The beautiful weather
has followed us to Tuscany and we are thoroughly enjoying life, Al Fresco. We got up early to beat the tourists
and visited the Galleria dell’Accademia (Firenze Mvsei) to admire Michelangelo’s impressive
sculptures. No image can ever compare to gazing at David with the naked eye.
The detail and complexity of the work is brought to life as you walk around the
sculpture, admiring its magnitude and beauty. It is hard to comprehend that in
his early twenties, Michelangelo sculpted David, in eighteen months, without
the use of a model. What set Michelangelo apart as a genius was his ability to
sculpt by means of an image in his mind, directly onto the marble, without
error. Many other sculptors of his time made models out of plaster to perfect
their sculpture, before attempting to craft it out of marble.
Next we walked down to
the plaza and admired St Mary of the Flower, a stunning marble church with a
very colourful façade. The colours of pink, green and white are representative
of faith, hope and peace.
Across from St Mary’s
is St John the Baptist Baptistry, a grandiose building with intricate gold doors
at the entrance. The gold gates are representative of the gates of heaven. This
building is for baptising as one had to be baptised within the Bapistry before
they were permitted to enter the church.
We had that ‘pinch me
is this real’ sort of feeling again today at lunch, as we sat overlooking the
plaza devouring our squisito (delicious) pizza! The sun e brillante and we had
buon alimento and buona azienda! (The sun was shining and we had good food and
good company) What more could you want?
After lunch we had
some time for souvenir shopping and I bought Marcus the most adorable Pinocchio
puppet. The original gentleman who wrote the story of Pinocchio called this
area home so there is lots of Pinocchio memorabilia.
The view from our room
The Baptistry
Not the real David!!
Our yummy lunch
No comments:
Post a Comment