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Artificial grottos under Piazza Michelangelo. The first field trip of my Florentine Art treasures class (Yes, that was the real name of the course) brought us to San Minato, one of Florence's oldest Churches. The Church has an amazing view of the city. Down the hill from the church and Piazza Michelangelo (which is almost always swamped with tour buses) is this artificial grotto. The point, I am told is to make a connection between the man made walls (arches that you can see, which help hold up the hill) and the nature. The whole things is made to look very old, with artificial stalagmites & other spelunking words.
Left to Right: Greg, Alysia and I took a less than hour-long bicycle ride
from Florence to Fiesole. Fiesole, founded before Florence by the Etruscans
(Florence is a Roman city) is located on the hills above Florence. Though
a bit touristy itself, the pace of Fiesole is much slower than the hustle
and bustle of Florence and is a nice place to go to relax.
San Minato-as mentioned above, it is one of the oldest churches in Florence.
Legend has it that when Saint Minato was beaded in Florence, his headless
body picked up the head and put it under its arm and walked to the present
site of the Church (crossing the Arno river in the process). The church is
built on the spot where the head & body stopped and died. San Minato is one
of few major Florentine churches to have an original facade. The church is
considered Romanesque in style ad dates from about the 11th century.
View from San Minato. The large dome on the right is of the Duomo, Florence's main Cathedral. The tower a little bit the right of center is Palazzo Vecchio.
View from Park along the Arno river. The tall, thing tower to the left is Palazzo Vecchio (the old Palace, in Italian) which served as the city hall. Palazzo Vecchio is old, construction began in 1296. The tower to the right are of the Nation Library.
Laurencen Library by Michelangelo
I had to buy this post card because photography was not permitted in the San
Lorenzo complex (Although I must admit that any photo I would have taken would
not have looked so good). Without going in to too much detail, this was a
very important room in architectural history. Michelangelo consciously breaks
many rules of the Renaissance style here: notice the broken pediment (triangle
guy over the door) and the recessed columns (usually columns support a long,
and thus add to the structural stability of a space, hear, the wall is actually
excavated around the column, making the wall weaker...) Anyway, the stairs
are beautiful...
Capelli Principali
The Chapel with the tombs of 4 of the Medici Grand Dukes. It is a huge, grand
and ornate space. A human being's head does not even reach the base that the
oversize tomb rests upon. Like the Laurencen Library, this Cappella is a less
than 2 minute walk from my hose, I pass it every day on my way to school or
wherever...
This may not appear too impressive to you at first. Notice the use of brilliant
colors and use of shadows, especially in the red cloak of the man with his
back to us. Oh, by the way this is not a painting, it is stone inlay. That
means for every color change, there a different piece of stone is used. This
piece must be perfectly fitted to the neighboring piece. This is an amazing
piece of art.
Same as above, stone inlay