San Marco

In a continuing effort to visit the important historical and artistic locations that Florence has to offer I took a trip with Sarah to San Marco. My list of things to see in Florence is getting shorter, but there are still quite a few things left to check off.


I had been to the Piazza di San Marco many times but I had never been inside the San Marco church on its north side. Nor had I been to the friary turned museum attached to it. Actually, I still haven't been in the church because we went on a Sunday and mass was in progress. I had been to the piazza mainly because it is a major bus hub and I often catch my number 10 bus to I Tatti from the south side of the piazza. Anyway, we went to the museum next to the church seen above.


The church and grounds on this site have changed hands over the years, but it is most remembered now for the time when it was a Dominican friary.


There are frescoes all over the inside and outside. There are many works by Fra Angelico and Fra Bartolomeo, among others.


I think this Crucifixion was by Fra Angelico. It shows St. Dominic at the base of the cross. Fra Angelico was an early Renaissance painter from the hills just north of town in Fiesole. Angelico means the angelic one. He lived from 1395-1455. He was beatified by Pope John Paul II.


Here is one of the more famous versions of Sarah's gesture. We found three examples of it at San Marco. This one was also by Fra Angelico.


Sarah does her best impersonation of a friar. Or a librarian. I'm not sure.


This Crucifixion is also by Fra Angelico and it shows the crosses surrounded by saints.


Sarah examines the authenticity of the work. We often joke that Sarah and her group should make fake badges or something and march into museums and to the front of lines saying, "Art historians coming through." It might work.


Here are a bunch of images of saints.


This one of St. Dominic (and many of the others) was by Fra Bartolomeo.


Here is perhaps the most famous one-time resident of the Dominican friary at San Marco. Girolamo Savonarola was a Dominican friar who lived from 1452 to 1498 when he was executed. After the Medici were overthrown in 1494, Savonarola became the secular and religious leader of Florence. He liked to burn books. This was painted by Fra Bartolomeo.


Here is my last shot before I was told that I was not allowed to take pictures inside the museum. So here are some images I found on the Internet of things I wasn't allowed to take pictures of:


Here is an image of the Last Supper by Domenico Ghirlandaio.


I got yelled at for trying to take a picture of this one. It is The Annunciation by Fra Angelico. I had a clear shot to take the picture but a guard walked around the corner just as I put the camera in front of my face. I played dumb. It wasn'thard.

So I continued to take a few pictures. One of the really neet things about the museum is that the second floor has all of the novices' cells open and you can go all the way inside some of them. Each cell had a fresco on the wall to help the friars pray or concentrate or something. Ask Sarah.
You can see inside Savonarola's larger cell also.
On the way out we saw one last version of Sarah's gesture, but there was a guard sitting very nearby. I tried to create a diversion and to stand between them so that Sarah could take a picture but she was on to us. She watched Sarah like a hawk. Which is what you have to do with Sarah. You can't trust her. She's shifty.

Bargello

Before I begin to talk about the trip Sarah and I took to the Bargello, I would like to share a couple of photos I took while walking around town one weekend.

First, I was fortunate enough to have found Santa Claus, or whatever name he goes by here. Apparently he does not spend the month of October in the North Pole. Instead he struts his long legs around the streets of Florence.

I also thought that people should get to see what our police force looks like. They are quite well dressed and always have purses and tall pith helmets. These are the polizia di stato, not to be confused with the carabinieri, who drive nicer cars and are actually like a branch of the military and police both the military and civilian populations. There's also the guardia di finanza, which are like a customs police force. I've also seen some polizia municipale, though perhaps not in Florence. With all these officers policing the city, it's kind of funny how much people get away with, especially on the roads. You can do pretty much whatever you want and the millions of police officers don't seem to mind. People speed, pass illegally (if anything is illegal), and park wherever they want to. Every morning when I go to work my bus passes two schools right before my stop. The parents who have dropped off their kids park along the street. Then there forms another line of cars in the actual eastbound lane on a road that is barely two lanes wide. And the parents don't do this quickly. They get out and chat for ten minutes or so.
In the US cars usually are allowed to park up to a certain point before an intersection. Not here. People park completely around the corners. There are also a few places I have seen where a road deadends into a larger road. The smaller road widens to allow cars to turn or whatever. Then cars park in the middle of this widened area, leaving a tiny lane going one way and a tiny lane going the other way. If you can picture that from my great description. Things are quite different here. That's just how they do it.
Okay. Enough of that. On with the Bargello...

The Bargello was originally built as a palace for what was like a police chief and then for the Podesta, which was the highest magistrate on the city council. It is supposed to be the oldest public building in Florence, according to one unreliable source, being built around 1261.

When the Medici got rid of the Podesta, they housed the police chief here. It was used as a prison and hosted many executions before Leopold II (Holy Roman Emperor and Grand Duke of Tuscany) banned executions in 1780. It then became a museum.

I admire Sarah while she admires the construction.

This just in...it became a museum in 1865 and has the largest collection of Gothic and Renaissance sculptures in Italy. Too bad you're not allowed to take pictures inside.

So I'll take some pictures outside.

Still outside, so pictures are okay.

