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Monday today. Ian is back at school having fun with his printing processes. On Saturday after getting back from Fiesole we watched the wedding which has made me a day behind in my blog, so hopefully I can catch up on tonight.
Bev and I set out early for the Palazzo Vecchio, the Old Palace. This is the huge forbidding crenellated building in Piazza del Signoria (signoria means city government) next to the Uffizi. The sky was blue and sunny. We got our tickets no problem and then had an intelligence test as to how to actually get into the building which we failed miserably. We were told to turn left. Saw the facilities, cloakroom, toilets etc. That was not it. So we went down a walkway on the left into a courtyard. Hmm. Offices. Not the right place. A woman walking by was not very helpful. She pointed us back inside the building from whence we had come and reiterated "On the left". Back we went. Still no luck. "Up the stairs," someone said. We looked around. Where were the stairs? Turns out the stairs, which were on the right, were behind a huge wall which couldn't be seen
There were no crowds this morning
Normally you can’t move here for people from where we were. Oh well. C'est la vie!
The main attraction is the huge 53m long, 23m wide and 18 m high, Salone dei Cinquecento, the Hall of the Five Hundred. Apparently it features in Dan Brown's thriller
Inferno if you have read it. There are even special
Inferno tours. The Five Hundred refers to the council of 500 men that Fra Girolamo Savonarola set up in 1494 after he ousted the Medicis temporarily. He was trying to make Florence more democratic. However he got too austere, initiated the Bonfire of the Vanities in the Piazza, annoyed the Pope in Rome and was hanged and burned in 1498.
We enjoyed the private apartments of Eleonora of Toledo, wife of Cosimo I, which were decorated by Vasari with stories of classical heroines celebrated for "equalling men's virtue". Unfortunately she died of malaria shortly after it was finished.
The audience chamber had the most ornate gold ceiling with richly decorated frescoed walls. The walls of the Hall of the Lilies were painted with gold Fleur de Lys on a blue background. In one corner is Donatello's sculpture of Judith about to cut off the head of Holofernes.
Florentines beating the Siennese
Painting in the Hall of the Cinquecento The final highlight was the Hall of Maps charting everywhere in the known world in the Renaissance from the artic regions to the Caribbean.
Enough of history. We needed coffee and a pizza after all that.
Spying the Gucci Museum nearby we headed in to escape a looming thunderstorm. See the photos for a history of Gucci products.
A highlight was discovering an ornate WC with pink tiled walls and gleaming black ceramic basin and toilet, all hidden behind a disguised door in a Gucci designed painted wall. The attendants wore duster coats which could be purchased for a mere 2200 Euros. I saw a fabulous T Shirt by their new American designer. Only 500 Euros. It would look good on Takapuna beach though!
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