An inaccessible website (now fixed) made a visit to the Laurentian Library seem like a gamble, but I couldn't resist the lure of Michelangelo's architecture even after some jerk on Trip Advisor described it as the worst five euros he spent in Italy. Au contraire!
The library, located within the Basilica of San Lorenzo complex, sits atop the monastic cells decorated by Fra Angelico. Pope Clement VII, an illegitimate member of the Medici dynasty, commissioned Michelangelo to design it in 1524 as a means of distinguishing the family from Florence's mercantile class by emphasizing its intellectual and ecclesiastical bonafides. Nearly 50 years passed before the library opened, and its vestibule wasn't finished until the beginning of the 20th century.
Michelangelo wanted to install a skylight in the vestibule's ceiling but the practical Pope demurred on the grounds that it would leak.
The library's symmetry instantly seduced me.
Alas, neither Michelangelo nor Fra Angelico painted the Annunciation fresco at the top of the staircase.
In 1534, a decade after construction had begun, Michelangelo left the project in the hands of his assistants, who included Giorgio Vasari, of course. Only the walls of reading room, flooded by sunlight, had been completed.
The Medici coat of arms is embedded in the stained glass windows.
When viewed sequentially, 15 terra cotta floor tiles demonstrate the principles of geometry.
The library's "card catalog" hangs on the side, listing the subject areas covered by the books, piled horizontally on the benches, which also served as lecterns. It's unclear exactly where patrons actually used the books, however. Perhaps downstairs in one of the monastic cells.
The rotunda was added to accommodate the early 19th-century acquisition of a private bibliophile's collection and named the Tribuna D’Elci in his honor. Books remain on its conventional shelves but entering the room requires an appointment.
Had I read the Wikipedia entry before purchasing a ticket to the Palazzo Davanzati, I definitely would have skipped it. The word "ersatz" comes to mind, although its architecture did inspire the . . . YMCA in Toledo, Ohio.
I thought I might be getting a glimpse of a successful Renaissance merchant's lifestyle, but the staff in period dress suggested the experience would be more like going to the kind of U.S. Renaissance fairs that excite Americans who have never been out of the country. Meow.
The central courtyard remains the most impressive aspect of the palace.
The wealthy family who built the palace in the second half of the 14th century belonged to the wood guild which perhaps explains why the furnishings shout out to the founder of the Medici Bank, Cosimo I's father. He owned two wool workshops.
A linen quilt consisting of eight panels depicts scenes from the story of Tristan and Isolde, already two centuries old by the time of its fabrication in Sicily during the late 14th century.
Repainted frescos decorate the walls of several rooms
. . . including the minimalist toilet.
Frames annoy me when photographing works of art, mostly because they often shadow the upper portion of paintings and demand your attention. Less so when they're empty.
Majolica Pharmacy Jar
A wall label insisted on the superior quality of this Pazzi Madonna reproduction. Donatello sculpted the original bas relief from marble for private devotion. Elio Volpi, an antiquarian who, as one of the palazzo's later owners is the most responsible for its current look, bought and hung the reproduction in one of the bedrooms. He opened the palazzo as a "private museum" in 1910 with an ever-changing collection, no doubt based on his inventory. Six years later he unloaded this painted knock-off at an auction in New York City. That provenance sounds vaguely scammy, and the label does not explain how the piece was returned.
I cast a skeptical eye over the rest of the furnishings as a result and decided I should have listened to Rick Steves and visited the Bargello instead.
If not for the Catholic church, it might have been known as the Brunelleschi Dome, like the Eiffel Tower.
It dominates the city's skyline in the same unmistakable way.
Filippo Brunelleschi had a lot more going for him than Eiffel, in spite of the latter's world-wide name recognition. He's considered the father of Renaissance architecture, he supervised the construction of the Duomo di Firenze and he secured the first patent in history, among other accomplishments.
It's hard to get an unobstructed view of Brunelleschi's masterwork, an unimpeachable example of how workarounds can inspire creativity: design competitors were forbidden from using buttresses. The resulting Duomo cleanly broke with the Gothic era.
