Weekend in Florence

This weekend I stayed in Florence and visited a variety of museums, palaces, and churches.

Friday 

Mary and I walked by Casa Buonarroti, a house Michelangelo bought and his family lived in and then headed to the Sant'Ambrogio market. After the market, we walked towards Piazza Republica. On the way we stopped in a cosmetics store named Lush which was neat. We also went to the acclaimed Dante's House, but the house was renovated in the 19th century and Dante may or may not have lived in the same place. The Church of Saint Margaret is in the same area and is where Beatrice Portinari and Dante met. Dante was also married in the Church though not to Beatrice who is the subject of most of his poems. Beatrice's tomb is inside the church and people leave love letters and flowers by it. Then we went to Palazzo Davanzati, a medieval palace in Florence. It was really neat and the walls were covered with paintings that looked like drapery and wallpaper. After lunch at the apartment, Mary and I headed back out to Santa Maria Novella, a church near the train station of Florence. It was really pretty inside and contains Giotto's Crucifix and Masaccio's The Trinity which I was really excited about because I studied it in Art History. Friday night we had a Roomie Dinner! Suzanne is in a Food and Wine class so we made one of the recipes she'd done in class. We made bruschetta and spaghetti carbonara, it was absolutely delicious and so much fun to cook!

Palazzo Davanzati

Santa Maria Novella

Making Bruschetta

Cooking

Spaghetti Carbonara

Saturday 

I visited the Medici Chapel which was really neat. The Chapel of the  Princes is the main chapel started by Cosimo I as a monumental family tomb. It was amazing there was colored marble everywhere. Unfortunately, it's covered in scaffolding right now because the building started to move. The Treasure of San Lorenzo is also in the Medici Chapel and has many relics and Pope Leo X's staff and mitre. The New Sacristy was built by the order of Pope Leo X and Michelangelo worked on it from 1520 to 1534. It has the tombs of Lorenzo the Magnificent, his brother Giuliano, Giuliano Duke of Nemours, and Lorenzo Duke of Urbino (who was the dedicatee of Machiavelli's The Prince). There are several Michelangelo sculptures in the New Sacristy - Madonna and Child, Day and Night, and Dawn and Dusk. After the Medici Chapel, I went to the church of San Lorenzo. Brunellschi designed the Old Sacristy in San Lorenzo. Donatello's tomb is also in the church along with two bronze pulpits he designed. In the same chapel as Donatello's tomb, there is Lippi's Annunciation which was neat. I then headed to the Uffizi gallery and met up with Mary. We walked through several galleries and I saw many famous works of art including Michelangelo's Holy Family, Andrea del Sarto's Madonna of the Harpies, Vecellio's Venus of Urbino and works by Rembrandt and Rubens to name a few. There were also two paintings by Canaletto of views from Venice which were really cool to see after visiting there last weekend. The last thing I visited Saturday was the Accademia with Mary. She hadn't seen Michelangelo's David yet, so we went to go visit him. Saturday night I painted my toe nails and watched an episode of friends with my roomies :)

Medici Chapel

San Lorenzo

Sunday

Sunday was a quieter day. I went for a run in the morning with Emily. The Mary and I walked down the other side of the Arno River in search of a church she wants to visit for mass on Sunday. On the way back to the apartment, we stopped by the square in front of Santo Spirito and browsed and organic market that was in town for the weekend. It was really neat there were all kinds of interesting products - soaps, various things made of beeswax, handmade wooden items, knitted wool hats and socks, and of course food. We came back to the apartment for lunch and I looked up some of the places we can visit with our Uffizi card which gets us into many museums for free. Then Suzanne and I headed out to H&M because she needed some retail therapy. We had a fun afternoon of shopping and then came back to the apartment for dinner. 

View down the Arno

That covers my weekend - it was very busy but a lot of fun! I can't believe how much I did :)