2nd June Ufizzi
Trip Start
Apr 27, 2000
1
37
81
Trip End
Aug 09, 2000
Firenze,
Italy
Thursday, June 26, 2003
If it wasn't bad enough getting in at 10.00 the night before, we were up and off early; standing at the end of a 100 metre long queue, outside the Ufizzi when it opened at 8.30 am. It took half an hour to enter when it opened. And then there was the major disappointment-a sign advising that the Caravaggio, Rembrandt and Rubins rooms were closed for renovation. Bugger! Bugger! Well, just a little disappointing. The rest of the collection was pretty sensational.
Moved reasonably swiftly through the "Gothic Art", slowed at the "Early Renaissance" particularly for the Piero della Francesca "Duke and Duchess of Urbino" They are the portraits (He with the most famous nose of the Renaissance), that appear in just about every book written about the Renaissance. She died at the age of 26, and he went on to become one of the most battleworn mercenaries of his time, in an Italy that was marked by political violence and disorder. Their sons wife, the second Duchess of Urbino, hosted evening gatherings in the sala delle veglie of a handful of aristocrats, where they discussed what determined the characteristics of the perfect courtier, from which evolved, "The Book of the Courtier", an instant best seller that was felt to have captured all the elegance of the Renaissance, and was regarded as the bible of civilised behaviour. These aristocrats went on to become a bishop, an archbishop, a cardinal, a secretary to the pope, the doge of Genoa, a duke of Nemours and a prefect of Rome. "They didn't manage to settle whether beauty or fine dancing or elegant clothes were or were not superior to using deception in the interests of the master or honesty or loyalty or personal courage for the sole purpose of distinguishing oneself" (John Ralston Saul "Voltaire's Bastards", Penguin, 1992). Saul quotes from Baldesar Castiglione's "The Book of the Courtier" "Reason has such power that it always brings the sense to obey it and extends its rule by marvellous ways and means, provided ignorance does not seize upon what reason ought to possess."
Slowed even more for the Fra Filippo Lippi room. Now we have mentioned him before, remember? The artist priest who died in Spelo under suspicious circumstances. His mistress's family may have poisoned him! Well, here is a whole room of his work, and what a fantastic room. As we have previously mentioned, he often used his mistress as a model for his paintings of the Madonna, and in this room, his mistress is in every painting, and always the focal point. She is the Madonna in "Madonna and Child with Angels", but in "Coronation of the Virgin", she is kneeling in the foreground with two children clutching her. Fra Lippi has painted himself into the picture, in the front right foreground, gazing adoringly at her. Considering that the focus of the painting is supposed to be the Virgin being crowned, and she is in the top right, he has managed to almost push her into the background. You only have eyes for his mistress, as he did. Our "Eyewitness" guide notes that Lippi's paintings are "a masterpiece of warmth and humanity" that he "uses a religious subject to celebrate the earthly delights such as landscapes and feminine beauty". Well, yes! Cadogan's "Tuscany" doesn't beat around the bush. They write, "...the rascally romantic Fra Filippo Lippi's Madonnas are modelled after his brown-eyed nun....". Thank god he taught Botticelli to paint. Loved them all, but particularly "Primavera" for me and "Birth of Venus" for Ches.
Ah! Leonardo. It is becoming a habit, but I particularly like his unfinished works. His unfinished "Daniel" in the Louvre, and now "Adoration of the Magi". It is almost as though a completed painting is overwhelming, whereas a painting with only parts of the main subject nearing completion, rises out of the background, and focus your attention. Not to say that "The Annunciation" isn't stunning.
In a side room marked as "Tuscan Maps, which shouldn't have given us any cause to enter, we got real lucky. They have included just one painting. Caravaggio's "Bacchus". It is there while the other two are being restored, along with the room. It would seem that the international "discovery" of Caravaggio, has elevated his status in the collection, and they have decided to put some lira's into maintaining his paintings. We bought the Caravaggio catalogue when leaving. It includes his other works, on display in Paris and Rome. I hadn't managed to get more than fifty pages into Peter Robb's biography "M" before leaving Sydney, so this catalogue will have to do in providing the overview for now. He didn't paint very much. For a start, most churches didn't approve of his style (or subject matter or depiction of ordinary people), so he didn't get many commissions, and even then some were rejected. It also didn't help that he was a brawler and an argumentative bugger who ended up in dozens of duels ( he killed his opponent after losing a game of tennis, in the Campo de'Fiori, in Rome). He would paint for a month and then travel and brawl for two months. Eventually he just vanished at the age of 39, while on the run, and believed to have been murdered. As he falsified his age, and was probably already in his early twenties before he began major works in Rome, he only had 18 or so years to produce, and wasted two thirds of them. Then again, it was probably the nature of the man that generated the distinctive style. You can't have one without the other. I'm just grateful he did paint, no matter how few.
