Florence; In Many Words

During my stay in Italy, the weather has been nothing but beautiful…until I went to Florence, that is. Me and three friends arrived late Thursday night, October 25. It was cold and rainy. Luckily our Hostel, “Arch Rossi” had heated rooms. I really liked this Hostel. It was the first one I’ve stayed in that was the stereotypical young traveler’s hostel; bunked beds, large meeting room/ dining hall filled with groups of young people speaking all kinds of languages, drinking cheap wine, eager to see the world. It was also in a fabulous location- just a 10 minutes walk to the Galleria Accademia, which was our next morning’s first destination.
Friday morning was also grey, but not too cold, and not raining (yet). After a “continental breakfast” provided by the hostel, we set out at about 8:45 am for the Accademia. It wasn’t hard to find, as Florence is extremely easy to navigate by map, and you can walk everywhere. In fact, there really weren’t many cars or buses at all on the city’s cobblestone streets. When we got to the Accademia, we got to skip the line (already about one hour’s wait) since we reserved tickets online the week before we left.
The Accademia is most famous for Michelangelo’s David. This magnificent piece of sculpture stands at the far end of the long entrance-way hall. I have seen the David time prior to this in magazines, books, on tv, etc, but nothing could have prepared me for seeing the actual thing. First of all, he is huge! He stands at about 17 feet tall. And he is so beautiful. Over my time abroad, I have seem many sculptures, by many famous artists, and surely I appreciate them, but I have never been awe-struck by one as I was by David. In particular, I was enchanted by the vein that shows on his right hand and snakes up his arm. Maybe it is cliché to write of the David in this way. Obviously, it is as famous as it is for this reason. Obviously, it doesn’t need to be said by one more person that he is beautiful and Michelangelo was a genius, but I saw it and I felt it- I was moved by it- and I can’t keep feelings like that inside.
There was also very cool exhibit in the Accademia while we were there; a showcase of instruments from centuries past. I saw the progression of guitar design through the ages, and beautiful, “royal” instruments donated to the gallery by prominent families like the Medici. I saw works by artists such as Botticelli, and Giambologna's original plaster for the Rape of the Sabine Women. The Accademia is a very small gallery, but very rich in content.
After this gallery, we started making our way across town to the Uffizi gallery. This trip should only take about 20 minutes on foot, but we extended that time to almost four hours by stopping in almost every store along the way. Florence is a heaven for shoppers. Every other store is a leather goods shop, selling (for the most part) beautiful, handmade leather purses, wallets, shoes, coats, etc. When I think of Florence I will always smell leather and think about sculpture. The latter is due to the fact that Florentine piazzas are full of sculpture. For example, in Piazza Signorina, where the Uffizi is located, there is a replica of Michelangelo’s David, Giambologna's original plaster for the Rape of the Sabine Women, two decadent fountains, and a portico filled with about 30 pieces of sculpture, some unknown originals, and some plaster or bronze copies of the masterpieces. The sculptures amidst the large old stone buildings, the medieval castles and churches, the numerous fountains and the large piazzas give Florence an otherworldy, royal feel. This was also strengthened by the gloomy sky which I saw it all under. It was very fitting. In all the Romance period novels I have read which are set in Florence, like William Dean Howells Indian Summer, Florence is the land of the disillusioned; a place where people who have lost all hope for their lives flee to escape. After spending time there I understand why those authors chose Florence for their setting. It is somewhat gloomy and lonely. Florence is haunted by the past. But there’s also something so beautiful about the city that I struggle to explain. Later in the day Friday is started to rain. However, there was a moment of sunshine in Piazza Signorina, and for those five minutes the scene was so incredibly altered; the old buildings and fountains were no longer sad looking but powerful and hopeful. Bittersweet is the world for it all, I believe.
