Firenze Fine

The Duomo of Florence, also known as the Cathedral of Santa Maria dei Fiori, dominates the center of it's Piazza half a kilometer north of the Arno River. This structure stands out for its size and colorful detail, its exterior a dazzling pattern of white, green, and pink marble. Among its most prominent features are its grand dome by Brunelleschi, its bell tower by Giotto, and the Baptistery, which bore the bronze caste doors known as "the Gates of Paradise" by Lorenzo Ghiberti. The doors currently in place are replicas, the originals undergoing restoration in the nearby Museo dell'Opera del Duomo. The google maps street view provides an exceptional perspective on this church. In the early afternoon in mid September, we found the area surrounding the church to be pleasant and not too crowded. There was, however, an bit of a line to get inside, and since so much of the allure of this building is its exterior, we decided not to enter, but instead headed to one of the more peculiar museums in this city.

The Museo Di Storia Della Scienza houses a collection of scientific instruments and curiosities. The rooms contains ancient astrolabes and sundials, as well as levels and surveyor's instruments. The museum houses an early mechanical calculator, prisms, globes, microscopes, and an interesting collection of optical illusion toys. There are a variety of weather instruments, such as early thermometers and barometers. There is an entire room dedicated to clocks; early electrical machines and experimental contraptions make up another. Still other rooms stock devices used to demonstrate pneumatics, hydraulics, and other experiments or demonstrations of physics. Among the most disturbing collections are the surgery and obstetrics items, which display not only tools used to perform early medicine, which may include "skull and eye surgery; obstetrics and gynecology; lithotomy; amputation; removal and incision", but also the walls are lined with wax models on infants in the womb, many demonstrating all that can go wrong in childbirth with the clarity of a full color cutaway. The collection concludes with items related to pharmacy, chemistry, and measuring. But perhaps all of this, even as interesting as it was, would not have been enough to draw us to the museum. It was, in fact the rooms dedicated to astronomy that were of supreme interest.

There is a later room dedicated to more developed telescopes, but rooms IV and V hold the real treasures. These rooms house possessions and creations of Galileo. Among the collection of smaller items are the very lens through which he first saw the moons of Jupiter, and his very own middle finger. They also have the only two telescopes made by him still in existence today. It is accepted, though generally not well known, that Galileo did not in fact invent the telescope, but what he saw when he used them to look at the moon, the planets, and the sun, he used as evidence for the Copernican model of a sun centered universe.

Unsatisfied with merely the finger of the man, we headed over to the Basilica di Santa Croce, his final resting place, as well as that of several other world famous Italians. From the front, the Basilica's exterior matches that of the Duomo, but the sides are more plain. Within the walls of the church, despite the art and decorations, it is the many tombs, many laid into the very floor of the church, that attract attention. It is here that Florence built its empty tomb for Dante, who remains in Ravenna. Here also lies the body of Niccolò Machiavelli, author of the Prince and the Art of War. As I have said, here also lies Galileo, and finally Michelangelo Buonarroti, perhaps the most famous sculptor and painter in the world, has found his final rest here as well.

Statue at the Basilica

Niccolò Machiavelli

Dante's Memorial

Galileo

Michelangelo

A three Museum Morning

After an afternoon in Pisa, it was back to Firenze for still more Museums. It was another early morning line, this time to get into the Galleria dell Accademia. Practically the only thing on exhibit here is the ironically giant stature of David. Entering the main hall, lined on each side with the far less known, and not completed slaves, also by Michelangelo, my eyes were drawn immediately to the far end. There stands the iconic work completed five hundred years ago. The work does not disappoint, the details of muscle and vein on the legs and arms, the large curled fingers of his lowered hand, all of it striking and fine. The statue itself is surrounded by a protective plexi-glass fence, this provided after the statue was attack and its toes damaged by a man with a hammer, a scenario not unlike that which happened to another work of Michelangelo, the Pieta, at the Vatican. The rest of the museum comprises of paintings, a plaster cast of the Rape of the Sabine Women original we had already seen outside the Uffizi, and one impressive room full of plaster casts of various sculptures. The casts are crammed into every niche, and fill the center of the room, leaving only a narrow route for tourists to explore. Also during out visit, there was on exhibit Marvels of sound Musical Instruments of the Italian Baroque (Meraviglie sonore Strumenti musicali del Barocco Italiano) which contained, among other interesting, highly ornamented pieces, a violin by Stradivari, a real surprise.

