After delicious gelato, the group met back up to go walk to our fresco demonstration and workshop. Summer heat in Italy is no joke, and I think we all were probably ready for a nap before a painting class, but I am so, so glad we went.
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We did some more walking and exploring before dinner, and then on to the hotel before bed.

One of my favorite, completely unexpected parts of Florence was the street art. The city has tons of winding, narrow alleys, and do not enter one way streets everywhere, and people take advantage of that in hilarious, creative, and completely bizarre ways.
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The next morning we were up early to get on line at the Accademia. This was one of the only places we couldn't get reservations ahead of time, so we left the hotel at 7:45 to go wait. I think we came at the height of tourist season, because this day was the most crowded in Florence.

In the interest of complete honesty, I wasn't sure the David was going to blow me away. I had seen so many photos of it, and the reproduction in front of the Palazzo Vecchio just the day before. I figured I knew what it was all about, and that it would be cool to see, but that it was just another stop in our day. I have never been so pleased to be proven wrong.
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Michelangelo's unfinished sculptures flank the sides of the room leading to David, and these were honestly just as cool as seeing the masterpiece. Getting to see him actually pull the figure from a block of rough stone is pretty unfathomable. This was so unexpected, and so, so cool. Almost makes you think you could do it, you now? Reminds me of Elton John - "If I was a sculptor, but, then again, no." And I am certainly no sculptor. (One time in college, we had to reinterpret a classical sculpture, and I turned a reclining Venus into a sexy cartoon pinup badger. I'll leave my sculpture experience - or lack thereof - at that.)

And then the room opens up, and this is what you see.

The statue stands at around 17 feet tall. His hands and feet are way too big, because apparently David was supposed to go on top of a church, and this was supposed to be for perspective. But alas, he was too naked and too popular, and he was instead plopped outside the Palazzo Vecchio, right in the piazza, for several centuries. Our awesome tour guide the day before had told us that his glare was said to be looking either towards Rome, Florence's rival, or looking down the powerful Medici family themselves. Ah, art history and political symbolism. 
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We had a short break where we went over to San Lorenzo. I was dying to get inside, but was improperly dressed. We hadn't been anticipating this break time, or visiting churches, so my shoulders and knees weren't covered. They are apparently pretty serious about this rule. We instead snuck a peek at the courtyard and Michelangelo's stairway next door to San Lorenzo in the Laurentian Library. (The picture of the staircase isn't mine because we were just peeking in and I didn't get to grab one, but here's something from Google for reference anyway.)
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Next stop: we got to go INSIDE the Duomo Cathedral, Santa Maria della Fiore. I wound up buying some scarves in the piazza outside, and wrapping myself up. Not my best fashion moment, but it was 100% worth it.
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It also warmed my heart that we got to see Brunelleschi's tomb. It's in the catacombs of the church, which are pretty cool, but by this point in the trip my standard for cool was a little bit distorted from its usual scale. You have to walk through the gift shop to get to it, which will never not make me laugh. I don't know if I'll ever get used to the idea of gift shops in churches, but this one was hilarious. This amazing architect will be forever monumentalized, right next to the postcards & souvenir pencils.
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After getting to go into the nave of the Cathedral, something extremely important happened.

I had the best. pizza. of. my. entire. life. Celiac or no. It was simply the best pizza of all time. The crust - perfection. The sauce - unbelievable. The cheese - delightful. If I were a poet, I would write sonnets. If I could compose things, there would be a symphony. My life has found meaning, and it is in THIS. PARTICULAR. PIZZA.
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I ate this beautiful pizza, all of it, walking through the streets of Florence on the way to the Uffizi gallery. I'd just like to bask in that sentence for a little while... Ok I'm good.

We went to go wait on line for our group reservation at the Uffizi, and we stood under the staff entrance overhang (because air conditioning). As we left to head to the entrance, I stopped to take a picture of a sign, and the coolest thing in the world happened.

I ran into one of my professors from the University of Virginia! My Renaissance Architecture professor Cammy Brothers was walking in the staff entrance, in the middle of the Piazza della Signoria in Florence. We hadn't seen each other in the two years since my graduation, but I had taken several of her classes, and been her research assistant during my grad school days. (I had helped her work on some of the foot notes for one of her impending books on Renaissance art! Not that fun!) We chatted for a bit, and it occurred to me that people always SAY it's a small world, but... sometimes it really is.

