Florence: The Home of Renaissance

Every age needs a city. The classical age had Athens, the Roman age had Rome, the enlightenment had Paris. Similarly if there was a city that represented the Renaissance it has to be Florence. Florence is where the Renaissance started and it was where it was nurtured. No trip to Italy is ever complete without a visit to this home of Renaissance. So it was Florence then where i headed next.

December 31, 2009, Thursday

As i look into my watch it reads 2.30 PM. It had been an hour and a half in what seemed to be a never ending queue. The board near the ticket counter read 'Minimum waiting time 2 hours, maximum 3 hours'. Not sure whether that reassured me at all. Of course i had been prepared for this queue, after all this was for one of the most celebrated art museums in the world - the Uffizi Gallery.


Uffizi simply means 'office' in Italian. It was indeed built to house the offices of the Florentine administration. As with most things in Florence it was constructed by the Medici family. After serving its time as an office it was converted to an art museum to house some of the most spectacular works of Renaissance art. Since Florence was home to many Renaissance masters it had a huge collection of art work and Uffizi was the unanimous choice to hold all that art.

The Uffizi is the third most famous art museum in the world behind the Louvre and the Vatican museum. I had seen the first two and the Uffizi would complete a trilogy of museums for me. I could scarcely believe that once i see the Uffizi i would have seen the three greatest museums in the world within a span of five weeks. Truly incredible. Unlike the other two , the Uffizi is not very extensive. However it makes up for the lack of size with sheer quality of the collection on offer. Some of the greatest Renaissance masters where from Florence thereby the collection is incredibly rich.

The slow moving queue gave me a chance to look around at the Uffizi building. The building is essentially a three sided rectangle with the missing fourth side opening into the Piazza della Signoria. The two parallel longer sides consist of most of the collections while the short third side connects them both. Remarkably there are niches all over the building's exterior which hold life sized statues of the many remarkable Florentines who graced the world stage. It includes Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Amerigo Vespucci, Machiavelli and many others. Each statue is well crafted and is a tribute to the person it represents.

After nearly two and a half hours in the queue i was finally inside the Ufizzi. Like the kid who has been given his long awaited toffee the people who entered the Ufizzi were overjoyed. Once inside i headed straight to the second floor and onto the famed hallway. The hallway similar to the Grand gallery at the Louvre was very long and seemed to disappear into a distance. The hallway was marked on both sides by spectacular statues of Greek and Roman antiquity. I wondered how numerous the statues of antiquity are as you always tend to bump into one of them wherever you go in Europe. The statues ranged from self portraits of Roman kings and their families to characters from Greek mythology.

As i walked through the hallway i could imagine why this place was an office.I could almost sense what it must have been four hundred years ago when this place would have been abuzz with all the activities of an office. The hallway opens into rooms which house individual collections. The collections are arranged in a chronological order with the starting rooms dedicated to low renaissance artwork and the later rooms to middle and high renaissance artwork. This was a very intelligent way of ordering as i could see two paintings of the same artist being completely different because one was painted during low renaissance and the other during the high renaissance period. The period in a way influenced the artwork more than the artist himself.

Once i went through the artworks of the low renaissance i headed next to the high renaissance section which as expected had all the master pieces. One of the rooms had a collection dedicated to great painter Botticelli who was the quintessential Renaissance painter who made use of techniques and themes of antiquity which was what the spirit of Renaissance was all about. There were two paintings that were the center of attraction here - the Birth of Venus and the La Primavera (or the Spring). Both involved the Roman Goddess Venus and were just amazing to watch. I wondered why Venus was such a hit with all the artists - classical as well as modern. Maybe being the Goddess of Love could have been the reason i thought to myself!

After the Botticelli collections i went through some more collections belonging to other masters such as Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael and Michelangelo. Although its true that the Louvre has the best collection of Italian artwork owing to the French occupation of Italy, the Uffizi still manages to house some really excellent pieces of art by these Italian masters. This shows how prolific these artists were, so much so that three really huge museums fail to hold all their collections and hundreds of their collections are still scattered all over Europe.

