Galleria dell Academmia

Our 2nd Saturday night takes us to see Michelangelo's David, with few people in attendance. At 17 feet high, carving from an abandoned 6-tonne piece of Carrera marble, Michelangelo won the contract to depict The Hero, in 1500, as a 26 year old virtually unknown sculptor. He chose David, of the David and Goliath story, and for Florentines, this came to represent their own struggle against being swallowed up by Rome. When it was completed 3 years later, 30 representatives of all the Art Guilds decided on where it would be placed, as long as David's defiant gaze was towards Rome.

(For scale, Marc, bottom right)

What has intrigued Marc and I about Michelangelo is that he was the first artist to study the human form from dissecting cadavers (done at night and in secret), tearing apart the muscle, bone and vein systems, which happened here in Florence, at the local hospital we've seen the outside of. You see the results of this study in his painting of the human form as well as the gracefulness of his marble statues. They really are very different to the eye, a moment stopped in time, more than anyone else before him. From behind, and David's hand:

Beyond David, the Academmia is also home to a small musical instrument collection, a small representation of the collection of instruments built for and owned by the Medici's. Included in this is the first  piano ever built!, by Bartomelo Cristofori  in 1700

A set of Stradeveri violins, crafted by the  famous luthier from northern Italy,  born in 1644. He Is thought to have produced 1,116 violins in his lifetime, of which 650 survive. The theory goes that the extraordinary sound brought forth by a Stradeverius violin is because of the wood used, from this point of time, wood from Croatia that has been analyzed to show density of growth at this geographic location during decades and decades of cold temperatures in the 1500 and  1600s, conditions that were not present elsewhere where luthiers were practising their craft. 

Michelangelo's Library & Medici's Chapel

Part of spending such a long time in Florence is to give ourselves time to see the lesser-known beauties, including some of the greatest libraries of the world. On this day, we decided to head towards the Basilica of San Lorenzo, one of the older religious sites in Florence, where, close-by, sits the Bibliotecha Laurenziana designed by Michelangelo and the Medici Chapel, with its Chapel of the Princes.

Laurenziana, as a library and its reading room, housed original manuscripts on history, the arts, geography, philosophy and general humanities. It would have looked like this on its opening in the late 1500s:

The marble entryway, so so soft to the touch, with blind windows added for symmetry and grandeur.

The study benches. Note that once seated, aside from the soft sound of pages turning, heads would not appear above the bench-back line, giving the studier the impression of solitude. The marble  design on the floor directly matches the wood carving on the ceiling. 

The vertical  writing on the aisle wood is the card catalogue, every book housed here was listed according to subject, and you had to sit in that row to have access to that book.

30 stained glass windows line the walls with Medici emblems, heraldry and family story held within each design.

A collection of Dante's work is housed here, available for viewing. Here a page from The Commedia. The drawing  samples from The Inferno are pretty chilling!

Moving down the road to the Medici Chapel, attached to the Basilica of San Lorenzo. The word Chapel evokes the image of something small, no? 

We are stopped in our tracks upon entering this jaw-dropping space. The Hall of the Princes, originally intended to be the tombs of the Medici dynasty. The marble  floor was only finished in 1962, and restoration is on-going. For size, note Marc reading the information panel in the bottom left of this photo.

The painted ceiling

Another spectacular day!