Baron in Italy, Thu, 19 Dec 2019 | written by Jemma
Jemma and Simon at a City, Museum, Temple, UNESCO site in Europe, Italy

We had a slower start to this day with packing up our stuff from the Airbnb and a work phone call. I also lost one of my favourite earrings on the way to our first stop and we retraced our steps to the flat without finding it.

The first place we visited was the Bargello museum. This was a really nice sculpture gallery that had pieces by Michaelangelo, Donatello and Giambologna. I particularly enjoyed Michaelangelo’s Bacchus.

Afterwards we went to Casa Buonarotti, the home of Michaelangelo’s family. Whilst it was nice to see where he lived, this was more of a homage to Michaelangelo and a collection of artworks in his name, with only 2 small sculptures by him and the rest of the work was quite underwhelming.

We ate our lunch, our traditional bread with cheese and tomatoes, in front of the cathedral – the next stop. The cathedral is colossal, third in the world, with the largest masonry dome ever built, again by Brunelleschi. Exterior is truly sumptuous, cladded in white, pink and green marble and with a neo-gothic facade. Interesting fact: they only recently closed the local streets to traffic, not least because cleaning white marble of car fumes was proving unmanageable. There were sides where the cathedral was still pretty filthy…

Inside, however, it’s surprisingly simple, with very little artwork on display. The colossal space doesn’t feel quite so big, because it’s quite balanced in dimensions, so it feels neither particularly high nor long. And there are only very few massive columns, so optically it feels like there just isn’t much in there and the space becomes smaller. It’s a very weird effect.

The inside of the dome is covered in a fresco by Vasari. We climbed the dome and got to see the fresco up-close – totally epic depiction of the last judgement, with lots of grotesque figures and demons. We then went outside to the lantern on top of the dome and had more amazing views of Florence.

Next, we went to the baptistery which stands next to the cathedral. Massive building itself, with a decent mosaic in the dome, though after Ravenna we weren’t so impressed. It’s all size, not quality. At some point, we heard drumming and other noises, and as we went out, we were met by a parade. Not sure what it was about, but it involved exactly four women who just carried some flowers and baskets, and about a hundred men who played instruments or carried weapons, all in period costumes. Florence seems to celebrate its patriarchal history all right.

We decided to have a little break from the cathedral, to visit another church, of San Lorenzo. This is another one by Brunelleschi, and its sacristy is the first Renaissance building ever made! This church also has the tomb of Donatello, which is a simple stone slab and nothing like the grand tomb of Michaelangelo we saw the day before.

Following this, we went back to the cathedral to visit the museum. It was really interesting to see the different proposals for the façade and the statues that were meant for it. They also have the Deposition by Michaelangelo and Mary Magdalene by Donatello – both beautiful sculptures!

This museum was really interesting, but I was starting to get really tired and reaching my culture limit for the day. We had a final look at the cathedral at night, then went to the Airbnb to collect our stuff and to leave Florence. I’ve loved it here, it’s an incredible place.