Tag: Palazzo Vecchio

The Retirees return to Florence – Palazzo Pitti and the other side of the Arno

We were exhausted again and retired after dinner. Not to be kept down we rose early to walk to the other side of the Arno to visit Palazzo Pitti. This is the giant home created by Cosimo I for his wife who wanted a garden and then he wanted safe passage to work at Palazzo Vecchio on the other side of the Arno. We weren’t that interested to see another palace but I was interested to see how the Duke’s walkway connected as it had to pass across the top of the Ponte Vecchio, over private homes and into Palazzo Pitti. A gateway at the side of the palace allowed us to see the passage into the palace.

From the Palace, we could see the steeple of the Basilica di Santo Spirito so we took to the lanes past a cobbler’s shop and a man walking his dog (if you can call something the size of a rat a dog) and voila we entered Piazza Santo Spirito. The Basilica di Santo Spirito (“Basilica of the Holy Spirit”) is usually referred to simply as Santo Spirito, it is located in the Oltrarno quarter, facing the square with the same name. The interior of the building is one of the preeminent examples of Renaissance architecture. In 1252, the Augustinians started the church and the convent incorporating an old church of San Romolo in the complex. The convent had two cloisters, called Cloister of the Dead and Grand Cloister. The first takes its name from the great number of tombstone decorating its walls, and was built around 1600. The latter was constructed in 1564-1569.

The former convent also contains the great refectory (Cenacolo di Santo Spirito) with a large fresco portraying the Crucifixion over a fragmentary Last Supper (1360–1365). It is one of the rare examples of Late Gothic Art which can still be seen in Florence. Michelangelo, when he was seventeen years old, was allowed to make anatomical studies on the corpses coming from the convent’s hospital; in exchange, he sculpted a wooden crucifix which was placed over the high altar. Today the crucifix is in the octagonal sacristy that can be reached from the convent.  The only remaining wooden sculpture by Michelangelo. No photography permitted.

VvThus, ended our stay in Florence. The next morning we caught a taxi to the train station and a wait for the “fast train” to Rome occupied most of our morning, then the train trip (the train achieved a mere 250 klm per hour compared to the 430 klm per hour in Shanghai) to Rome and a quick turn around through the tunnel (which I wish we had known about when going to Fumacino from Civitavecchia) to catch the much more sedate train to Terni and a warm welcome from Robert at the train station (I think not – MIA). So a taxi to Cesi and dragging the suitcases up the steepest of streets in the village to be welcomed by Robert from his kitchen landing. An offer to help with the suitcases to drag them up the stairs and at last we can stand still and rest.

The Retirees return to Florence – Palazzo Vecchio

Its Sunday and the city is hosting a half marathon and we are hoping to beat the crowds and get to the Palazzo Vecchio ahead of the crowds. The race is starting at Santa Croce which is on our way to Piazza Signoria and the Palazzo Vecchio. Kerry stops to consider competing but changes her mind. The pre – race queue for the toilets deters her.

We arrive at the Palazzo and as we planned there is no queue so we purchase tickets for the tour of the palace exploring the secret passages and the tower with a guide for the palace museum. We could have also visited the archaeological dig underneath the Palazzo but we have seen roman ruins.

The Palazzo Vecchio is the town hall of Florence, Italy. It overlooks the Piazza della Signoria with its copy of Michelangelo’s David statue as well as the gallery of statues in the adjacent Loggia dei Lanzi. Originally called the Palazzo della Signoria, after the Signoria of Florence, the ruling body of the Republic of Florence, it was also given several other names: Palazzo del Popolo, Palazzo dei Priori, and Palazzo Ducale, in accordance with the varying use of the palace during its long history. The building acquired its current name (meaning the old palace) when the Medici duke’s residence was moved across the Arno to the Palazzo Pitti.

The original ground floor courtyard is remarkable for its artwork on its walls its view of the tower and the statue of a nymph in the centre. The newer parts of the ground floor is decorated with large tubs of flowers.

Our guide Molloy turns up and is a 20 something US student studying Art History in Florence and doing the guided tour to fill in. The first stop is the room of the Five Hundred being the meeting hall for the city delegate until the Spanish installed Cosimo as the Grand Duke and he took over the reins of government. This is an enormous hall decorated by the Medicis with wall panels and ceiling panels to justify their importance and position. Passing from the hall we entered the palace proper. I have included my photos below. We visited the deck (altana to the Italians), saw the crest of the Medicis in the Dukes room and the joint crest in the rooms used by the Duchess. In the map room we were shown the secret door (through a map) which led to a veranda to which was later added a room for the mistress of one of the dukes who was interested in alchemy (prohibited at this period) and her presence was not welcome at court so the room included a secret panel (on the left) so she could view the goings on in the Room of the Five Hundred.