After spending more than two hours inside the Uffizi it was time to leave as the staff started to close the doors. As i exited the doors i realized that another of my dreams - that of visiting the Uffizi was realized and that made me really happy and brought out a content smile.

January 01, 10, Friday

The new year had brought the rains with it. As i sat in my hotel i saw the rain pouring outside. I waited until it lessened in intensity and then began my travel for the day. As i walked through the narrow winding streets of Florence i began to think the way we in India percieve rain and how it is percieved here in Europe. In India we are lucky to have more or less rain free whether for most of the year, at least people like me in Bangalore. However here in Europe rain is like a part of everyday life, you have it more often than not and so learn to live with it. As i saw the people around me none of them seemed to be complaining about the downpour as if they had reached an agreement with the rain gods that they will not whine. Looking at these happy people cheered my sobre mood as i began to explore the city.

Like all Italian cities, the central city square is were the heart of Florence is. The central square in Florence is called the Piazza della Signoria. The Piazza abuts the Ufizzi Gallery and the art bug of the museum seemed to have bitten the Piazza too as it is filled with amazing pieces of art. The central attraction of the Piazza is the world renowned Michelangelo's statue of David. In fact the original statue is present in the Galleria Academia and the statue at the Piazza is just a replica. But i can assure you that this was no ordinary replica because this was no ordinary statue. The statue was chiseled by Michelangelo astonishingly when he was only in his early 20s. Its much bigger than a life sized statue and is 'the' benchmark Renaissance statue. The influence of classical art was very obvious and Michelangelo seemed to depict the perfect emotion in his David. The statue represents the famous biblical story when David slays the giant Goliath and Michelangelo captures the moment just after the actual event. As i witnessed the statue i was amazed by the talent of Michelangelo. Just a few days earlier i had seen his genius in the paintings of the Sistine chapel and here now i witnessed it again but this time in stone.

The mesmerizing David is just one of the many artworks strewn across the square and the nearby Loggia della Signoria which is a small enclosure that hosts many other statues of the Renaissance period. Chiefly among them is Donatello's bronze statue of David. As with Michelangelo's David here too the same biblical story is depicted. The David here seems boyish and holds high the head of Goliath. It was simply amazing to see two artworks on the same theme by two masters separated by a few feet of each other.

The Piazza opens into the uffizi and it being the new year the gallery was closed and i dint see much activity there. The uffizi opened onto the banks of the Arno river. The river seemed to be in a particularly bad mood as it violently transported mud and debry in its streams. From here i caught the glimpse of the famous Ponte Vecchio bridge. This is the most legendary and oldest bridge in Florence, in fact its name means 'old bridge'. Florence i heard had quite a few other bridges across the Arno, however they were all destroyed during the allies bombing in WWII thankfully leaving the Ponte Vecchio more or less intact. The bridge was like a modern day mall with shops dotted on both sides selling everything from jewelry to pizza. The bridge seemed to be the commercial centre of the city and had a busy thoroughfare. As i looked above i saw the famous Vasari corridor. The corridor actually has a very interesting history.

Renaissance Italy for all its high art and sophistication was a very dangerous place. Italy did not exist as a united nation then, instead it consisted of a bunch of city states. These city states had their own distinct identities and often quarelled with one and other. Each of these city states was controlled by influential families. To understand the Italy of that time one has to look at the modern mafia. As with the mafia these powerful families acted as middlemen between the rulers and the citizens. Hence they were like the strong men to whom citizens went if they had any grievences and also the rulers relied on for muscular might.

