Community Highlights Europe A wet birthday in Florence

A wet birthday in Florence

My birthday, and a wet day in Florence so we devoted it mainly to indoor attractions. After a very good breakfast at our accommodation (fruit salad, croissant, banana bread, juice and coffee) we walked through not yet wet streets to the Museo Bargello.

Museo Bargello

This museum occupies a lovely Palazzo, the oldest public building in the city, built in 1255 to serve as the first public building in medieval Florence. It was the seat of the Podestà, the chief city magistrates whose coats of arms are still set in the walls of the courtyard.

Later it became the seat of the Bargello, the head of the city police, and was used as a prison for several centuries. In 1865 it was restored and opened as the first National Museum of the then newborn Kingdom of Italy, dedicated to the arts of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Since then the collection has grown to include objects such as weapons, textiles and religious treasures in addition to paintings and sculptures.

The museum offers a chance to see works by Michelangelo and Donatello, among others, without the crowds of some of Florence's other museums. We spent a very satisfactory couple of hours exploring the various rooms here, culminating in the Sala di Michelangelo with his sculpture of Bacchus the star exhibit.

Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore (il Duomo)

By the time we left it was raining, as had been forecast, although not yet heavy. We stopped for a drink in a small cafe/bar, then continued to the Duomo. The weather wasn't conducive to exterior photos so I just took a couple before we joined the queue to enter. We thought we were queuing for cathedral entry alone but when we finally reached the front, we discovered this was the queue for pre-paid crypt visits and other attractions. Rather than start queuing all over again, in the rain, we decided to buy tickets there and then on my phone, and to include a couple of other sights too. We then learned that Chris wouldn't be able to take his really very small backpack into the cathedral and it needed to be deposited in an office around the back. Luckily the ticket collector allowed Chris to hold our place at the top of the queue while I dropped off the bag, so eventually we were inside.

This is Florence’s third cathedral and has a long history. Work started in 1296 and was to last 140 years. It was built on the site of the city’s second cathedral, dedicated to Santa Reparata. The first architect was Arnolfo di Cambio who designed three naves, the central one covering the footprint of that previous building, and an octagonal dome. There were three apses, intended to suggest the form of a flower, as an homage to this ‘city of flowers’.

But di Cambio died in 1302 and construction slowed. It was revived again in the 1330s. Giotto designed the campanile and began work on building it, but he too died in 1337. Andrea Pisano continued the work but was halted by the outbreak of the Black Death in 1348.

In 1349, activity resumed under a series of architects, starting with Francesco Talenti. He finished the campanile and enlarged the overall structure with a more substantial apse and side chapels. By 1375, the old church of Santa Reparata was pulled down. The nave was finished by 1380, and only the dome remained incomplete.

In 1418 Filippo Brunelleschi won a competition to design and build that dome. Work began in 1420, and was finally finished in 1436. The cathedral was consecrated by Pope Eugene IV on 25 March that year. The dome alone is an architectural and engineering marvel. Even today it remains the largest masonry dome in the world. It was built using techniques that Brunelleschi had to invent as he went along, as there were to be no Gothic-style flying buttresses. These were rejected as ugly by the new Renaissance architects.

But the story of the building doesn’t end there as the current façade on the west front wasn’t installed until 1887, to a design by Emilio De Fabris in the same polychrome marble as the rest.

I could happily have spent some time studying and photographing the details on the door, but we weren’t encouraged to linger here and were shooed into the interior.

We started in the crypt where you can see the archaeological remains of the first cathedral on this site, Santa Reparata, including well-preserved mosaic flooring and some frescoes.

We then explored the cathedral itself, which is quite stark apart from a magnificent dome.

As we reached the dome a choir, which appeared to be practicing, started singing, so I shot a bit of video to capture the sound. My camera is pointed upwards throughout as a crowd had gathered here and I couldn’t actually see much of the choir.

Il Campanile

The cathedral’s campanile or bell tower, built to the design of Giotto in the early 14th century, is 84.7 metres tall. Its lower level is decorated with a series of hexagonal panels depicting the history of mankind. Those we see today are replicas; the originals are in the cathedral museum. Above them are lozenges, again replicas, with marble figures on a background of blue majolica. Higher still we come to statues of saints, prophets and other figures. The upper levels are less adorned but still highly decorated. They are very cleverly designed; each is a little larger than the one below, in proportions that exactly counter the effect of perspective, so that from below they all appear to be the same size. You can climb the tower for an extra fee. But with the prospect of 414 steps and poor visibility from the top, we decided to skip this! as for photos, it was far too wet - those would have to wait for another day.

Battistero di San Giovanni

Instead, after the cathedral we visited the Baptistry, opposite the west front. Its structure was inspired by the Roman Pantheon and its history, according to Wikipedia, is somewhat vague.

As with the decorations on the Campanile the bronze Baptistry doors, one of my favourite parts of the building, are copies of originals now displayed in the museum. The south doors were designed by Andrea Pisano and the north and east doors by Lorenzo Ghiberti. The south ones depict twenty scenes from the life of John the Baptist, the north scenes from the life of Christ and the east stories from the Old Testament.

It was easier to take photos of these than the cathedral ones as we weren’t hurried inside.

The baptistry is unfortunately for us currently undergoing major restoration so the mosaics on the interior of the dome were all covered up. I could only get photos of those at a lower level on the walls and of the scarsella, the small rectangular apse where the altar is situated. But the ceiling of the latter was enough to wow me!

We decided to take a break and went for a drink in the quirky Move On, a self-styled Italian pub and record store. Service was friendly, the décor interesting, and there were great views of the Baptistry from the first floor.

Museo dell'Opera del Duomo

Refreshed we went to see the last of the three attractions included in our Duomo ticket, the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo. Among other attractions here are the original Baptistry doors, even more ornate than those now in place, Pisano's original reliefs for the Campanile, and a reproduction of the cathedral's original façade.

Agriculture

The highlights though were a beautiful wooden carving by Donatello of the Penitent Magdalena, looking almost modern in style, and Michaelangelo's penultimate work, his Pieta, designed for his own tomb. In this he also portrayed himself in the standing figure supporting the body of Christ, Nicodemus, one of the two men who took the body down from the cross.

By now the rain was heavier than ever so we decided to cut short our explorations for the day and headed back to our accommodation. However rain or no rain, gelati are obligatory when in Italy, and we'd had no lunch to speak of, so we made a final stop for these.

When we went out in the evening the rain had stopped, though it was still very wet - perfect for puddle reflection shots!.

We had a glass of prosecco at the bar on the Piazza, followed by a lovely dinner at the Bisteccheria Santa Croce. My tagliata was especially good, with well-seasoned and perfectly cooked beef. We shared a half bottle of chianti and finished with desserts (chocolate mousse with salted caramel for me, and a cheesecake for Chris) and complimentary limoncellos.

This featured blog entry was written by ToonSarah from the blog Travel with me ....
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