Renaissance City
Trip Start
Dec 05, 2008
1
25
33
Trip End
Jul 13, 2009
Florence,
Tuscany,
Italy
Monday, June 22, 2009
The way the River Arno flowed through the old Italian buildings of the city reminded me a little bit of Rome, except smaller and not as crowded--much calmer and quieter. Many students from abroad, particular those learning art history for obvious reasons, take semesters abroad here and I can see why. On a side note, though perhaps relevant to the previous point, I immediately noticed that the prices here were far lower than those in Venice. This revelation came to me at our first meal in a rustic Italian restaurant along a series of shops and narrow streets, where my parents and I devoured twice what we would have eaten for a meal in Venice and yet paid half the price.
Very near to the hotel was the Cathedral, or Il Duomo, which was absolutely huge. With its pink, brown, and green vertical stripes going all around the giant structure, in many ways it resembled a birthday cake. Not quite standing out tremendously, but yet still very elegant, the gold Brunelleschi's Dome emerged from the structure as well.
Immediately across from this building were the much more magnificent Gates of Paradise. Having won some sort of competition to design these doors, Lorenzo Ghiberti had created a large black door separated into about eight different frames, each one depicting a separate biblical scene in three-dimensional gold sculpting. Absolutely amazing. Michelangelo, blown away by the artistry of these sculpted images, had been the one to dub them the Gates of Paradise. One frame depicted Abraham preparing to sacrifice his son Issac, another depicted Cain's murder of his brother Abel, and so forth.
Passing over the River Arno, we saw another parallel bridge down the road, the Ponte de Vecchio, onto which buildings themselves were strikingly constructed. Not necessarily buildings per se, but more so, I would describe it as two or three stories of rooms running all along the length of the bridge in the traditional Italian style of yellow, pink, and other soft colors. In comparing this bridge to those in Paris, with their elegant designs and fancy golden statues, they both achieved visually-impressive design but through different modes of architectural beauty.
In the Piazza della Signoria, we saw a whole number of Renaissance sculptures. Thinking back to my intramural days, I took an immediate liking to the extraodinarily realistic lion, referred to as "il Marzocco." Furthermore, having read from a tourist book my parents brought along, I specifically looked at and came to appreciate the remarkable detail given to the human bodies: the contours of their musculature, the perfect dimensions, and the way the subjects stood with one foot forward as if ready to spring into action. Among other sculptures, there stood a replica here of Michelangelo's famous David..
As can be expected, many famous museums lie here in the Renaissance City--no not Providence, Rhode Island--but we chose to visit the Uffizi Gallery, the oldest art museum of the western world. Yes, the paintings and sculptures were impressive, but in a way, I had seen so much of this already in the past weeks (Paris, Rome), so I was not completely blown away. My parents definitely enjoyed it, though.
One night, after listening to music in a large plaza, my dad and I went to the movie theater to see Terminator 4: Salvation. As an aside, the movie was entertaining due to the action sequences pitting man versus machine for the sake of survival. However, as a huge fan of the first two movies, the plot was disappointing. I had definitely enjoyed the visual candy, but looking back the next day, there really was not much to talk about. Anyway, what was odd about this night was how the people in the movie theater at this late hour all seemed to be Americans. My dad and I figured that these students studying abroad occasionally descended here to this English-language cinema to get a brief sense of home. It was pretty funny to watch the students converse as if they had simply been craving to speak to someone in English.
Another night, we were walking through the streets eating our delicious gelato when we passed by a television in a pizza place showing the end of a United States soccer victory over Italy to reach the final (the Confederations Cup, I believe). A crowd of locals had been standing and watching the game, and they all walked out saying things in Italian that I presumed to be something along the lines of "How on earth did the Americans beat us at soccer?" Pretty understandable. The U.S. has other major sports more popular than soccer, and so therefore our best athletes often go on to play football or basketball. In Europe, soccer is life. Excuse me...fútbol.
I was then incredibly surprised and taken aback by something one Italian guy said. My dad mentioned something to this jovial-looking pizza delivery man about the American victory, and the guy responded with good humor that "the Americans were a new country to fútbol", and that if he was "looking for 'muscle' (military power) instead", then he would give the Americans the nod. Without any prompting or mention of my having been in Israel, the man immediately retracted himself and said: "Actually, it's the Israelis who have the 'muscle.'" That really surprised me. Consider that Israel is a country so often misunderstood and misinterpreted by others. For example, people elsewhere sometimes think that Israel is a complete war zone, what with all its hostile surrounding countries (as evidenced by Israel being ranked by CNN as the 5th most dangerous country in the world). After all, the fighting in the Middle East, most recently in Gaza, is all people see on the news. It gets ratings. And for this reason, it was very interesting to hear the delivery man's quick quip about Israel's "muscle." My dad and I shared a good laugh about that.
