Florence – Day Twenty Nine

Sunday September 29

We seemed to be following marathons around Europe, Florence had their annual fun run on the Sunday morning.

Chiesa di San Carlo dei Lombardi

The entrance to the Uffizi gallery is just off the Piazza Della Signoria, on the way we passed the church of Orsanmichele, but you had to pay to get in, so we crossed the street and briefly went to the church of St Carlo for free. It dates to 1440 though construction started in 1349.

The church of Orsanmichele is also a museum, dates to 1337, originally on the ground floor it was an open air market, it was later turned into a church for Florence’s trade guilds.

Church of St Carl of Lombardy. It’s free.

The faded frescos & alter piece are amazing.

Piazza della Signoria

The end of the run was in the piazza

Local Ska band playing amongst the famous statues in the Loggia as part of the post-run festivities

Marnie took this one, apparently it’s exceedingly affordable

Uffizi Gallery

I hadn’t realised that Uffizi translated simply means offices, as it was built as administrative offices, between 1560 for the Medici who were the Dukes of Florence. The upper floor was turned into a private art gallery in 1581, When the last Medici Duchess died in 1743 the Uffizi became the first publicly owned art gallery.

This is the statue of Hercules & Casus by Bandinelli (1534), like most the statues in the square, this is casually violent, here Hercules is about to club Casus over the head.
What I hadn’t realised is this statue is the counter point to Michelangelo’s David, they are literally beside one another. David the biblical giant slayer was an allegory for the Florentine Republic defeating the Papal & Princely states. Hercules here is an allegory for the Medici defeating their Republican opponents to make Florence a monarchy. Nice.

Both Marnie & I think that hands down the Uffizi is one of the extraordinary things we saw on the trip.

One of the main corridors in the Gallery, the ceilings are painted in a similar style to Pompeiian Villas that been recently discovered at the time. Notice along the architraves are portraits of all the Medici Dukes and Popes.

The Tribunal of the Uffizi, was specifically designed to be an exhibition space, it’s pretty amazing the ceiling is inlaid with Mother of Pearl

The gallery has a great view of the Ponte Vecchio, the upper portion of the bridge is the Vasari Corridor. The corridor was built to connect the Uffizi Gallery to the Pitti Palace on the other side of the River.

It’s over there. Niobe Room. The Roman era statues were discovered in Rome in 1584. The Niobids were the twelve children of Niobe, who boasted that she had more children than the god Leto. Leto then killed all of Niobe’s children. Not quite sure what the moral of that story was but it’s certainly not uplifting.

At the end of top corridor is the terrace on top of Loggia that overlooks Florence and the square below.

It’s not a bad place to stop for lunch either.
Amazing view, staggeringly average food.

If you look closely there is an imprint of window of the ceiling. This was caused by a car bomb set off by the mafia in 1993, it destroyed & damaged artwork and it sadly killed five people.

Portrait of Lucrezia Panciatichi. Bronzino (1545).

Ponte Vecchio

We left the gallery late afternoon and basically went for a wander around, we decided that we’d have a look at the town on other side of the river.

The Vasari Corridor runs over the Ponte Vecchio to the Uffizi, here it wraps around a tower. The original owner of tower wasn’t a fan of the Medici and didn’t let them demolish their tower, so the corridor had to go around it.

Santa Felicita

Just past the Ponte Vecchio is the Church of Santa Felicita. There has been a church there since 300-400 but the current church dates to 1739.

The Vasari Corridor passes in front of the church. The corridor allowed the Medici to walk from the palace to the church and onto the Uffizi without ever having to mix with the riff raff. Who by all accounts were either smelly, or wanted to kill them, so a corridor made a lot of sense.

The Deposition from the Cross, Pontormo (1528) is located at the church in a small chapel, it’s pretty extraordinary.

Lungarno Torrigiani

Turns out that this part of the south bank of Florence is called Lungarno Torrigiani. Not that we knew that, we just wandered from the church heading to the river, and decided to walk up some side streets to explore.

Looking towards the Ponte Vecchio, the Uffizi is on the right.

Turns out that the all round clever clogs Galileo Galilei lived here.

Galileo’s old neighbourhood was pretty nice.

Forte di Belvedere

When we got to the top of the road, we stumbled onto the Forte di Belvedere. This is the biggest fort in Florence & was built for the ubiquitous Medici’s.

It was designed/built by the architect Bernardo “Bernie” Buontalenti in 1590-95 to protect Florence & the Medici in case of invasion. His surname means “Good Talents”. Humble. However, to be fair to old Berns he was taught by Michelangelo & invented ice cream!