Day 15 and 16- Say Goodnight, Florence

Back to being able to post as of tonight in our new spot in Salsomaggiore. I accidentally used up Erling and Lynne's whole internet capacity when I uploaded the last post, so I hope you read it! And looked at all the pictures!

View at breakfast from Lynne and Erling's place.

Marianne made it back without a hitch (as you may or may not know, we fly on standby tickets, making every move non-warranted.) She found her way to the Palazzo degli Artisti unassisted, for which she gets major kudos on navigation. After coming in at about 11 am, she was willing to head out with us to go peek at the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi, a large townhouse built for Cosimo Medici starting in 1444. The house has two great courtyards and a number of well painted rooms, including the recently restored Magi Chapel, painted by Bennozzo Gozzoli in 1459. There is also a very cool dining room with painted mirrors and a large allegorical ceiling in it, but it was holding some kind of meeting, so we couldn't look in.

You might be crabby too if you had a big block of stone balanced on your head for 500 years!

The day was kind of short- did some errand running, ate with Lynne and Erling at a place that had gluten free pizza (yay!) and went back to the flat where everyone passed out after watching some pretty good lightning. Next day was Monday, when many things are closed around here, but we thought we had a couple of destinations going, only to find that they were both actually closed also. We stuck our noses in to see the Pontormo Deposition at Santa Felicita, then decided to attempt the bus ride to Poggio a Caiano, where there is a very large Medici Villa that has a famous lunette by Pontormo also. 

cluster of hands in Pontormo's Deposition at Santa Felicita

By the time we got out there we were starving, and a nice English woman who worked at the ticket office told us where we could get lunch in the back room of a pasticceria down the street. Always nice when you get away from the major tourist centers in Italy; prices are lower and people are a lot more relaxed. They don't speak as much English either, so you have to be ready for that, but they're generally pretty patient. 

Entry to the Medici Villa at Poggio a Caiano. Magnificent place!

After filling our bellies with lovely soup, pasta, and salad, we headed back up the little hill (Poggio means "knoll") we headed into the park surrounding the house. Everything there is totally free, which was a nice surprise, and we had it all to ourselves again. The house is a magnificent chunk sitting on this knoll, still surrounded by the gardens that were remade when the Italian monarchy took up residence here in the 19th century. We entered through the ground floor into a hall, the ceiling of which had some of the most convincing trompe l'oeil work I've ever seen. Say what you will about 19th century decorative work, when they got it right, it was superior, especially the trompe l'oeil. 

Lousy photo taken through the window of the entry hall ceiling. Completely trompe l'oeil ornament!

We then entered the billiard room, which I had seen in pics before, but had forgotten about. An absolutely drop dead gorgeous trellis ceiling (also 19th century) with all kinds of realistic looking flowers and a complex structure that looks like woven bamboo. I was dying to take some photos of it, but since we were the only ones there, it would have been impossible to get away with it. Behind that was a couple of rooms that had originally been used by Bianca Capello, Francesco de Medici's mistress and wife, that had been repainted with some exquisite ornamental work. 

Quirky ornamental work from 1865

We were then led upstairs to the main floor (the piano nobile) where there is a mix of both Renaissance and 19th century work. The villa was built up by Lorenzo de Medici in the late 1400s, and occupied by the Medici for about 100 years. Francesco and Bianca both died there in 1579, under somewhat suspicious circumstances. It was either malaria, or arsenic. There are only two big rooms left from this period, everything else having been remodeled when Vittorio Emanuele II lived there in the middle of the 1800s. 

Pontormo's end wall was much larger than i had imagined- the bottom of it is almost 20 feet off the ground.

Fortunately they saved the grand reception room with it's murals by Andrea del Sarto and the magnificent end wall by Pontormo, which was much bigger than i had expected from the photos I'd seen. By this time, the guards were distracted and I had a a chance to take a few pics of the place, and then we went out and cruised the slightly overgrown garden accompanied by a friendly tortoise shell cat. They had an orangerie full of dozens of citrus trees all laden with fruit. Wish ours would do that!

This little guy followed us all through the garden. Must have been bored in the off season!