Construction of the Cathedral of St. Mary the Flower (its formal name) began more than a century before Brunelleschi, with the backing of the Medici family, won the dome design competition but didn't assume sole responsibility for the project until three years later, in 1423. Giotto had designed the campanile nearby before his death in 1334.
I resisted the temptation to climb to the top of the campanile knowing that my knees would howl on the way down.
Emilio De Fabris didn't design the facade until the late 19th century.
His use of polychrome marble makes the Duomo even more distinctive IMHO. It's also neo-Gothic, meaning the architecture has almost come full circle since 1296 when the first papal representative ever sent to Florence from Rome laid the initial brick.
Interior
The cathedral presents as surprisingly empty when you enter, perhaps because of the vastness of the space and the relocation of much of the art to the adjacent museum.
A number of artists--most notably Giorgio Vasari who painted scenes from "The Last Judgment" around the bottom perimeter--contributed to the dome's interior
This liturgical clock--set to "Italian time" with 24 hours ending at sunset, a standard used until the 18th century--still works, 582 years after its installation.
My ticket included admission to the Santa Reparta Cathedral buried below the Duomo, built early in the fifth century when the city's population was much smaller. Little of what remains can be definitively dated, although the discovery of Roman coins has helped refine hypotheses.
Archeologists believe that Christian worshippers trod on this mosaic, which recalls the motifs favored during the Roman Empire, as early as the fourth century.
I didn't do justice to the Baptistry, perhaps because I never have been baptized.
Modeled on the Pantheon in Rome, it was undergoing renovation in any case, as were many of the sites I visited.
Dante's parents carried their child through its bronze doors one morning for the ceremony. In The Divine Comedy, he expresses his unrealized hope to return to his baptismal font wearing the laurel crown of a poet.
The Duomo did him one better; when the facade was completed, it included his image as "il Sommo Poeta," or Supreme Poet. For once, he's not scowling.
The "Sacrifice of Isaac" by Donatello and Nanni di Bartolo (1421) once adorned the campanile. The sculptors capture the tense moment a father is spared the anguish of slashing his son's throat through the intervention of an unseen angel, a story that upset me in Bible School which I briefly attended in Heidelberg, mostly for the reward of a block of vanilla ice cream at the end of each class. It also made me extremely skeptical of loyalty tests.
Many of the small marble reliefs carved for the exterior of the campanile depict non-religious scenes and mythological figures, a welcome--and surprising--respite from all the Christian iconography.
"Daedalus: The Mechanical Arts" by Andrea Pisano (partial, 1348-50)
Donatello's "Penitent Magdalena," carved from white poplar wood, looks like nothing else on display. Here's what Vasari had to say about her in hisLives of the Artists: "she has wasted away by fasting and abstinence to such an extent that every part of her body reflects a perfect and complete understanding of human anatomy."That, and she looks like a contemporary meth head, too!
Michelangelo began sculpting "The Deposition"--also known as the Florentine Pietà--at the age of 72 (!), using his own face as the model for the man in the hoodie, whose identity has been much debated. The artist, naturally legacy-conscious, worked on what was to be part of his tomb for eight years before attempting to destroy the statue for unknown reasons, although some historians have speculated that he was frustrated to realize the block of marble wasn't large enough to do what he envisioned. After Michelangelo sold it instead, the new owner had an apprentice sculptor finish the job, minus Christ's left leg. "The Deposition" eventually ended up in the Duomo.
Christ by Florentine Artist (Early 16th Century)
A video display afford's a close-up look at the Duomo's stained glass.
Nothing in the museum impressed me more than this silver altar illustrating scenes from the life of Saint John the Baptist. Begun in 1367, it took more than a century to complete and was used for special occasions in the Baptistry. An opportunity to get baptized on it as an adult might be an even bigger incentive than getting into heaven.
You don't often see Saint John's head on a platter in three dimensions!
I 💗 reliquaries, too.
Reliquary by Pasquino da Montepulciano (1470-80)
Reliquary of St. Jerome by Antonio di Salvi (1487)