From the Galleria, it was on to the Museo Archeologico. This museum houses older works of art, including several Etruscan pieces. One of the most interesting of these is the empty eyed bronze Chimera. The museum as a whole has a somewhat abandoned feel. We saw no one else visiting while we were there, there were some construction areas seemingly abandoned partway through, and the room with the mummies didn't even have the lights on.

Chimera

Hittite Chariot

Egyptian Items

Bes

After that, we visited another of Firenze's well known museums, the Bargello. Here on display are several sculptures by Michelangelo. At the top of the stairs in the courtyard rest a collection of bronze birds by Giambologna, the most interesting to me being that of a turkey, done in 1567, when the birds odd appearance was still relatively novel.

In a nearby room, Donatello gets his due, where several of his works are on display. Of the many pieces, the bronze David was by far the most interesting, because not only is it large and well made, but at the time of our visit, it was under restoration. For many pieces, restoration means being removed from exhibit and being replaced by a cardboard cut-out if it's recognizable enough, or merely a piece of paper printed with words that proclaim "Under Restoration" of something like. Donatello's David, however, underwent its restoration under the full view of visitors, in the very room where it usually resides. Laying upon his operating table, surrounded by a barrier that houses computers and technicians alike, David did not look entirely comfortable. Perhaps because we were able to better peer into his face, or examine the top of his head, but I suspect it was more to do with our ability to see into his very soul, where his soles ought to have been. For, as I assume is the case with all large bronzes, David is hollow, and he hasn't got a bottom any more than a vase has got a top.

Museum of a Genius in Vinci, and The Leaning Tower

After spending the first part of the day at the Uffizi, we took a drive to a small town called Vinci. While there are multiple museums in the region dedicated to Leonardo, we felt it was more apt to visit one in the town which gave him his name. Here, in miniature, are reproductions of dozens of contraptions invented by the late thinker. From the notes of Leonardo come cranes and winches, clock mechanisms, flying machines, cannon, gun, and tank. There are screw presses and kilns, bearings, a level. There were simple devices to measure humidity and wind speed, as well as complicated mechanically powered transportation devices, like paddle boats, bicycles, and spring driven cars. Designs for rack and pinion steering, and even boat shoes and a diving suit.

In short, the museum houses models for contraptions of every sort which, while many may have missed the mark, embody the kinds of ideas, the tinkering sort of love for things mechanical, which would propel humanity into the modern era and age of industrialization several hundred years hence. He was also something of a painter, so they say.
We then ventured still further west across the isthmus to another well known town called Pisa. Here a tower stands, or rather peeks from behind the buildings of the baptistery and cathedral of the Field of Miracles. The biggest mistake in its construction, the foundation poorly laid, has become it's greatest success, making this cathedral one of the biggest draws for tourism in Italy, of all the lovely cathedrals found here. Today, the tower's leaning has been corrected somewhat and stabilized, and the city takes full advantage of its popularity.

An arched entryway leads into the high walled courtyard of this miracle field. Just outside this entrance we were very much surprised to find a troupe of Native Americans dressed in their best feather headdresses and leather tunics, playing pipe and drum for the tourist crowds. Inside the courtyard, the right hand side was cast in deep shade, and lined with stalls selling scarves, postcards, magnets, little statues of the building that lay just a little distance away. We located the office to buy tickets for the tower, a timed entrance, prices set to somewhat reduce the crowds. In the mean time, we explored the green grass lawns where, as in any sun drenched park in Italy, young couples lay in the grass. We visited the cathedral, squinting at the bright pure white exterior of all 3 buildings in the afternoon light.

The tower itself is set into a bit of a pit, not having merely leaned to one side, but also having settle all together, so that you must descend a few stairs to the doorway, before you can climb up. Climbing the 294 steps to the top is not just a little like walking on sliding belts in a carnival fun house. because the building leans so, as you circle round and round up the tower, you lean first to this side, then that. Without the visual cues of the outside, and due probably in part to our general assumption that steps are level, it is difficult to recognize the shift until you find yourself almost falling upon the opposite wall, and so round and round, back and forth, like so many upside down pendulums we went. The stumbling steps of countless tourists have worn into the marble steps smooth dimples. With a brief stop about midway up to explore the outside of the tower, and presumably to let the previous group head back down, we found ourselves at the heady slopping height of the tower.

Below, the afternoon crowds throng along the little shops, the locals doze, and beyond the reach of my ear through so much interfering sound, a flute and drums play music not at all native to this land, in costumes wildly out of place. And in all honesty, I do not feel like a tourist, sheepishly taking in the typical sites. I feel like an audience member at a comedy play. Let in on the farce, this fun house of marble 700 years in the making, waiting patiently for me and others like me, with the proper sense of humor, to come and see the show.