But don't forget everything. Our journey to Florence (Firenze in Italian) began at 7:45 am sharp outside the UWRC, with a week's worth of luggage and half a night's sleep. After a quick headcount, we piled onto a rolling oven (I think they call it a bus) and perspired our way to Termini Station, very ready to be greeted by the spacious and air conditioned Eurostar train waiting for us. Boarding the train, we initiated the battle between course reading packets, journals, and sleep. I think sleep won in most of us, until Florence took control.
You don't just know it, you feel it, you sense it, you reflect it. Florence is not Rome. The oppressive humidity is the first thing missing when you step out of the train station, and second, the barely controlled chaos that is the heartbeat of Rome. Florence has a different rhythm, and with each stroke a little more of Rome drifts out. And then you experience Florence.
Once in Florence we immediately checked into Hotel Giada and, after dropping off our luggage, we prepared for our first tour of the city. We made our first stop in the Piazza Della Republica, and after being temporarily loosed upon Florence to find our choice of sustenance for the upcoming day we gathered in the center of the Piazza for our first taste of the Medici family. This family's wealth funded the Florentine Renaissance, and their influence would prove to be visible in almost all the sites we would be visiting in Florence. However, our second destination was an example of art and architecture that preceded the Medici's rise: the Orsanmichele church.
Orsanmichele looks like a massive stone jack-in-the-box, a very cubic edifice wrapped in Gothic decor that leads your eyes upward along pointed arches to the distant roof where the virgin Mary ought to appear if you could find the right lever. In fourteen niches built into the exterior wall just above eye-level stands a treasure trove of sculpture, including works by Donatello and Ghiberti. The interior of the Orsanmichele church is a colorful display of Gothic architecture and fresco at its finest. On the ornate altar lies a copy of the miraculous image of the virgin Mary that had appeared on the outside of the church. The altar's design makes it look as though it is already attempting to leap through the church's ceiling. Unfortunately, the caretakers of Orsanmichele do not allow pictures nor lever-pulling inside so that the art may be preserved.
After leaving Orsanmichele we found ourselves in front of the Duomo, approaching the Baptistery for a look at the three sets of bronze doors that adorn it. First, Pisano's doors: mostly Gothic with a chance of Renaissance. Then on the opposite side, Ghiberti's first contribution: using the same layout as Pisano's doors but including scenes that more effectively display the traits of Renaissance art. Finally, Ghiberti's second set of doors: the Gates of Paradise, a triumph of the Renaissance embodied in gilded bronze. These doors consumed 27 years of Ghiberti's life, and even Michelangelo considered them the epitome of sculpture in bronze (and it was he who gave them the name "Gates of Paradise").Pulling away from the brilliantly golden surface of the doors, we weaved our way to the entrance of the Duomo, but some manner of trouble left the line at a complete standstill, so we were once again loosed upon Florence, this time to engage in the first installment of "The Quest," a series of questions that led us on several excursions around Florence and around our memories of the day's study.
But as promised, the day ended with a free dinner (free for the students, at least) at Zaza's restaurant, where we used our cunning honors honed minds by combining each of our allotted 20 Euros to purchase as many dishes as possible. Our first course (including appetizers) was more than a full plate of salad and pasta for each of us, already a stretch from our typical penny-pinching meals in Rome. Then came he second course, including mo
re pasta and several meat dishes, which easily filled our plates again with fantastic flavors. We finished nearly every dish we ordered, though one, being slightly less satisfying, was shared with our classmates at the next table so that we could save room for dessert. Five desserts, actually, shared in a mostly civilized free-for-all. In the end, we had each sampled about ten exquisite Italian dishes, not including dessert, a good follow-up to the homemade dishes we had been treated to the night before in Rome, and an impeccable conclusion to our first day as Florentines.
No comments:
Post a Comment