After visiting the apartments, we passed into another stairwell to access the tower. To my surprise, we had to go to the end of the queue for the tower despite having done the tour of the apartments. Fortunately, the queue was short but it soon grew as they limit numbers as the staircase is narrow and I am not that certain the tower is designed for thousands of tourists to be hanging off it. Once we were allowed to climb the 418 narrow stairs to the top of the tower we were given an extraordinary view of Florence. One of the views is the umbrellas on the Uffizi veranda and the Piazza Signoria below that.

The climb down was a little more harrowing but less fatiguing.

 

The Retirees return to Florence – a Walking tour

We had a disappointing lunch (some Italian bread is made stale) a short rest and then back on the road again walking back to Piazza Santa Maria Novella arriving far too early for our tour – a miscalculation of the time needed to walk and our new knowledge on traversing Florence. What to do? A sign caught my eye. At one end of the Piazza was an old building we were to learn was originally a hospital and now an art gallery. It had a display on northern art – Estonia and the collection of Enn Kunila’s Collection including early 20th century Estonian artists (Ants Laikmaa, Elmar Kits, Villem Ormisson, Endel Koks, Nikolai Triik, and Herber Lukk) progressing to impressionism. The collection included a special section on Konrad Magi. I have included some photos of some of the pieces of Konrad Magi and in particular showing an image of the previous occupants of the building.

From here we walked across to the pavilion and met our guide. Our tour started at San Maria Novella and the Piazza. This church was called Novella (New) because it was built on the site of the 9th-century oratory of Santa Maria delle Vigne. When the site was assigned to Dominican Order in 1221, they decided to build a new church and adjoining cloister. Hence the name. The exterior of the church had a curious sundial on the front of the church. The church, the adjoining cloister, and chapter house contain a multiplicity of art treasures and funerary monuments. This had been home to a Dominican order of priests and friars which the guide described as the knights of San Maria who fought heretics for control of Florence. The Piazza which was the scene of many orations by the Dominicans over the centuries but know it is an open piazza with two obelisks supported by the Medici turtles.

We moved on to Via delle Belle Donne, the street of prostitutes where the heretics and Dominicans fought their battle and the column remembering their victory. We then walked to the Palsso belonging to one of Florence’s richest families the Strozzi. The construction of the palace was begun in 1489 by Benedetto da Maiano, for Filippo Strozzi the Elder, a rival of the Medici who had returned to the city in November 1466 and desired the most magnificent palace to assert his family’s continued prominence and, perhaps more important, a political statement of his own status. A great number of other buildings were acquired during the 1470s and demolished to provide enough space for the new construction. Filippo Strozzi died in 1491, long before the construction’s completion in 1538. Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici confiscated it in the same year, not returning it to the Strozzi family until thirty years later. The palace faces the historical Via de’ Tornabuoni the street with all the expensive brands in Florence. My photos include the sculpture by Henry Moore “Warrior with Shield” which had been intend for the Terrace of Saturn in Palazzo Vecchio moved to the Basilica of Santa Croce until 2015 when the Strozzi Foundation obtained it for Palazzo Strozzi

Our tour continued along to Piazza di Santa Trinita (one block away from Ponte Santa Trinita) where there is a church of the same name and a street ensemble entertaining us with rag time music. Our guide stated this was the only church in town that did not charge tourists an entrance fee. Beyond the piazza, we passed this extraordinary shop – the original supermarket. Unfortunately, my photo also captures one of our fellow tourists scratching her arse. Nearby is a church in a small piazza which claims to hold a relic – a piece of the cross. It was closed but I took the photo. Every tour has to include the Ponte Vecchio which is the oldest bridge standing in Florence (even the invading German Army did not damage the bridge). Formerly the home of butchers and bakers (who discarded their waste into the river), one of the Medicis (Cosimo Ist, I believe) drove them off the bridge and replaced them with the goldsmiths we see today. The Duke built a passage from Palazzo Pitti to Palazzo Vecchio (the seat of government) over the bridge to avoid assignation and did not like the smell. Thank you, Cosimo. My photos shows, the oldest building on the bridge and the sundial on top, the bank below with the rowing club entrance and the Duke’s passage running into Ufizzi.