On to the octagonal Tribuna, with a mother of pearl dome and the Medici family portraits. Michelangelo's "Tondo Doni", and the Raphael and Titian Rooms, which all complete an overwhelming experience.
As it was well into the afternoon, we decided to head home, to have a leisurely evening in preparation for our Saturday trip to Pescia. After the odd sidetrack for Ches to shop, we made it out to the Careggi bus stop, collected our car, and returned home. It was so hot we just wasted a couple of hours in the garden, and at around 6.00 went to visit Emanuele, Guiseppe and Roberta. We took them Koalas and bought pecorino and pancetta cotto (crudo is the raw ham and cotto the smoked and cooked-kind of like our ham but sweeter and juicier). I also decided to buy some coffee, and they recommended "Illy" as the best, next to their specially roasted blend that they use in the shop. Bought a large can, but Guiseppe decided I needed another storage can to keep in the refrigerator. More threats about the Mafia, so we accepted. Exchanged addresses, e-mail addresses and they wrote us a letter to take to Sydney for their brother. We then went to the fruit and vegie shop to stock up for Pescia, and finally to our Gelataria. We never got to exchange names or engage in much conversation, but the lady in this shop was always excited to see us, and the gelato was both good and good value. As we are discovering, the best gelato is often in the suburbs (or the equivalent in an old medieval town; the residential areas), and usually sells for two thirds the cost of gelato in the tourist areas. For the second time, we walked across the street to the park, to sit on a bench and eat our gelato. Every evening there are fifty or more locals in this small park. The odd one walking the dog, but primarily made up of families meeting their after work and many "nonnas" looking after the grandchildren as they play on the usual swings and slides. A very small park, but it is Petersham Park on a grand scale in terms of the community gathering in the evening. We loved the atmosphere.
Back home we had a drink or two, and Carlo dropped by for a chat. Unbeknown to me, Ches had made the claim that I have either an addiction for, or obsession with, gelato. At 9.00, just as I was preparing dinner, Carlo grabs me and says we are off to the best Gelataria in Firenze. This was to be my first experience as a passenger in a car in Italy. Most of the trip I had my feet working the brake and clutch as he worked through the traffic. Someone was slow at moving off from a red light and he uttered an exasperated "word" or two. He turned to me, which he did quite often as we drove, and which I wished he wouldn't. I much prefer my driver to keep his eyes on the road, after all, mine were, and I could see parked cars looming and other traffic changing lanes. Anyway, he says "a sleeper". I also noted that he wasn't wearing his seat belt. It became law 5 months ago, and we have noticed that few people wear them, and that children in particular just roam around the interior of cars and stand between the front seats. He said that Italians didn't like the law. I get the feeling that they haven't based it on any argument regarding the pro's and con's of seatbelts, it is the fact that it is a law. In Napoli, within 24 hours of the introduction of the law, they were selling sashes with "seat belt" written across them, and that's what they would wear. Carlo's attitude was that he wouldn't wear one, and would just pay a fine if booked.
At the gelataria, Carlo proceeded to order. I had thought we were going to buy one to eat on the spot, and got out my wallet. Carlo insisted he would pay. They produced a large insulated rectangular tub, and as Carlo ordered, scooped into this tub. Toward the end, they weighed it, topped it up to whatever weight Carlo had specified, and we departed with what I think was around L40,000 of gelato. Back home, we finished our dinner, gathered up Carl and Claire, and went around to Carlo's apartment, and in their courtyard, joined his wife Roberta, their son Claudio and one of his mates. We ate the tub of gelato, drank his liqueurs and chatted about various things, such as their plans to holiday in Ireland next year, when Claudio and Roberta will attend an intensive English language school. We gave them one of our "Sydney" prints and finally got to bed around 1.00 am.
2nd June