When we got to the Uffizi, we found that the museum had gone on strike for that day. The implications of this I will get to later, but for now, we didn’t sweat it, and decided to walk behind the museum to the Ponte Vecchio Bridge over the Arno river. The bridge was beautiful to behold, and the shops along it were fun to wander in and out of. Across the Ponte Vecchio, we went to the Palazzo Pitti, or Pitti Palace. It was once the home of Luca Pitti, an ambitious Florentine banker. It was bought by the Medici family in 1539 and later became the chief residence of the ruling families of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. Within the Palace, there are several galleries, one housing modern art (this was closed when we went), a costume gallery which held within much of the clothing worn by the Pitti and Medici families as well as from other prominent families from Renaissance Italy. This exhibit was very interesting. The people back them were a lot smaller than we are now. The clothing looked to be fit for women of around 5 to 5 ft 2 in. tall and for men of around 5.5 ft tall. The shoes also looked pretty small. My favorite part of the Palazzo Pitti was the Boboli gardens behind the palace. These lovely, green gardens, walled off from the outside world and noise, offered a perfect contrast to the city streets. There are walking paths through the woods, many beautiful ponds and flowers all over. There is a hill in the middle of the gardens at the top of it, you can see incredible view of the entire city. Even though slightly obstructed by fog, and seen from under an umbrella, the beauty of Florence was breathtaking.
We ate dinner at a restaurant near our Hostel which had great ambiance, delicious Tuscan food, and a fabulous house red. After dinner, we walked all over the city, which took on a totally different persona by night, met a few interesting people, and did not get to bed until 2.
The next morning, we planned to tackle the Uffizi gallery dilemma. We had already purchased tickets online (and extra more to do so), but they were for the day before, when the museum was on strike. So when we got to the museum Saturday morning, around 8:30 am, we figured we would just be able to get into the museum right away, and bypass the line, since we had tickets reserved from the day before. That would seem the sensible solution since our tickets were already paid for. Needless to say, we seriously underestimated the lunacy of the Italian bureaucracy. We went to the reserved tickets office only to be told that not only would they NOT honor our tickets from the day before, but we would have to stand in the line (about a three hours wait at this point) and wait to again PURCHASE regular tickets. The man we were dealing with looked extremely bored and agitated at our expense. He told us, with disgust in his voice, that “it is not the museum’s problem”. We pleaded our case with him for many minutes. Even when I led him through the thought process behind our situation, which inevitably led up to him admitting that the museum already had our money- plus the extra money we paid to avoid the line- for tickets, he just would not budge. He said the manager would not allow him to do it. When we asked to speak with the manager, her said “it is not possible”. At a loss of anything else to do, my friend Anna (with an intimidating 5’2in, 110 lb frame)put her elbows upon the ticket counter and said “I am not leaving this window until you either give us a refund or you give us tickets”. More and more officials came into the ticket office, but none of them seemed to want to help us. They all claimed “it is not our problem”. “But you went on strike!” we kept pleading back. A German couple with the same problem came to the front of the counter only to be met with the same “we just don’t care” attitude. We convinced them to stand with us. Two Spanish women came up too and tried their hand at arguing, and decided to join our “stand-in” of sorts. The officials’ indignation turned to anxiety when we had 15 people standing against and blocking the window while a line of people behind us waiting to pick up their reserved tickets for that day filled the room. The mass grew angrier and angrier and FINALLY, with simply the click of a button, we were given our tickets. Anna turned to the Spanish women and said “Viva la Revolution!” They said it couldn’t be done; we fought the Italian bureaucracy and we won.
There’s nothing like looking at incredible artwork while on a power high. I think every piece in the museum was ten times more meaningful because it was so hard to get in there. My favorite works in the museum were Rosa’s seascapes. Botticelli’s “Birth of Venus” was wonderful to see through my own eyes. I work by Caravaggio, Raphael, Titian, Michelangelo…just to name a few. The Uffizi is a wonderful museum though ran by illogical, stubborn Italians.
On our way out of the Museum, I heard someone playing beautiful classical guitar. I followed my ears to the sound and discovered a street- player strumming the most beautiful songs a twelve-string guitar. His music so perfectly captured the mood of Florence as I perceived it; melancholy but beautiful, laced with a hope that was only present in every few chords. I went to put money in his bucket and I noticed that he was selling CDs. Leszek Rojsza’s music will always be to me the sound of Florence.