I heard today that Bill tested positive for COVID in London (their last stop), so he’s isolating in the one of the two bedrooms in their hotel suite, but that means they won’t be able to fly home on Saturday. He’s not feeling bad, just a cold, and the question is will anyone else get the bug. Rebecca, James and Ben had COVID previously, but not Bill. They were at a restaurant where a server was coughing constantly without a mask, so either from that, or the air travel, or who knows.
I had finally scheduled a visit today at 11am to the Accademia Gallery to see Michelangelo’s David – I always need to go see Jessica’s boyfriend when in Firenze. As you’ve read, I’ve been to many museums and seen many sculptures by wonderful Renaissance artists such as Donatello, Della Robbia, Botticelli, Brunelleschi, Vasari, etc. during my time in Firenze, but this sculpture is extraordinary. Even the perfect copy in front of Palazzo Vecchio pales in comparison, as the marble in the Accademia is so clean and bright. Michelangelo spent months in the Carrara quarries to personally select the brightest marble.
When you get up close, the scale and detail of David’s torso, legs, hands and feet is almost overwhelming. It feels like he is going to walk off the pedestal and stroll around the gallery he seems so real. Then there are the unfinished sculptures by Michelangelo in the Hall of Prisoners (or Slaves or Captives) leading up to David.
The fame of these four powerful statues – named by scholars as “The Awakening Slave”, “The Young Slave”, “The Bearded Slave” and “The Atlas” – is due above all to their unfinished state. They are some of the finest examples of Michelangelo’s sculpting, referred to as “non-finito” (or incomplete), magnificent illustrations of the difficulty of the artist in carving out the figure from the block of marble. Another thought is that Michelangelo deliberately left them incomplete to represent the eternal struggle of human beings to free themselves from their material trappings.
These sculptures were begun by Michelangelo for a grandiose tomb of Pope Julius II. The first commission dates back to 1505, before Michelangelo’s assignment to paint the Sistine Chapel (1508), and it was meant to be the most magnificent tomb of Christian times, composed of more than 40 figures. The four Prisoners were carved to be the pillars on the lower level of the tomb, which was to be placed in the grand Basilica of St. Peter’s in Rome.
Photos: https://photos.app.goo.gl/kQVdz8Rn9mm8B4Xw7
After the Accademia I went to L’Antica Pizzeria da Michele recommended by Rebecca for some pizza as it is made in Napoli. I had a Napolitano pizza that I had to fold over twice to eat owing to its very thin crust - I refused to eat it with utensils. Then a leisurely stroll back home. I was invited tonight for a BBQ dinner at the home of architect Phillip Johnson (mentioned previously) who I met through the InterNations group.
At 7pm I headed over to Phil’s house, which is right around the corner from Piazza della Santa Croce, at Borgo Allegri, 4. He has a nice apartment on the first floor with a small backyard garden where the BBQ was ready to go, had a beautiful table set, and put out some appetizers (antipasti) of crackers and pate. I brought a bottle of reserve chianti that I bought on my Tuscan winemaker’s tour some time back, and he fired up the BBQ for two good-looking steaks. Conversation was fun, learned that he was born in the Midwest, moved to Berkeley and started at Cal in architecture but then got into the construction program. Later he moved to Maui and lived upcountry for 30 years, has been divorced twice, and thinks he will stay in Firenze.
He told me about a holocaust memorial that is at the head of track (binario) 16 at the Santa Maria Novella (centrale) train station. It was from here that almost 300 Jews were sent to Auschwitz and Birkenau during WWII. There are also brass plaques inserted into the sidewalks around Firenze that commemorate those individuals, by name. They are called stolperstein, literally 'stumbling stone' (metaphorically a 'stumbling block'), and are 10cm square inscribed with the name and life dates of victims of Nazi extermination or persecution. The project was initiated by the German artist Gunter Demnig in 1992, and aims to commemorate individuals at exactly the last place of residency before they fell victim to Nazi terror, euthanasia, eugenics, deportation to concentration or extermination camps, or had escaped persecution by emigration or suicide. As of December 2019, 75,000 stolpersteine have been laid around the world, making the stolpersteine project the world's largest decentralized memorial.
