A Full Day in Florence
Today was our first day in Florence and it was off to a very rough start. My hotel room is right next to the main street so we hear all the traffic that goes down the road. I was awake all night. When I finally had a nightmare which was probably impacted by the street noise. Without going into too much detail, there was an apocalyptic simulation and for some reason I had a gun. Oh boy.
When the ball finally got rolling, we took a bus and checked out a view of Florence, which is considered a part of Tuscany. It’s beautiful here. In the piazza of this great view is a horrible copy of the statue The David by Michelangelo. It’s so ugly, I couldn’t take a picture. I did you all a favor, honestly.
I didn’t know a lot about Brunelleschi’s Duomo before this class since I’ve never taken a Renaissance course before (I’ve taken art from the Renaissance but that is barely the tip of the iceberg). Okay, so this cathedral had Campino as the original architect; projects for that day and age were projects for life and sometimes the project would outlive the artist. The dome (duomo in Italian) was very complicated because they wanted it to be just super big and tall but that would be difficult to accomplish without using buttressing (an architectural invention used to support tall buildings. Attached to the building, buttresses would lean against the building and send the weight to the ground). Italian’s felt this to be too French an invention so that would just not do.
The People in ChargeTM made a competition in 1480 to solve the problem of the dome. It would end up being about 170 feet tall because the cathedral was already 130 feet tall and the drum the dome would stand on would be about 30 feet tall. They couldn’t use a device called centering because it was just too dangerous; the entire building would just fall tall.
Well, Brunelleschi shows up and he studied ancient Roman architecture because those guys were just notorious for making domes. Because he was worried people would steal his plans, he kept his plans written in a cipher; we still don’t know how he did it! The guy used about 4 million bricks which weighed something like 47 THOUSAND tons! It took about 16 years and two weeks to build the dome. It was entirely designed by Bruno. Honestly, I think he’s underrated in the world of art. You go, Bruno. I've included a picture of the Duomo with a gelato I had. True works of art.
Once we wrapped up talking about the Dome (in a presentation given by student Camille) (and honestly, we only scratched the surface), we headed inside a museum dedicated to the works of art and artifacts surrounding the Duomo and other important structures. One of those important structures is the Baptistery and its decorated doors that my friend Rylie taught us about. These gold doors were given the name The Gates of Paradise by Michelangelo because he thought artist Ghiberti did such a good job on it.
Before Ghiberti worked on the Gates of Paradise, he had to enter a competition to see if he was good enough to do the doors at all. When he won the competition, he spent about 20 years working on these doors. During that time, his style changed and improved to be more humanistic (making the figures more human and life-like). This first set of doors was cast in bronze using what is called the lost wax technique. I still don't understand exactly how this works but basically, the artist will create the thing then make a wax mold then will pour bronze into it and the wax will melt away and what will be left is left is the bronze work of art. Obviously you have to be very talented in order to do this thing.
With the Gates of Paradise, it took about 27 years to complete it. He also used the lost wax technique but there's definitely gold in this work of art. This work of art has survived the 1990 flood which knocked off 5 panels and one hanging on its hinges. It has also survived over polishing from restoration, which is Not GoodTM. It features scenes from the Old Testament including Adam & Eve, Cain & Abel, David, and Jacob & Esau. Ghiberti used linear perspective and had multiple events happening in every panel. Also, he had a lil self portrait included. It's the last head on the center left that you can see.
Michelangelo did another sculpture of the Pieta but for his own tomb. It never got finished and it never ended up in his tomb. But I honestly liked this one more than the one he had previously done. I had art feelings about it and I cried. I've been really stressed about having art feelings because what if I never had them; then I must either be dead inside or going into the wrong profession. It's okay though, because I had my feelings.
This one is so much more raw. While the one in the Vatican was finished in 1499, this work of art was being made in the 1550's. The style is definitely Mannerist; so the figures don't have exact proportions and their poses can get a little funky.
You might notice that one of Christ's legs is missing. The story goes that someone made a comment when Michelangelo was working on this that it was really inappropriate to have Christ's legs hanging over Mary and that he was really stepping over the line. There's another version where Michelangelo just didn't like the stone he was carving from. Either way, he got mad and broke off the leg. Some of his students tried to put it back together but Mary was never even completed.
Also, the guy standing with the hood is Nicodemus. At the time, there was a cult dedicated to Nicodemus, the guy who helped get Christ a place to be buried (nice try, dude). Michelangelo was a part of this group and he used his own face as the model for Nicodemus. This use of a self-portrait is indicative of his faith and service. Furthermore, he showed people that he was there to support Christ like Nicodemus.
This is a wooden sculpture by Donatello of Mary Magdalene. This sculpture shows MM as a prostitute. Her spooky disposition is meant to be symbolic of the impact of sin. It is meant to be unique, emotional, and psychological. Donatello intended to capture the themes of repentance and mercy. This scene takes place before Christ came into MM's life. I'm pretty sure he carved this out of wood. Insane, Donny!
When the ball finally got rolling, we took a bus and checked out a view of Florence, which is considered a part of Tuscany. It’s beautiful here. In the piazza of this great view is a horrible copy of the statue The David by Michelangelo. It’s so ugly, I couldn’t take a picture. I did you all a favor, honestly.
I didn’t know a lot about Brunelleschi’s Duomo before this class since I’ve never taken a Renaissance course before (I’ve taken art from the Renaissance but that is barely the tip of the iceberg). Okay, so this cathedral had Campino as the original architect; projects for that day and age were projects for life and sometimes the project would outlive the artist. The dome (duomo in Italian) was very complicated because they wanted it to be just super big and tall but that would be difficult to accomplish without using buttressing (an architectural invention used to support tall buildings. Attached to the building, buttresses would lean against the building and send the weight to the ground). Italian’s felt this to be too French an invention so that would just not do.