After wandering through the Uffizi, I found one of her books in their book store. It was like 60 euro, so I didn't buy it there, but look how cool! I kept telling my students - she LITERALLY wrote the book on Michelangelo. (The new one, where she doesn't think Mannerism is a thing.)
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The Uffizi itself was magnificent. It's everything you want it to be, but cooler. 

It's hard to pick a favorite, but one of my favorite parts was an exhibit on Giuliano da Sangallo's architectural drawings (the actual real ones that he actually drew) in the mid-15th century. (This was one of the moments where being 25 and not having been to Europe before really hit me. This was a knees-shaking, is this really happening moment for me - and wouldn't be the last of those.)
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Giuliano da Sangallo was a really important Renaissance architect and sculptor. He did a lot of work for the Medici family, villas and things like that, as well as a couple of buildings for Popes Julius II and Leo X. He was sort of the successor of Alberti and Brunelleschi, and was said to be a big influence on the ninja turtle artists Rafael, Leonardo, and several da Sangallos down the line. Bramante was an architect during the same period (high Renaissance, 1500s), who worked mostly in Rome. His biggest project (size wise and importance wise) was St. Peter's.

I wish I could keep taking classes forever, and learning about all of these things. This was such an amazing experience, to get to go here and see these works, and think these thinks. I don't know if I have words to explain it.
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Leonardo da Vinci's Annunciation and the unfinished Adoration of the Magi were outrageously cool. Titian's Venus of Urbino, and Botticelli's Birth of Venus were flooring (and much bigger than I expected, honestly).
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It seems a little silly to take off-center photos of these paintings when every art history textbook ever has better reproductions (taken at better angles!). But the color in the Birth of Venus wasn't what I had expected, and it just made me happy to have my own photos of them. Like that famous picture that went around a while ago of everybody taking selfies with the Mona Lisa instead of, I don't know, looking at it? I guess we are all guilty of that.

This last day in Florence was amazing in so many ways, but mostly it just made me realize I have so much more to learn. I hope at some point I will take more classes, learn more things, and spend some more time turning all this over in my mind. It sort of made me wonder why I bothered majoring in modernism. Maybe there's a baby Renaissance scholar somewhere in the back of my head. I spent my bus ride nap to Rome contemplating alternate master's theses on Florentine urbanism, or castles in Renaissance Spain.

Being a teacher has been the coolest hybrid profession in the world - Thing Explainer, cheerleader, artist, comic book maker, video game analyst, 3D model maker, Photoshop guru. Maybe it's time for me to figure out how to fit architectural historian back into that mix.
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Florence is without a doubt one of my favorite places in the entire world.

This was like walking face first into one of my architectural history textbooks from undergrad. I would turn a corner, and BOOM, there was an incredible, amazing, historic building.  I wound up skipping lunches and shopping opportunities to go look at yet another building, or catch another monument. I think I raised more than a couple of eyebrows, munching on a protein bar and insisting that yes, I was ok to skip the nice sit down lunch, I needed to go to this specific church.
​I just didn't want to miss a single thing. 
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We got into town, and began our walk to the restaurant for dinner when all of a sudden - "You guys, is that the Palazzo Medici?" (blank stare) "Ms. S, I have no idea what you're talking about!" (It WAS the Palazzo Medici). We didn't go in, but I did get to stick my camera in between the bars of the courtyard for a picture! Good enough for a non-stop on our itinerary, and I began to understand that Florence was going to be a very, very big deal for me.
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After dinner the first night, we had the chance to shop or wander. I took a couple of students to see the nearby Santa Maria Novella and Ospedale degli Innocenti. 
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We had some time to wander and enjoy the city, and everything was beautiful. There were some pretty aggressive panhandlers in the piazza by the Duomo, but the kids handled themselves just fine. They're from New York, after all. I think the coolest part of the trip so far is that this hotel was walking distance from everything, and we could just wander back as a team.

