florence, Italy
Steven Dutch, Professor Emeritus, Natural and Applied Sciences,
Universityof Wisconsin - Green Bay
Apart from Santa Maria Novella and the Synagogue (most interesting for its World
War II rescue by the Italian Resistance), the main attractions in florence are
in a fairly narrow zone.
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Below: The River Arno |
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Via dei Malcontenti
You'd be malcontenti, too, if you had
to park so far out of town. |
Santa Croce
| The facade is imitative of the Duomo and dates from the 19th century.
The church itself was begun in 1294. |
The architect of the facade, Niccolo Matas, was Jewish, hence
the Star of David. photos of the old facade, a thoroughly drab brick
structure, survive; this is a vast improvement. |
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The tomb of Machiavelli. I admit the ink was still damp the last
time I readThe Prince, but I have never really seen what was
so "Machiavellian" about it. Machiavelli's principal sin, apparently,
was bluntly recognizing what everyone else knew but pretended not to,
that princes sometimes have to be ruthless. |
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Dante's tomb. The amount of history in a tiny space here just numbs
the mind. This is actually a cenotaph; Dante is actually buried in Ravenna. |
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| Above: Michaelangelo's Tomb |
Below: Galileo's tomb. |
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Tomb of the composer Rossini. |
The Cloister
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| The crucifix above dates from about 1280 |
A modern rendition of it |
The Refectory
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Plaque commemorating a great flood in 1844. Another great flood
in 1966 caused immense damage to florence's art treasures. |
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Palazzo Vecchio
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Michaelangelo's David, or actually, a reproduction. The
original is safely sheltered in a museum. |
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| Below: The Uffizi. If that sounds like "Offices," that just what
it means. Now an art gallery. |
This is full of art. Then there's the Louvre, the Prado, the Hermitage,
the Met... How can there be that much art in the entire world? |
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Ponte Vecchio
Dante's House
The Duomo (Cathedral)
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The first glimps of this when you round the corner is a jaw-dropping
moment.
A torrential downpour began while we were inside. We
could hear the rain pounding on the roof a hundred feet above. |
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Created 1 April 2007, Last Update
04 June 2020