We then ventured into Uffizi with Palazzo Vecchio in the background and onto the Duomo, Giotto’s Bell Tower and Baptistry. The Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore; in English “Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Flower”, is the main church of Florence. Il Duomo di Firenze, as it is ordinarily called, was begun in 1296 in the Gothic style and completed structurally in 1436 with the dome. The exterior of the basilica is faced with polychrome marble panels in various shades of green and pink bordered by white and has an elaborate 19th-century Gothic Revival façade.

The cathedral complex, located in Piazza del Duomo, includes the Baptistery and Giotto’s Campanile. The basilica is one of Italy’s largest churches, and until development of new structural materials in the modern era, the dome was the largest in the world. It remains the largest brick dome ever constructed. The day finished in Piazza Republica where we had aperitifs and a chance to chat with our fellow travellers; two from UAE from the tour industry, a couple from Barcelona (Catalan separatists), and a young woman from Bristol. It turned out the Catalans and the UK girl had both been at a conference of illustrators in Bolonga and we encouraged some drawings from each.

 

That was enough walking for the day so we went to our chosen bar the Beer Hall club for dinner and made it into bed around 10.00 pm.

The Retirees return to Italy – Florence and Tuscany

We flew out of Gatwick South but I don’t recall much of the flight as I slept most of the way. Our landing was smooth but I was surprised about the Florence International airport. It is small and appears nothing more than a domestic airport for a small town. We disembarked onto the tarmac and entered the immigration area with a queue out the door because there was insufficient space. Clearing the terminal, we went looking for a taxi as it was after 8.00 pm by the time we got our luggage and got out. Very few taxis and a queue a mile long so the shuttle bus to the railway terminal was the next best thing but everyone was thinking the same so a jammed packed bus took us to the terminal where we caught a taxi through a maze of streets to the hotel which was closed. Our phone had proven to be out of date and useless so we had no means to contact the hotel to let us in. Kerry went to an adjoining hotel and after some begging contacted the hotel and gained the various codes to the “front” door in the lane behind the hotel, the elevator and the front door to the rooms on the 4th floor.

Suffice it to say we made it and settled in for the night to start our Florentine adventure the next day. The apartment was reasonably spacious with a kitchen dining room bedroom and bath/ensuite. Our only window gave a view over the Arno river to Porta San Nicolo, a part of a city wall of the past and Piazzale Michelangelo (a copy of the statue of David stands in the Piazzale). Below on the sand bar of the Arno, Florentines lay sunbaking (too damn chilly for us).

We needed to get orientated so we headed off for the old city on foot passing the central library and taking our lives in our hands as cars scooters bikes and trucks battled with pedestrians for use of the road/footpath. We were looking for the Segway tours office and the tourist information office to make our plans of where to go and what to see. We had a brochure for the Segway tour office and a map provided by someone pointed out an information office and we set sail to negotiate the streets and book a tour on a Segway.

We found the Segway tour office in the lanes behind Piazza Signoria and Palazzo Vecchio and booked our 3hour tour for the following Saturday morning and turned our attention to finding the Tourist Information Centre. After a short walk we arrive at a gate (a Roman looking gate) which we later learnt was part of Piazza Republica, created for the period that Italy did not include Rome and Florence was capital.

The buildings of the old town of Florence have a charm and design that is Florence and many carry the crests of the important merchant families of the city. Where there is a footpath some of the streets are decorated in flowers. A particular variety of small azalea was often the preferred choice. Our walk took us down many an alley until we arrived at the Piazza Santa Maria Novella with its two obelisks and named after the church of the same name and convent run by the Dominican order until disbanded in the 19th century.

According to our map the information office was here, but all we could see was the Basilica and a tourist pavilion selling tours and trinkets. Unable to find any tourist information centre, we went to the tourist pavilion and found the staff to be very helpful and booking a walking tour that evening at half price and a visit to the Uffizi. Without knowing it we had walked almost back to the train station and exploring around Santa Maria Novella we found the station hidden by the church and hidden within the walls of the church the Tourist Information Centre. We decided to return to the apartment to rest for our evening tour so we walked back to the river and found we were four bridges away from our apartment. We had literally weaved diagonally across the city from our apartment. First, we came upon Ponte alla Carraia, then further along Ponte San Trinita then Ponte Vecchio and finally Ponte alle Grazie and then “home”.