11/7 - Florence
I'd previously gone on the normal guided tour, and now I went on the secret routes tour. The guide was the same, and 2 others had also been on her earlier tour.
Unfortunately there was a small amount of overlap, and I was hitting diminishing marginal returns. I should've skipped this tour and seen another church.
Francesco's Writing Room. This room is in the shape of a treasure chest. Stuff was kept in the walls, panels of which could be pulled back to reveal cabinets. How sneaky.
Ceiling of Francesco's writing room
Cosimo's writing room had 3 types of stone in the floor - one each from Pisa, Florence and Siena, and symbolic of the rule over Tuscany.
Statue in the Big Room. This is quite a homoerotic wrestling pose. I call it 'disadvantages of wrestling naked'
Fake David and Probably-fake sculpture (the originals are in museums) in Palazzo della Signoria.
I then went back to the Duomo. The dress code only prohibited bare shoulders - they were giving out blue surgical-style smocks at the entrance (long blue sheets of tracing paper which had holes cut in the middle and which you lowered on your head, leaving your arms uncovered). Somehow I didn't see many midriff-baring ones, but those in such outfits were let in.
The Duomo in Florence has the third longest nave in the world, after St Peter's and St Paul's. Inside, though, it wasn't very nice. A few churches are too adorned, but this was too spartan.
Altar
Wall painting
Clock
I then went to the Church of Santa Croce.
Santa Croce
Dante statue. If they can't have his tomb, they can at least erect an overblown memorial.
Altar
Assorted Giotto frescoes which for some reason I didn't note the names of (I think they weren't labelled). someone helped me look them up. The first is in the Peruzzi Chapel: Scenes from the Life of St John the Evangelist: 2. Raising of Drusiana, Scenes from the Life of St John the Evangelist: 3. Ascension of the Evangelist.
Life of Christ frescoes
It was horrendously and unbelievably dark inside. And they didn't have the "insert coin for light" machines despite, or perhaps because, of the €5 (?) entrance fee.
Allori - Deposition of the Cross. 1560.
Rossellino - Leonardo Bruni's Memorial Monument
"After Leonardo departed from life, historia mourned, eloquence fell silent, and it is said that neither the Greek nor Latin muses could hold back their tears."
Tomb of Machiavelli
Michelangelo's tomb
Dante's monument (hurr hurr)
Galileo's tomb
Rossini's tomb
Donatello - Tabernacle Cavalcanti Annunciation. 1433-5
Perhaps a reason why modern religious art is so grotesque is that, in a manner similar to painting, photography and the documentation of the world, instead of communicating ideas to the faithful because of a lack of literacy, modern education has freed it to unleash the horrors of the imagination.
Brunelleschi - Pazzi chapel
Brunelleschi cloisters
Angel
Andrea della Robbia - Ciborio con San Francesca, San Bartolomeo, San Raffaele e tobiolo
Giotto - Polyptych of crowning/Baroncelli polyptych. 1329-34
Wall of one chapel
Tomb of Giuseppe Farina (a racecar driver - wth)
Main cloisters
Florentine street
For breakfast, I'd had 2 chocolate chip cookies and gelato. My lunch had also been gelato. So for dinner I felt justified in splashing out less than €10 for a pizza:
Pizza della Casa - Gorgonzola, sausage and red salad. Irregularly shaped, it had a very thin crust (the sort someone likes). Unfortunately, I came just after 5:30, so they only had pizza or salad, or I'd have had a carbonara (in the end I didn't have any carbonara in Italy). The disadvantage of thin crusts is that they get soggy quickly because moisture seeps down.
There were people selling the dancing magnet figures here as well. They weren't dancing to music, but to a radio channel with someone talking. Doubtless this detracted from their appeal!
Luckily, on Tuesday nights from 7-10pm in July, the Galleria Academia was open to the public for free - there *are* some advantages to going to Italy in July. The best part for me was not that I'd get in free, but that I'd get to squeeze more into one day; not everything was on display during this night session, but all the important stuff was, and I'd probably seen enough stuff similar to the works not on display before.
