eminent citizens. More than 270 monuments are to be found here, commemorating, for instance, Ghiberti, Michelangelo, Alberti, Macchiavelli, Galileo, and Dante, though Dante was actually buried in Ravenna, where he died. Giotto’s paintings illustrating the lives of St. Francis and St. John the Baptist, in two separate chapels, complete the greatness of the cathedral. To me, it was heady to think that so many famous Italians had been buried in that one church.

After the church of Santa Croce, we went to the Piazza della Signoria, the secular square of town, with the town hall the nucleus of the square. There are four great statues on the square: a copy of Michelangelo’s David; Cellini’s statue of Perseus slaying the Medusa, a statue of Cosimo de Medici, and a Hercules Fountain. The Piazza was cram-packed with people, and the Uffizi Gallery, facing into the square, had a line snaking down the street. As we had not reserved tickets in advance, there was no way we were going to get in to see its holdings, even though I chafed at not being able to see the Raphael rooms.

Our guide left us at the Piazza della Signoria, and from there we walked to a famous leathermaking establishment close to Santa Croce, called Leonardo’s. We were given a demonstration 101 lesson on leather work and then looked around the shop. Both a purse that I was contemplating as well as a gorgeous piece of gray luggage trimmed with butternut-colored leather, both reasonably priced, were snapped up by Nancy, who wanted the bag for herself and the luggage as a gift for her husband Jim for their anniversary. I was slightly piqued, as I had pointed them out to her in the first place. However, I found a leather bracelet and a coin purse (pyramid-shaped and orange, a most “impudent” little purse) for myself and a birthday present for Alexandra. After that, Nancy and I headed off for lunch—she had a sandwich and I had a wonderful mushroom omelet and a straciatella ice cream for dessert.

Following lunch, we crossed the Arno at Ponte Vecchio, and headed towards the delightful formal garden of the Palazzo Pitti, called the Giardino di Boboli, which takes its name from the Boboli family, owners of much of this area, which once was a quarry. When the Medici acquired this house in 1549, they set to work transforming their backyard into a 111-acre garden. Also, a five-minute walk from the garden’s SE exit took us to the smaller, more manicured Giardino Bardini, which had beautiful views over Florence’s rooftops from its colonnaded belvedere.

In the evening, we went to the nearby Etruscan hill town of Fiesole, about eight miles from Florence. Fiesole has been a long-established Florentine retreat from the summer heat and crowds. It spreads over a cluster of hilltops and predates Florence by several millennia. The Etruscans held out here so long that the Romans were forced to set up permanent camp in the valley below, thus creating the beginnings of the settlement that was to become Florence. Our restaurant, Le Lance, featured the following wonderful dishes for dinner: a pasta salad; half a baked chicken per person, rosemary-flavored potatoes, and for dessert a sweet clodded cream with chocolate sauce. Tuscan wine was served during dinner, and it was very magic to watch the sun set over the entire valley and Florence below.