Ninja Turtle City
As we traveled from the coast into Tuscany, the trees sprouted thin trunks and tiny tufted tops. The little alps of central Italy sprung up around the postcard villages and vineyards. Looking out the train windows, Mandy noticed that Italy is all agriculture, with little wilderness.
Florence, for some reason, is crawling with stray cats. Someone built a bunch of cat houses (No, no, that was Amsterdam) along the steps to Piazza del Michelangelo and little old ladies show up to feed them. We camped at the Piazza del Michelangelo on a big hill overlooking the city center. The city is gorgeous from above and filled with the competitive renaissance architecture. In the morning we walked down broad stone steps past scores of kittens. At the bottom was a little cafe on Niccolo St. where we had scrumptious cappucini and pannini.
Florence is bleeding sculpture out every pore. There is a statue garden in the piazza just north of Musea Uffizi that will knock you dead. “Rape of the Sabines”, “Rape of Persephone”, and “Herakles Beats the Snot out of the Centaur ‘Cuz He Looked at His Woman” are the most dynamic statues I have ever seen. Even though the people are 10 feet tall, the statuary honestly looks like it might leap off the pedestal at any moment. I kept checking to see if they were breathing. The sweeping lines of the action, incredible realism and elegant composition fascinated us. We routed every walk we could through this piazza so we could take another look.
It was good to see a bunch of Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael, and Donatello’s works up close. The Ninja Turtles picked up after a millennium where the Romans had left off. Donatello’s thin vertical sculptures have very still, grounded mannerisms. Its quite a contrast from Michelangelo’s muscles and movement. Mike’s David is being held hostage for 15 euros a peek in the tiny gallery d’Academe with only a couple other unfinished statuary. The disproportionate hands and head do cool perspective tricks as you approach him from an angle.
The women in Florence dress in a variety of flamboyant and varied ways similar to what I thought I might see in Paris. The leather they wear is crafted very creatively and they all wore high top boxing shoes.
Our camera broke again! So we got very few photos of Florence, and none thereafter. Overwhelmed by art, we scuttled on down to the seat of the old empire…