Wednesday, August 4, 2010

catching up...still...4 florence

hopefully by the am i will be up to date...


missed the us cemetery in florence...totally forgot about it


walked the entire city...very doable...30 min from train to hostel santa monica...with 6 dorm rooms with 22 beds each...


wash own dishes in communal kitchen...macey paynter wouldnt have liked that.....who knows who ate off of it last...had a salad with proscutto, cheese and a bottle of wine, just over 8 euro...good deal


accamedia...glad i had an advance ticket and avoided the line...still crowded at 130...i mean 1330 pm...ed went at 9 and said it was virtuallz empty.

michaelanglo is the star here..his unfinished prisoners-slaves unbelievable...as if thez were trzing to break free from the stone--chains´´they were in.


it is hard to put david into wards. i had always thought of this work as just another naked guy...not so...very powerful...not just another statue with his junk on display. michaelangelos attention to detail...veins in hands and legs...cuticles of finernails, chips of toenails, musculature...is really beyond belief...and while david was 26, michaelangelo was in his 60s i think...he lived to be 89...and the piece of marble the statue was carved from had been rejected as imperfect or inadequate by 2 sculptors prior to m. its truly a shame that this work has been commercialized to a point of ridicule...ie aprons of the body...thats not what this statue is about.


museum of san marco..15th centurz monastary with walls decorated with fresco including the 43 sells...pretty impressive


church of san lorenyo...facade is ugly as unfinished...pope leo x pulled the plug on the cash...michaelangleo had worked on it for 4 yrs


santa croce...m buried here, galileo also...didnt buy any leather at leather school.


i sat down, removed rainbos, to cool mz feet on the marble, looked down and realyed i was resting my worn hooves on the grave of a pinelli....could it be an ancestor...as ma was a pinnell


medici chapel...burial site of medici familz...one of mz favs in florence...most incredible frescos seen thus far..in its dome...traces christianitz from creation... to resurrection...colors are stunning


duomo...citys cathedral...3rd longest nave in christiandom...facade covered in red, green and white marble


bargello...sculpture museum...incredible


ufizzi gallery...almost...no was...overwheming...so much fine art...my favorite was lippi´s adoration of the magi...much more so than da vince's


pitti palace...sumptous home to the medici and hapsburs....countless plational rooms, didnt see gardens...ed did...but he got eat up with mosquitos


santo spirito church...mz vaorite one in florence...2 blocks from home sweet hostel...carved wooden crucifis attributed to michaelangelo was on loan...but bright, light interior...along with the branacci chapel


on sat afternoon, walked, what a hike, up past he plaza of michaelangelo to the san miniato church, high on a hill above the citz...st. minias...martyred, died here, is buried here. 530 mass was gregorian changs...very relaxing and soothing...left after the sermon..with new friends mike and lindsay from vancouver... one of the monks kept blowing his nose, i think in an effort to get the preaching monk to sit down and shut it...as it was in either italian or latin, i didnt understand 99.44 of it...like ivory soap


walked with mike and lindsay down to the ponte vecchio briege...he is in real estate and reports that things are much better in canada than in the us...his is 50 and is at a simlar place in life as i have been in...both so very nice...told me about the cinque terra, inspiring me to drop venice and go there...i have to email them the info i have on restaurants i nparis for their time there


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