The People in ChargeTM made a competition in 1480 to solve the problem of the dome. It would end up being about 170 feet tall because the cathedral was already 130 feet tall and the drum the dome would stand on would be about 30 feet tall. They couldn’t use a device called centering because it was just too dangerous; the entire building would just fall tall.
Well, Brunelleschi shows up and he studied ancient Roman architecture because those guys were just notorious for making domes. Because he was worried people would steal his plans, he kept his plans written in a cipher; we still don’t know how he did it! The guy used about 4 million bricks which weighed something like 47 THOUSAND tons! It took about 16 years and two weeks to build the dome. It was entirely designed by Bruno. Honestly, I think he’s underrated in the world of art. You go, Bruno. I've included a picture of the Duomo with a gelato I had. True works of art.
Once we wrapped up talking about the Dome (in a presentation given by student Camille) (and honestly, we only scratched the surface), we headed inside a museum dedicated to the works of art and artifacts surrounding the Duomo and other important structures. One of those important structures is the Baptistery and its decorated doors that my friend Rylie taught us about. These gold doors were given the name The Gates of Paradise by Michelangelo because he thought artist Ghiberti did such a good job on it.
Before Ghiberti worked on the Gates of Paradise, he had to enter a competition to see if he was good enough to do the doors at all. When he won the competition, he spent about 20 years working on these doors. During that time, his style changed and improved to be more humanistic (making the figures more human and life-like). This first set of doors was cast in bronze using what is called the lost wax technique. I still don't understand exactly how this works but basically, the artist will create the thing then make a wax mold then will pour bronze into it and the wax will melt away and what will be left is left is the bronze work of art. Obviously you have to be very talented in order to do this thing.
With the Gates of Paradise, it took about 27 years to complete it. He also used the lost wax technique but there's definitely gold in this work of art. This work of art has survived the 1990 flood which knocked off 5 panels and one hanging on its hinges. It has also survived over polishing from restoration, which is Not GoodTM. It features scenes from the Old Testament including Adam & Eve, Cain & Abel, David, and Jacob & Esau. Ghiberti used linear perspective and had multiple events happening in every panel. Also, he had a lil self portrait included. It's the last head on the center left that you can see.
Michelangelo did another sculpture of the Pieta but for his own tomb. It never got finished and it never ended up in his tomb. But I honestly liked this one more than the one he had previously done. I had art feelings about it and I cried. I've been really stressed about having art feelings because what if I never had them; then I must either be dead inside or going into the wrong profession. It's okay though, because I had my feelings.
This one is so much more raw. While the one in the Vatican was finished in 1499, this work of art was being made in the 1550's. The style is definitely Mannerist; so the figures don't have exact proportions and their poses can get a little funky.
You might notice that one of Christ's legs is missing. The story goes that someone made a comment when Michelangelo was working on this that it was really inappropriate to have Christ's legs hanging over Mary and that he was really stepping over the line. There's another version where Michelangelo just didn't like the stone he was carving from. Either way, he got mad and broke off the leg. Some of his students tried to put it back together but Mary was never even completed.
Also, the guy standing with the hood is Nicodemus. At the time, there was a cult dedicated to Nicodemus, the guy who helped get Christ a place to be buried (nice try, dude). Michelangelo was a part of this group and he used his own face as the model for Nicodemus. This use of a self-portrait is indicative of his faith and service. Furthermore, he showed people that he was there to support Christ like Nicodemus.
This is a wooden sculpture by Donatello of Mary Magdalene. This sculpture shows MM as a prostitute. Her spooky disposition is meant to be symbolic of the impact of sin. It is meant to be unique, emotional, and psychological. Donatello intended to capture the themes of repentance and mercy. This scene takes place before Christ came into MM's life. I'm pretty sure he carved this out of wood. Insane, Donny!
These are some choir lofts by Luca della Robbia.
These are some choir lofts that Donatello worked on. There are complicated with their use of relief sculpture. He used a lot of different materials such as porphyry disks, gold mosaic, and bronze.
After the museum, I went with some friends to get some good soup since it was raining. Despite the rain we had to get gelato; it was the best I had so far! The building had really cute light decoration too!
After that, I went back to the museum with student Camille and we got to enjoy the good things it offered such as weird reliquaries of saints. A relic is typically an object which is meant to have belonged to a saint and they are typically used for veneration so prayers can get answered. They could be anything from the shroud of the Virgin Mary, the finger bone of an apostle, to the jaw bone. It gets really weird.
After the museum, Camille and I climbed the bell tower. From each landing, we were able to get a picture of the Duomo. Here's the dome from the view of the bell tower from one of the lower levels. It's crazy.
Before going to dinner, the class went inside the Baptistery. This building was mysterious to the Florentines because they thought it was some mysterious ancient Roman building. It was actually about a 9th century Carolingian piece of architecture. Originally, the baptistery would include a full font right in the center and up to about twenty years ago, everyone would get baptized in it. Now the font is off to the side and I don't think they often practice baptisms here.
The ceiling has a 26 foot tall Christ in the Late Byzantine style. Round the rest of the ceiling tells the stories of Adam & Eve, Joseph (of the Dreamcoat), Mary & Christ, and John the Baptist.
Inside the apse is this wheel which really reminded me of Buddhist art. Within Buddhism (I only have a very primitive understanding from my Non-Western art history class), the law of the wheel was a major subject in art. This really reminded me of it! It features the Lamb of God.
The floor design is absolutely influenced by Islamic art. I love seeing different cultures borrow styles; it's really cool!
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