The next morning we woke up to climb the Duomo. The kids had been warned within an inch of their lives "YES, it's a lot of steps." "No, there's no air conditioning." and we were off to the races.
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I think we were one of the first tours allowed in, so the day was still nice and cool. There was also basically nobody ahead of us, which was great. They let us in a little side door, and up and up we went. (And check out that marble! *Swoon*)

One thing I think photos do not do justice is how GIANT this building is. The streets of Florence are very close, the city is packed pretty densely onto its historic footprint. And then all of a sudden, the piazza opens up, and you have one of the largest cathedrals in the world BAM right in front of you.

Fun fact: that major facade in the front - 19th century! The rest of the cathedral was much earlier. Arnolfo di Cambio, freaking Giotto, Brunelleschi, his apprentice Donatello, Michelozzo, Verrocchio and his apprentice, young Leonardo da Vinci all had a hand at this building. It's like a who's who of Renaissance architecture, they all wanted to be a part of this magnificent building. 
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​The view kept getting more awesome as you went up - here's a shot out one of the tiny windows. 

It was absolutely amazing - you're actually climbing between Brunelleschi's two domes (the inner one is strutural, the outer one is prettier).

What's the big deal about this dome, anyway?
1) It's pretty (no really, it's art history, that matters)
2) It's huge, and nobody had successfully spanned a space that large before.

You got to walk along the inner rim of the dome, and get CLOSE up to the frescoes in the ceiling. It was stunningly cool.
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And then we got to the top.

After, we went into the Baptistery. I told the kids it was built in 1096, but the real years are 1059-1128. Other than the Temple of Dendur at the Met, this is the oldest building I have had the pleasure of seeing. It was kind of staggering to think that we have tiny fountains in Catholic churches these days to dunk baby heads in, but they had this giant city monument to St. John. Pretty cool, and very different times.
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We had a tiny bit of free time, so I went with several of the other teachers to check out this Baptistery and the Duomo Museum. I had been hoping to get inside the Cathedral, but there was a line wrapping most of the way around the church and I didn't think we had time! (Turns out one of the teachers did get in, but it really didn't look that way! But don't worry, I got in the next day.)

They have dozens of priceless statues and sculptures, of course (Europe!), and even a model of the way the Cathedral facade would have looked during the medieval period (before that 19th century remodel I mentioned). They had the bronze doors of the Baptistery by Ghiberti, adored by Vasari and Michelangelo and most people afterwards. They took the real ones off the building so they could preserve them a little better. There was a huge competition in the 15th century to build them, much drama, many Medicis involved. All good stuff.
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One of the coolest things about this museum (which were many) was Michelangelo's second to last sculpture.

​Michelangelo wanted this Pieta to sit near the site where he would be buried, but he found a flaw in the marble and trashed the statue. It's kind of awesome to think of the master throwing an epic temper tantrum like that. They pieced it back together, and here it is. 

We went to a leather making workshop (sales pitch), did a walking tour of the city with an amazing local guide (best walking tour of the entire trip), did a fresco painting workshop, and ate. This was SUCH a long day, but such a good day. I skipped the nice sit down lunch (maybe a mistake?) to go see Santa Croce and the Pazzi Chapel (decidedly not a mistake, SO SO SO SO cool). It still boggles my mind that we managed to fit this many things into a day, but we did, and maybe that's part of why I slept for almost a solid week when we got back. Art history hangover.
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I even came across this extremely cool relic, meaningful to me because this guy is the patron saint of the school I teach at! If I am translating properly, this is part of the habit of St. Francis of Assisi from the 13th century. It was just tucked into a back room of this church, with a sign from a printer and absolutely no fanfare. Wow.
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AND THEN, I TURNED THE CORNER, AND THERE WAS THE PAZZI CHAPEL.

I think that maybe I should have paid more attention in class to where things were that I was learning about? But I honestly had no idea that I would see this. I suppose my general directional helplessness got me two delightful surprises in Florence, but I was taken totally unaware.
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The Pazzi Chapel was designed by Brunelleschi (dome guy), and started construction in 1429. Some historians argue it was somebody else, but for the sake of your attention span, let's just call it Brunelleschi. It is considered one of THE examples of Renaissance architecture perfection (check out that facade- it's almost exactly a triumphal arch!). The interior is absolutely stunning, but extremely hard to photograph. It was so, so cool to see in person. And by accident.
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And then I got delicious strawberry gelato. We did more on this day, but this seems like a great place to halt for now - gelato + the facade of Santa Croce.
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