Italian pics (6th installment)

This is just a taste of Florence. It is an amazing city for art and I wish I could have gone to tons of art museums. However, we were able to go the Uffizi Galleri (which is mainly Renaissance art from the Medici family collection), the galeria de academica (where the original David stands) if you even get there, go and see it. It was a dream come true for me. (thanks Eas)

Michelangelo library (which is in the San Lorenzo Church and will be seen on the next post)

is well worth seeing and we of course saw the Basilica di Santa Marian del Fiore. This is the main

Cathedral in Florence and the most ornate outside of a church that you can imagine. Which made it pretty

funny that the inside was rather simple. There was so much on the outside of the church it was impossible to

take it all in. I will let the pictures tell you what I saw. I have to say I didn't care for the city much, it was full of

people like me (tourists) and it was graffitied everywhere (very sad). But I love the history and the art.

Samuel inside the Basilica lighting a candle and praying for his sister. It made me cry.

Another cathedral as seen from the top of the Duomo.

The Belltower for the Basilica taken from the top of the Duomo.

From the cafe on top of the Uffizi Gallery.

(below, the description, which is better than I could do myself is taken from the net http://www.spiritus-temporis.com/rape-of-the-sabine-women-sculpture-/)

The Rape of the Sabine Women (1579?1583) is a sculpture by Giambologna. It depicts three figures (a man lifting a woman into the air while a second man crouches) and was carved from a single block of marble. Originally intended as nothing more than a demonstration of the artist's ability to create a complex sculptural group, its subject matter, the mythical rape of the Sabines, had to be invented after Francesco de' Medici, the Grand Duke of Florence decreed that it be put on public display in the Loggia dei Lanzi on Piazza della Signoria. True tomannerist overstylized and often, overinclusive, efforts, the statue is a dynamic panoply of emotions, poses, and viewpoints. When contrasted with either the serene single-viewpoint statuary of the nearby David of Michelangelo (finished nearly 80 years before), this statue shows the infusing tenor of motion that leads towards Baroque, but the tight, uncomfortable, verticality imposed by the author's virtuous self-restriction to a single virgin block, lacks the dynamic diagonality that a sculptor like Bernini will achieve forty years later with the Rape of Proserpine and Apollo and Daphne, both at the Galleria Borghese.

This one is a copy that stands where the original was from the start. The original had to be moved because of vandalism and fear of decay. I also was able to see the original in the galeria de academica It is well worth it to go. It is a truly amazing piece of art.

The Ponte Vecchio Bridge in Florence Italy

The Basilica from a viewpoint.