On our last day we visited Florence's Duomo, Santa Maria del Fiore. Building began in 1296 and was completed in 170 years. It is bigger than the Duomo in Siena (there was a competitive relationship between the two cities) and the interior decoration not so ornate. The highlight for me was the climb inside the wall to Brunelleschi's enormous dome and then a further climb through a labyrinth of steps and tunnels up onto an external viewing platform. Here is a view from inside the dome - down, down, down to the nave and side chapel...
The inside of the dome is decorated with fresco work by Giorgio Vasari and Frederico Zuccari. The fresco depicts the Last Judgment with graphic and instructional images of heaven and hell. The size of the fresco is amazing in itself, but when you also factor in the height...!
On our climb through the labyrinth we came across a room which demonstrated the kind of hefty wooden scaffolding that was built to enable the artists to work at this height.
We also came across a room that was a kind of a sick bay for decaying sculpture.
The irrepressible drive for self-expression.
One of many portholes and narrow slits in the wall with views of the city below.
And, finally, views of the city from the platform right at the top of the dome.
The climb down inside the walls of the dome.
Just before it was time to catch the train back to Rome I went to an exhibition in an exclusive shoe shop. The young male and female attendants were immaculately dressed in dark suits and fine leather footwear and looked really bored. I stomped in with my clumsy hiking boots and felt conspicuously dowdy. But it was a good exhibition. It was called 'Equilibrium' and included an eclectic collection of sculpture (ancient to modern), photographs and videos all connected to the theme of bipedal movement; the energy and balance required for the upright posture. The works included Muybridge's photographic studies of human movement and the video of Neil Armstong's walk on the moon (his moon boots made me feel better about the shoes I was wearing). Of the sculptural works I liked this fragment from a Roman bronze...
these Etruscan dancers from the 4th century BC...
and Rodin's sculpture of Nijinsky (1920s).
Ci vediamo Italia!
No comments:
Post a Comment