Just barely still outside. I guess the third floor is open sometimes, but it was not when we went there. But it doesn't matter because there are no pictures allowed.

Here I try to make Brad proud by stealing his cannon pose.

See how much fun you can have in the courtyard of a museum? Don't worry about the priceless works of art inside. All you need are some well-coreographed pictures on the outside.
Well okay. Here are some pictures I stole from the Inernet of some of the works of art inside.


Here is Giambologna's statue of Mercury and Benvenuto Cellini's bust of Cosimo I.

And here is the feminine David and St. George, both by Donatello. I have never been crazy about this David. I think it's the hat.

With Andy at Santo Spirito

After the group left Santa Felicita, we made our way through the maze of streets in the Oltrarno to the church of Santo Spirito, which I had been to once before.

On the way there we encountered this little pug in a store's window. With the curtain behind him he looked like he was going to put on a show. But he just stared at all of us gawkers for a minute, became bored with us, and disappeared behind the curtain. So, on we went.

Santo Spirito is a pretty large church and it almost looks like a gallery with its large number of works of art at all of the chapels along the periphery.

I made my way around, took some pictures (even though I already took more than enough the first time I was here), and then sat down while the art history nerds took their time and played games like the "Let's guess the artist and date before we look at the little sign" game. Always a hit a parties.

And they looked some more.

And they looked some more.


Finally, as they were winding up, I went around and took even more pictures. Here is Sarah leaning suspiciously in the eastern aisle.

Here is my favorite work of art from the church, and perhaps the entire city.

Just kidding. But I do really like this little guy. I think he was a He-Man villain.

After the church we all stopped at a little sadnwhich shop directly across the street from Santo Spirito. It was pretty good. I decided to take a picture of the group since I probably wolfed my food down the fastest. Sarah saw me and flashed her prettiest smile.

After the food was all eaten we moved on to a gelato shop. I did not partake. Then we continued back towards the river. Along the way everyone decided to pose next to a fountain. Check out Clark. He's puttin' the vibe out.

Sarah can't resist Clark's mojo and runs across the street to join him. Meanwhile, Tom is too cool for school on his side of the street and Dan almost gets hit by a car.


We crossed back over the Ponte Vecchio. You can see the Vasari Corridor in the picture above on the top right. This is where the protected corridor crossed the Arno from the Palazzo Vecchio to the Pitti Palace.

You can see all the shops along the bridge. There used to be butcher shops on the bridge.


Now it's all jewelry and souvenire stores and art dealers.


As the group broke up for the day Sarah, Kellin, and I continued to walk with Andy towards his hotel. On the way we had to stop and take pictures of the Duomo. It had been rainy most of the morning and the sky looked really cool behind the huge church.
Fin.

With Andy at Santa Felicita

On Friday, October 3, I went with Sarah and her seven fellow grad students to the Piazza Signoria to meet with Andy. Andy Weislogel is the Associate Curator of the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University. He also taught their mannerism class while they were still in New York at Syracuse. By all accounts he seemed to be one of their favorite professors. So everyone was pretty excited.

Tom arrived with a selection from the famous autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini to read for the occassion. Aren't art history grads nerds? - says the history major/fantasy fiction loving/librarian.

Best of all, he proceeded to read it with a suspiciously Scottish sounding accent for the Renaissance Italian author. It while quite impressive and humorous. I think I was the only one there who wasn't very familiar with Cellini's autobiography. Above, from right to left, are Andy, half of Clark, the back of Sarah's head, Dan, Tom, Lara, half of Kellin, half of Mary, and Stephanie. My apologies the halves.

Our second stop, after the requisite cafe, the church of Santa Felicita on the south side of the Arno. The main reason we were going there was to see Pontormo's Transportation of Christ, which can be seen above behind bars.

We were going to have to look at it from afar (like commoners) until Kellin asked the caretaker for a closer view. He was really nice. He opened the cage for us and turned on the light so that we didn't have to keep paying the light machine every few minutes.

So here it is closer up and well lit. This is another Pontormo painting that I knew nothing about except that it has been on display on our kitchen table all semester.

Andy's class gazes in wonder.

And still gazing...

I've noticed that I tend to have a shorter art attention span than art history grad students.

Sarah stands below Pontormo's Angel Gabriel. There is a very famous work of art circulation of Sarah's head on this Gabriel's body. I believe that the artist's name was Kellin.

Then the nice older gentlemen took us behind the ropes and showed us some locked rooms that are not open to the public. This fell in with their belief that art historians should get special benefits.

The first room was the sacristy. There were more paintings and beautiful old altar pieces in here. The second room may have been the chapter house.

And there it is! Sarah found her gesture on the ceiling.

And captures the image for further research.

Here it is. Alas, it did not make it into the paper.

On our way out I looked up and noticed that the Vasari Corridor runs through the facade of the church. The corridor led from the Palazzo Vecchio to the Pitti Palace. The opening allowed the Medici Grand Dukes to listen to the mass without being seen or having to mingle with the people.


Here we are on our way to our next location. Again that's Mary, Andy, Clark, Stephanie, Kellin, less than half of Lara, Sarah, mystery woman, Tom, and Dan.
And we were off to find another church.