Hidden Florence (part 1)
The cellar of the Medici Chapel in Florence has a trapdoor. Descend and you are in a further cellar, its walls decorated with an extraordinary collection of sketches, cartoons and graffiti by Michelangelo. Of course you’ll never see this remarkable collection of brickwork which, if exhumed would probably be worth millions. Part of us (the Anglo-Saxon, furiously organised, cost-efficient part rails against this) and puts it down to Italian ‘inefficiency’, but another part rather likes it … why SHOULD everything thing be on sale and on display.
There are many examples in this country groaning under the weight of its treasures. It’s been estimated that there are more Renaissance artefacts in Florence alone than anywhere else on earth. Don’t ask us the source for this unreliable piece of information, it’s been buzzing firely like around the ether of hyperspace for some time now.
But consider that this former capital of Italy has a clutch of world-class museums in the Uffizi, the Bargello, the Accademia dell’Arte del Disegno and the Pitti Palace, superb Renaissance architecture in the Duomo of Santa Maria del Fiore (by Brunelleschi), the Campanile (by Giotto), the Baptistery, the Ponte Vecchio, that Medici Chapel, churches and basilicas such as Santa Croce (with the tombs of Galileo, Michelangelo, Machiavelli and Dante) - you start to see how Italians can get blase about great art in their midst. Here’s it’s the very fabric and stones of the city.
Links:
‘Saved from death‘ - Time Magazine article
Florence hotels
Florence tickets - Uffizi, Accademia
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