So I am going to try to split my blog up into days for the last 10 day trip that I just got back from…. I have a lot to say and I definitely won’t remember everything we did, but at least I can cover the main adventures of our trip!
We left early Friday morning from Genova Principe train station to start our voyage to Florence. We had to change trains in Pisa, and unfortunately our train was late so we missed our exchange,,, but we caught another one pretty smoothly. We arrived in Florence (Firenze in Italian which is sooo much cooler than Florence and I will thus be referring to it in the Italian way from here on…) and headed for the Duomo because our Hotel was situated right in front of it. We dropped off our bags at this cute little family run hotel, and then grabbed something to eat before we spent the afternoon at the Museo Degli Uffizi.
This museum (which houses so many famous works it makes my head spin) has been placed in an old building that they upfitted to serve their function. Because the original intention of the building was for dwelling instead of exhibition, the museum was interestingly snaked between rooms. This resulted in a kind of uniform treatment of all the paintings alike, and thus some of the most significant paintings were not well emphasized. Here were the paintings that caught my eye….
Filippo Lippi- Adoration of the child with SS. John the Baptist
Botticelli- The Birth of Venus- of course a famous painting and I was thoroughly impressed by the color and beauty, but the faces still lacked emotion.
- The Calumny of Apelles- I enjoyed this painting because of the personifications present--- King Midas is surrounded by Suspicion, Ignorance, Truth, Penitence, Anger, Calumny, Fraud, and Peril--- and it was very interesting to see how all of these were represented.
Leonardo da Vinci- Annunciation- of course this one is crazy famous as well. However, it was not nearly as impressive as this next one, in my opinion.
- Adoration of the Magi- This painting was very sketchy in quality, it looked unrestored and incomplete. So even with this minimized color and decoration, it was so much more dynamic than the annunciation and it left more room for personal emotions and imagination to filter in.
Luca Signorelli- The Holy Family- This painting was interesting because of its presentation of God, who ends up looking kind of dead with the “silvery” quality he gave him.
Lukas Cranach!- Self Portrait and Portrait of Martin Luther and his wife—I liked these obviously because of learning about Cranach on the Germany trip. Portraits are not really my thing, but I did find one tiny painting by him that I really liked.
- St. George frees the princess from the dragon- It is crazy small but very interesting and the landscape seems to swallow up the objects.
Sala Della Niobe- This was a room in the Ufizzi which contained many sculptures depicting Niobe and the death of all of her sons and daughters after she boasted herself for having more children than Hera.
There was so much more that I didn’t mention in this museum, which we were in for many hours just staring down all of this history. Afterwards we did some shopping, from which I successfully found yellow pants, and then we went out for dinner and gelato.
We left early Friday morning from Genova Principe train station to start our voyage to Florence. We had to change trains in Pisa, and unfortunately our train was late so we missed our exchange,,, but we caught another one pretty smoothly. We arrived in Florence (Firenze in Italian which is sooo much cooler than Florence and I will thus be referring to it in the Italian way from here on…) and headed for the Duomo because our Hotel was situated right in front of it. We dropped off our bags at this cute little family run hotel, and then grabbed something to eat before we spent the afternoon at the Museo Degli Uffizi.
This museum (which houses so many famous works it makes my head spin) has been placed in an old building that they upfitted to serve their function. Because the original intention of the building was for dwelling instead of exhibition, the museum was interestingly snaked between rooms. This resulted in a kind of uniform treatment of all the paintings alike, and thus some of the most significant paintings were not well emphasized. Here were the paintings that caught my eye….
Filippo Lippi- Adoration of the child with SS. John the Baptist
Botticelli- The Birth of Venus- of course a famous painting and I was thoroughly impressed by the color and beauty, but the faces still lacked emotion.
- The Calumny of Apelles- I enjoyed this painting because of the personifications present--- King Midas is surrounded by Suspicion, Ignorance, Truth, Penitence, Anger, Calumny, Fraud, and Peril--- and it was very interesting to see how all of these were represented.
Leonardo da Vinci- Annunciation- of course this one is crazy famous as well. However, it was not nearly as impressive as this next one, in my opinion.
- Adoration of the Magi- This painting was very sketchy in quality, it looked unrestored and incomplete. So even with this minimized color and decoration, it was so much more dynamic than the annunciation and it left more room for personal emotions and imagination to filter in.
Luca Signorelli- The Holy Family- This painting was interesting because of its presentation of God, who ends up looking kind of dead with the “silvery” quality he gave him.
Lukas Cranach!- Self Portrait and Portrait of Martin Luther and his wife—I liked these obviously because of learning about Cranach on the Germany trip. Portraits are not really my thing, but I did find one tiny painting by him that I really liked.
- St. George frees the princess from the dragon- It is crazy small but very interesting and the landscape seems to swallow up the objects.
Sala Della Niobe- This was a room in the Ufizzi which contained many sculptures depicting Niobe and the death of all of her sons and daughters after she boasted herself for having more children than Hera.
There was so much more that I didn’t mention in this museum, which we were in for many hours just staring down all of this history. Afterwards we did some shopping, from which I successfully found yellow pants, and then we went out for dinner and gelato.
~Heather
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