Florence too was controlled by the very influential Medici family. Though originally merchants and not belonging to the aristocracy the Medicis by the sheer power of money and realpolitik attained control of the city. However the control of the city came with its price - that of constant threat from rival families who did not take a liking to the Medicis as they considered them as upstarts who had usurped their right. This rivalry in one instance led to sevaral assassinations too and this made the Medicis very conscious about their security. Hence when Cosimo de Medici assumed power he and his able advisor Georgio Vassari took security to a new level. Since the royal Pitti palce lied on the other side of the Ponte Vecchio the Medicis had to cross the bridge to enter their office at the Uffizi. This they percieved to be a grave threat and they devised an ingenious plan. They constructed a corridor that ran from inside the Pitti palace and then over the Ponte Vecchio and finally ended inside the uffizi. In this way the Medicis will be safe from any attack. It also helped that Vassari was an able architect and he realised this corridor which came to be named after him as the Vasari coridor. History seemed to play itself out before me as i stood on the Ponte Veccio and gazed at the vasari coridor as i imagined the bygone days. Interestingly Vasari was the man who coined the term Renaissance, so he was quite a talented man!

From the Ponte Vecchio i moved to the Pitti Palace which was the official residence of the Medici family. The palace was pretty big and looked more like a fortress than a palace. Considering the threats the Medicis always faced no wonder it had the look of a fortress. One could also see the start of the Vasari coridor as it shoots out from one of the walls of the palace.

Florence like other Italian cities is full of great churches and cathedrals. Hence i first went to the Santa Croce church. This is the second biggest church in Florence and is notable for the remarkable people buried inside. Famous Florentines of the Renaissance era like Michelangelo, Gallileo and also modern day greats like Marconi were buried here. Even their tombs were remarkable. While Michalangelo's tomb had beautiful paintings befitting the man Gallileo's tomb had a statue of him gazing towards the heavens which was quite apt again.


Lastly it was time for me to visit the biggest attraction of Florence - Il Duomo. Formally called the Santa Maria dell Fiore it is commonly refered to as the Il Duomo refering to the famous dome that adorns it. The Duomo is one of the biggest and oldest churches in the world and its dome is widely considered as the best example of Renaissance architecture. The story of the dome is really interesting. During the 12th century when an overly ambitous family was in control of Florence they decided to build a church to rival all churches in Italy. In their over confidence they planned the biggest ever dome in the world at that time. The dome of this scale had never been attempted after the building of the Pantheon in Rome and it was widely believed that the technology for building such huge domes had been lost with the fall of the Roman age. The sceptics were proved right and the dome never rose atop the church and it remained domeless for more than 200 years , a shameful reminder for all of Florence.

With the ushering of the Renaissance in the 15th century people started to regain the lost knowledge of the classical age and started to solve vexing problems. Incidentally the Medicis had assumed power round about the same time and they needed to make a bold political statement and what better way to do one by buiding the long awaited dome. Thus backed by the Medici money and the spirit of the Renaissance builders around Florence started to work on the problem. Among them a brilliant architect name Brunelleschi came up with the perfect plan. Brunelleschi through his ingenious planning and innovative thinking finally realised the dome which turned from a shame to the crowning glory of Florence.

The Duomo's exterior is a wonderfulful sight. It was a welcome break from all the Gothic churches which had a plain unicolor exteriors. The Duomo instead had a beautiful exterior made up of White, green and pink marble. Add to it the remarkable paintings and huge doors it was a sight to behold. As is customary in Italy the church was accompanied by a huge bell tower named after the famous painter and architect of the period,Giotto. Opposite to the church there was the baptistry which is world renowned for its doors. The doors made of bronze has 12 famous biblical stories emblazoned on its, 6 on each side and is a great sight to watch if you get through the crowds that is. Also near the church there is a statue of the man who built the dome , Brunelleschi who is seated and quite aptly gazes towards his great dome. As i entered the Duomo what struck me was the sheer size of the place. It was really huge. The dome too looked befittingly huge and was adorned my numerous paintings from the bible. Other than the dome it was like a typical Italian church which amazing chapels adorning each side with remarkable artwork.

After the Duomo it was time to leave Florence. The city had lived up to its billing and i was truly happy at having visited this home of Renaissance. With that my trip of Italy was over. It had been a long, tiring but fruitful trip, one i had always dreamed of.