Day 15- Three hits and a Grand Slam!

Day 15- Three hits and a Grand Slam!

Passed out immediately after dinner last night, so this one's coming in a bit tardy, but you'll get a double dose today (if I don't do the same thing tonight.) Yesterday was a marathon day- took over 500 photos of three of the main sites in town and finished with a real dazzler.

Began the day with a return to the Pitti Palace. Kind of like the Louvre- there's so much to look at it's overwhelming. There was a really cool show of depictions of dreaming from the Renaissance, including several paintings that featured the Zeus and Ganymede composition (originally by Michelangelo) that I used on one of my ceiling murals. We then toured the royal apartments there, which are mostly still furnished and are absolutely over the top in terms of both size and decoration. 

Center of a grottesca panel with Zeus and Ganymede from Michelangelo's design- same one I used for the library ceiling at the Villa Tramonto in LA.

Then we met up with Alison Grace Woolley, a fellow decorative painter, at her studio. Always fun to bump heads with a kindred soul who's been walking the same path for a while. I need to spend some more time in her studio, so hopefully I'll get a chance to come back next spring while Lynne Rutter is over here. Alison took us to a little neighborhood trattoria for lunch where we got to witness the famous Italian temper tantrum, with one of the employees storming out from the kitchen, quitting as he left!

Then it was on the Uffizi Gallery, one of my holy grails. While we did actually spend a fair amount of time looking at the pictures on the walls, far more time was spent looking at the amazing ceiling panels in the hallways of the loggia, which are some of the finest grottesca work in the world. If you don't know what grottesca is, go over to my art+works page and you'll find loads of examples and explanations in my pictures. Endlessly free flowing creativity and just fun painting, all informed by a well trained hand

Finished off the day with the grand slam. The Palazzo Vecchio, the "Old Palace" of the Medici clan, was not only stunning in size and decor, but it's also well lit and THEY LET YOU TAKE PHOTOS! It was nice not to have to feel like a sneak while I indulged my passion for this art form. My only regret was that we hadn't scheduled this one earlier; Marianne was starting to flag -she's been a real trooper keeping up with my obsession- and our 72 hour museum pass runs out this afternoon and we still want to see some other sites. 

crazed ornament at the Palazzo Vecchio

As we were emerging the weather was dramatic, lightning on the horizon and we passed by a bridal photo shoot on our bridge. Checked my photos today and the bride is the same one we saw being shot in the Piazza San Marco in Venice a week ago- same dress even. Must have been a bridal fashion shot. Went back to our little cloister and crashed hard after dinner!

This was the same model we saw in Venice- in the same dress!!