Someone behind me in the line to the Galleria Academia: "Everything in Aldi either breaks or rots". Somehow, I could emphatise with that sentiment.
The Galleria Academia was possibly the scummiest museum I'd ever seen. Normally I'd be inclined to excoriate it more, but since entry was free, the air-conditioning was powerful and everything had English translations, I would've closed half an eye, even with their no photography policy (I'd had pictures of items from most categories/genres of art that I wanted). What drove me over the edge, though, was how the museum required visitors to put their cameras into "special plastic bags" (presumably tamper-proof) before entry (presumably this was only for normal sessions and it was too much trouble to enforce this rule at night).
All these scummy museums should be spited - high resolution pictures of their artefacts should be scanned in and distributed online for free, or better yet, people should be equipped with spycams and sent in to snap away. One thing they could do to earn even more money would be to sell photo passes - for €2 or something you'd be allowed to take non-flash photography or film videos. This would get them even more money, since most of those who'd buy postcards/merchandise anyway would still buy them. And people like me would be less pissed off as well.
Lorenza Monaco's St John the Baptist and St Paul were the first times I'd seen disembodied heads with halos.
Monaco's "The intercession of Christ & the Virgin", c. 1400 was weird. With her left hand she was pushing up her right breast, and her flesh could be seen under her veil.
Zenobia's Ideal head (Michele Tosini), 1560-70 unfortunately didn't have an ideal bust. Pity.
The highlight of the collection, of course, was Michelangelo's David. The detail was amazing - you could see the veins on his right arm, his member appeared circumcised.
Behind David there were many aircon vents in the floor, so a draft was blowing from below. 1 girl got up and then she got to do a Marilyn Monroe.
While I was admiring David, I got to see the museum's Gestapo in action, and this pissed me off even more since they were vigilantly patrolling the area and pouncing readily on people who were getting their money's worth (hurr hurr). God, you'd think they got paid from revenues from the sales of postcards and other merchandise. Originally I decided I didn't have the energy to play games with them, but I got so incensed that I drew on hidden reserves.
Cunningly, the museum guards didn't have any special uniform and so blended well into the crowd, giving them a chance to sneak up on unsuspecting tourists with nary a warning. Poor tourists - they never had a fighting chance! I was more prudent, and so spent time in a preparatory recce observing their patrol pattern: I noticed that it was very thorough, but I located a few spots and times in their patrol cycles during which I reckoned I had a fighting chance. I also saw a few others who were being similarly cunning and playing punk with the system (as opposed to just storming in with guns [or cameras] blazing and getting caught with only blur images to show for their troubles, sometimes even before taking their shots). One guy got a very good shot, which I saw when I went behind him. I chuckled, smiled and flashed a thumbs up at him.
The first time I struck, I only got a blurry shot, so I deleted it and prepared to strike again. A museum guard walked past just as I'd gotten my shot, and I'm sure she saw me skulking around and hiding my camera, and started watching me, for just after my second shot, she pounced on me and started scolding me and yapping in Italian.
Me: "I don't speak Italian"
Her: "You're in Italy... 3 times and you go out"
I think what pissed her off the most was that I was smirking very obviously at my little snubbing of that scummy establishment and the Gestapo (ie Her, since I knew she knew that I knew that she'd seen me the first time). Some interesting responses I could've provided:
Response 1: Me: *takes 2 pictures of her* There, I've taken 3 pictures. I'll be going now.
Response 2: Me: KNNBCCB.
Her: I don't understand what you just said.
Me: You're talking to a Singaporean.
The product of my endeavours. Michelangelo's David.
"san marinis - counter for light" - When I figure out what this means I'll write it out.
Statue in the Piazalle Michelangelo
View of Florence from Piazalle Michelangelo
There was a motorcycle accident just before I reached the Piazalle Michelangelo. 2 motorcycles were on the road in pieces. The 2 riders were not. 4 paramedics were manoeuvring one of the riders onto a spinal board (damnit, I only had 1 buddy to help me last time!)
The most annoying thing about camping, I think, was that we had to walk to central points for toilets and showers, light, water and electricity.
The second entry of my July secret diaries is out. If you can't access it, contact me.