Missing it would be like not seeing the "Mona Lisa" on a trip to Paris," but no timed admissions were available at Florence's
Accademia when I booked my trip. Instead, immediately after checking into my hotel, just around the corner, I joined a late-afternoon line and ended up doing a good deed. After eavesdropping on two women ahead of me negotiate with a sketchy guy who was selling timed admission tickets for nearly triple the cost, I said "You sure are trusting." They took my meaning and within half-an-hour thanked me again as I stood inside the museum, awestruck, gazing up at Michelangelo's "David." As Chris would say, "check."
David's pedestal made it a lot easier to appreciate him than art hanging on the walls. Jockeying for decent sight lines is endemic to the city's must-see venues. If it's listed in a guidebook, expect crowds. Herewith a sampling of my favorite works, including several that anticipate the Renaissance about to come.
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"Madonna & Child" by
Florentine Painter (13th century) |
I picked up some new descriptive terminology for altarpieces, too, including "pinnacle" and "predella." Would you believe that
Giorgio Vasari, whose indelible re-acquaintance I made in
Venice's Accademia, described this artist as a "minor master"?
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"Coronation of the Virgin with four Musical Angels and Saints Francis, John the Baptist, Ivo
and Dominic" by Giovanni dal Ponte (ca 1430) |
Giorgio, I beg to differ. Just look at these gorgeous details, although the Virgin's finger is a little long.
I did have a timed admission to the
Uffizi Gallery the next morning. It dwarfs the Accademia.
Statues standing in front depict several icons of Italian culture, all male, of course.
I'm standing on the gallery's outdoor terrace with the Palazzo Vecchio behind me.
Cosimo I de' Medici commissioned
Vasari to design the U-shaped Uffizi ("offices" in Italian) in the mid-16th century as a kind of one-stop shopping for doing business in the duchy of Tuscany which he ruled with an iron fist and a fortune large enough to become one of era's greatest patrons. His son began displaying the family's treasures on the ground floor and by the next century, everyone taking a Grand Tour of Europe stopped to see the same Renaissance masterpieces that have now been on view for nearly 400 years,
The Arno River flows west below the gallery's U-bottom. According to a novel I read after returning, the water once ran red because butchers used it to dispose of blood drained from slaughtered livestock.
Classical Greek and Roman statues are paired with portraits of members of the Medici family including Cosimo I, the big cheese.
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"Statue of a Woman Sacrificing" (Renaissance Copy of Classical Greek Statue)
Cosimo I de' Medici by Giovanni Battista Naldini (1585) |
Alessandro Allori painted mini-frescoes on the corridor ceilings.
Many of the classical statues on display were repaired or copied by Renaissance sculptors.
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| "Hercules Slaying the Centaur Nessus" |
There's a rogue's gallery of infamous Roman emperors, too. Medusa adorns
Nero's breastplate.
This may or may not be
Caligula, according to the curators. Here's as good a place as any to complain about the Uffizi's lack of consistency in identifying art works.
Fun fact, overheard from an Aussie tour guide:
Bernardo Buontalenti, the man who designed
the Tribuna, where the Medici's displayed their most prized treasures, also invented gelato! Come to think of it, the
Pines Pantry stocked
Talenti which I always thought was an odd name for an ice cream brand. There must be a connection.
I've only just now reached the conclusion that painting during the Renaissance, in terms of market influence, was just like painting today, except that rich individuals had more say in the subjects chosen, with an emphasis on piety. Yep, Jesus, virgins, saints and angels were all once the rage less because of devout Christianity than as a hedge against going to Hell. I'm partial to the ones steeped in a little more imagination or idiosyncratic ability.
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"Adoration of the Christ Child with the Young St. John the Baptist, St. Romuald, Angels,
the Hands of God the Father and the Holy Ghost as a Dove" by Filippo Lipp (ca 1463) |
Botticelli really, really sends me, even more than da Vinci and Michelangelo.
Henry James, author of
Portrait of a Lady, my favorite novel, may have stood in exactly the same spot as I did marveling at Venus's modesty, although his actual experience of the gallery was vastly different than mine based on what he wrote in
Italian Hours: "Sometimes there were not more than two or three figures standing there, Baedeker in hand, to break the charming perspective."
Multiply those numbers by a hundred for these paintings.
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| "The Birth of Venus" by Botticelli (ca 1485) |
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| "Annunciation" by Botticelli (ca 1489-90) |
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| "Calumny of Apelles" by Botticelli (1497) |
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| "Crucifixion" by Agnolo Gaddi (ca 1390-96) |
These young Korean women, dressed to kill, sparked an pop cultural epiphany: Florence was to Renaissance painting what Seoul is to K-Pop. But will people still be listening to
BTS and
Blackpink in 2425?
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"Madonna and Child with Saint Francis, Saint John the Baptist, Saint Zenobius
and Saint Lucy" by Domenico Veneziano (ca 1445-47) |
Like most artists of the time, da Vinci apprenticed in a workshop. He painted what I'm guessing was only a small part of this awkward composition with his master.
Does this sitter remind you of
anyone else? Her family's palace, which turned out to be the anti-Uffizi, was on my itinerary for the next day.
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| Portrait of Maddalena Strozzi by Raphael (ca 1504-06) |
Apart from the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel
(photos weren't permitted during my 2001 visit), I'm not that familiar with Michelangelo's painting. He also designed the frame for this lush, assured work.
A 2021 exhibit at the Met turned me on to
Bronzino although I prefer his portraits.
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| "Allegory of Public Happiness" by Bronzino (ca 1567-68) |
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| "Portrait of Bia de' Medici" by Bronzino (ca 1542) |
Did Vasari ever sleep?
This artist--the same guy who painted the Uffizi's corridor ceilings--came out of Bronzino's workshop.
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| "Venus & Cupid" by Alessandro Allori (ca 1570) |
Endless mobs of people in a small gallery prevented me from getting decent shot of this "Medusa" (1597) by Caravaggio, a trail blazer of Baroque painting. I could hardly blame them, however; it's bloody insane!
The Roman god of wine looks too young to drink!
Classical Greek and Roman statues are paired with portraits of members of the Medici family including Cosimo I, the big cheese. 
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