Back to town on the bus and had our last dinner with Lynne and Erling at the incredible palazzo, watching the ever changing Florentine sky do light shows on the Duomo and the Campanile. I'll leave off here, since I can't seem to finish a sentence any more. Tomorrow I'll tell you about today and yesterday. 

Dinner with a view!

Day 11, 12, 13, 14- Catching up!

Ah Firenze!

Back in Florence, and the crowds have already begun to build! I've been here for four days now, but the internet at the house is very limited, so I haven't been posting of late. Time to catch up a bit tonight, since my hosts Lynne and Erling are out seeing some music. 

View from the breakfast table. Upstairs you see even more of the roof line.

It has been interesting to see how once it gets warm (and it is getting warmer- 70's at mid day) the hordes of tourists arrive from all over. Spring break teens are the most obvious- not only Americans, but loads of Italian kids in packs, coolly touring by day, boisterously wandering by night. The streets around here are almost as loud as Campo de' Fiori was in Rome. Fortunately, we're a little higher up here, but I'm still using my earplugs. 

This is a shot of Lynne waving from the window of the dining room, taken from the top of the Duomo. That's how close it is. 

Staying with Lynne and Erling has been great. The house is absolutely jaw dropping and very central- right between the Duomo and Santa Croce with a view of the Duomo and Campanile that is literally unreal looking. It looks surreally large as I look at it right now out the window of the room they are using as an office.

Inside the Duomo things are not so rosy! Especially if you've been naughty!

Been doing my usual series of photographs this time around, but a little less manic than the first time, since i hit a lot of the big places last time and don't feel quite as compelled to get every bit of info. I did get a double dose of the Palazzo Vecchio yesterday and the day before, including a pretty exhaustive shoot going room by room taking lots of closeups, which are the most challenging to shoot and are the most rewarding for us painters to look at, especially as they are rarely included in what little printed matter there is on the subject of grottesca and ornamental painting. 

Inspecting the secret passageway that runs through the attic of the Room of the 500, designed by Giorgio Vasari., part of the hidden tour at teh Palazzo Vecchio

Chronologically, here in Florence I've seen the Duomo (up close and personal from the climb to the cupola, which goes via a catwalk that rings the inside of the dome,) the Bargello Museum, which not only has excellent sculptures, it also includes some really good examples of Majolica ceramics with very nice grottesca decorations, Santa Croce, Santa Maria Novella, the Palazzo Vecchio (twice- once on the hidden tour of some of the lesser known nooks and crannies, and again to take more photos and climb to the top of the tower, where there is also a tapestry restoration lab), an excellent show of Pontormo and Rosso Fiorentino at the Palazzo Strozzi, Santa Felicita to see a bit more Pontormo, and finally today revisited the Brancacci Chapel. Plus loads more bits of sgraffito on the exteriors of buildings around town. 

This guard at the Brancacci Chapel would wake up every few minutes to tell the crowd to be quiet. Disturbing her sleep no doubt.

Had a great visit with Alison Grace Woolley, a Canadian painter who has lived here for quite a while and does beautiful grottesca work. She's working on a harpsichord box for a French maker, and it should be exquisite. Also met up with a French painter who lives in Pordenone (near Trieste) and just wanted to talk shop with Lynne and me. Had a nice lunch with him near Santo Spirito and afterwards drooled on handmade shoes at a shop next door to the restaurant. When I get to be a big art star I'm going to order a pair of these dreamy looking brogans- they start at $2,000 and up! But they look so great, and I'm sure they fit like a glove. Or a shoe. 

want

Lynne's foot got sore, so Erling and I wandered around and stumbled into an interesting little exhibition about a Catholic priest nick-named "Don Cuba", who jumped on a motorcycle with a buddy and rode it all the way to Mt Kilimanjaro, where he gave a mass. They had the bike, and a little suitcase altar that he brought, and a ton of great photos and info in both Italian and English. 

Don Cuba's moto- made it most of the way down Africa overland with his buddy Steve.

Marianne is actually coming back here after going home for a week, and will be here for about 5 days. We fly for almost free (thanks to her aunt, who used to work for United airlines) but it still seems totally nuts to me. But she wanted to do it, so she'll be here tomorrow night. I'll wrap this up now so I can post it and hopefully put a couple of photos with it. ciao for now!