Photo: https://photos.app.goo.gl/WxmaxBR2kTm6L82p7
Photo: https://photos.app.goo.gl/m8NeSmHGcAmmHSKD8
I had finally scheduled a visit today at 11am to the Accademia Gallery to see Michelangelo’s David – I always need to go see Jessica’s boyfriend when in Firenze. As you’ve read, I’ve been to many museums and seen many sculptures by wonderful Renaissance artists such as Donatello, Della Robbia, Botticelli, Brunelleschi, Vasari, etc. during my time in Firenze, but this sculpture is extraordinary. Even the perfect copy in front of Palazzo Vecchio pales in comparison, as the marble in the Accademia is so clean and bright. Michelangelo spent months in the Carrara quarries to personally select the brightest marble.
When you get up close, the scale and detail of David’s torso, legs, hands and feet is almost overwhelming. It feels like he is going to walk off the pedestal and stroll around the gallery he seems so real. Then there are the unfinished sculptures by Michelangelo in the Hall of Prisoners (or Slaves or Captives) leading up to David.
The fame of these four powerful statues – named by scholars as “The Awakening Slave”, “The Young Slave”, “The Bearded Slave” and “The Atlas” – is due above all to their unfinished state. They are some of the finest examples of Michelangelo’s sculpting, referred to as “non-finito” (or incomplete), magnificent illustrations of the difficulty of the artist in carving out the figure from the block of marble. Another thought is that Michelangelo deliberately left them incomplete to represent the eternal struggle of human beings to free themselves from their material trappings.
These sculptures were begun by Michelangelo for a grandiose tomb of Pope Julius II. The first commission dates back to 1505, before Michelangelo’s assignment to paint the Sistine Chapel (1508), and it was meant to be the most magnificent tomb of Christian times, composed of more than 40 figures. The four Prisoners were carved to be the pillars on the lower level of the tomb, which was to be placed in the grand Basilica of St. Peter’s in Rome.
Photos: https://photos.app.goo.gl/kQVdz8Rn9mm8B4Xw7
After the Accademia I went to L’Antica Pizzeria da Michele recommended by Rebecca for some pizza as it is made in Napoli. I had a Napolitano pizza that I had to fold over twice to eat owing to its very thin crust - I refused to eat it with utensils. Then a leisurely stroll back home. I was invited tonight for a BBQ dinner at the home of architect Phillip Johnson (mentioned previously) who I met through the InterNations group.
At 7pm I headed over to Phil’s house, which is right around the corner from Piazza della Santa Croce, at Borgo Allegri, 4. He has a nice apartment on the first floor with a small backyard garden where the BBQ was ready to go, had a beautiful table set, and put out some appetizers (antipasti) of crackers and pate. I brought a bottle of reserve chianti that I bought on my Tuscan winemaker’s tour some time back, and he fired up the BBQ for two good-looking steaks. Conversation was fun, learned that he was born in the Midwest, moved to Berkeley and started at Cal in architecture but then got into the construction program. Later he moved to Maui and lived upcountry for 30 years, has been divorced twice, and thinks he will stay in Firenze.
He told me about a holocaust memorial that is at the head of track (binario) 16 at the Santa Maria Novella (centrale) train station. It was from here that almost 300 Jews were sent to Auschwitz and Birkenau during WWII. There are also brass plaques inserted into the sidewalks around Firenze that commemorate those individuals, by name. They are called stolperstein, literally 'stumbling stone' (metaphorically a 'stumbling block'), and are 10cm square inscribed with the name and life dates of victims of Nazi extermination or persecution. The project was initiated by the German artist Gunter Demnig in 1992, and aims to commemorate individuals at exactly the last place of residency before they fell victim to Nazi terror, euthanasia, eugenics, deportation to concentration or extermination camps, or had escaped persecution by emigration or suicide. As of December 2019, 75,000 stolpersteine have been laid around the world, making the stolpersteine project the world's largest decentralized memorial.
Photo: https://photos.app.goo.gl/WxmaxBR2kTm6L82p7
Photo: https://photos.app.goo.gl/m8NeSmHGcAmmHSKD8