il TRENTUNO di luglio

Ponte Vecchio, 31r
A gold store on the Ponte Vecchio. Every time I cross the Ponte Vecchio I thank Ferdinando I (a Medici, of course) for forcing the butchers and fishmongers to leave the bridge and replacing them with goldsmiths.

A bridge in this location has been crossing the Arno since Roman times, but this particular bridge dates back to the 1300s.

See anything you like?

Dear Readers, this blog challenge ended up being a little more challenging than I thought it would be. I'm looking forward to just taking pictures of strange things in Lawrence .... which are easy to find wherever I go.

il TRENTA di luglio

3 (perfect number) x 10 (perfect number) = 30 = Dante

il VENTINOVE di luglio

via del Giglio, no. 29
The house where John Milton lived (and where he was inspired to plagiarize Dante)

Walking around town, you can see where George Eliot, Washington Irving, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Shelley, among other foreign writers, lived and worked.

Here's a more scenic 29:

il VENTOTTO di luglio

via Fiesolana, no. 28
La casa di Giuseppe Martelli.

If I've learned nothing else walking around, reading all the plaques on the walls, it is that if you want to be remembered after your death (in Florence, at least) you should be an architect or an engineer. This guild must make it its goal to commemorate the house of any even somewhat notable architect or engineer who ever lived there.

This is the house of Giuseppe Martelli who was the official government architect for 20 years in the early 1800s.

il VENTISETTE di luglio

via di mezzo, no. 27
Casa di Filippo Pacini

Who? Filippo Pacini, of course. You don't think he's worth a plaque? Ask yourself this question: Do I have cholera? If your answer is NO, then you have Pacini to thank.

Oh...and I was a little desperate for a 27.

il VENTISEI di luglio

Borgo Pinti, no. 26
Casa di Giambologna

His works in the Bargello are for the birds.

il VENTICINQUE di luglio

Costa dei Magnoli, no. 25

I couldn't find anything that said that someone important once lived here but surely, surely it has some historical significance, doesn't it?

il VENTIQUATTRO di luglio

via Giuseppe Giusti, no. 24
My apartment in Florence

I'd like to meet this upstairs neighbor:

Before the Four Seasons took over the Giardino della Gherardesca and made it open only to its guests, my building used to have access to this pocket of green in the city. Now, sadly, this door remains locked.

The building dates back to the 1600s. Based on this ceiling, I'm sure that it was very impressive before it was divided up into separate apartments.

This whole cornice of the loft space in the apartment is trompe l'oeil. Amazing!

Ok. If my residence isn't important enough, how about Borgo San Lorenzo, 24, where Michel Montaigne lived in 1580 and in 1581?

il VENTITRE' di luglio

Lungarno Amerigo Vespucci, 23r

The house where Luigi Napoleone, King of Holland, lived and died.  It is also the building where the great Italian author Alessandro Manzoni lived for a while.

This is a bit of a cheat for #23, but it demonstrates and interesting point about addresses in Florence. Red numbers, designated with a little case "r," were always commercial addresses, while black numbers (even though they are in blue) are residential numbers. In this picture, you have 22r, 4, and then 24r. Some streets can have the same number, in either red or black, in two different locations. Not confusing at all.

Here's a picture of this residence from across the Arno.

il VENTIDUE di luglio

via Gino Capponi, no. 22
Where Andrea del Sarto died.

Andrea del Sarto (1486-1530), the artist "without errors," was probably more famous when he was alive than after his death. His monochromatic frescoes in the Chiostro dello Scalzo stand out in contrast to the bright blues and reds and golds in most Renaissance art.

Why all the skulls? This was the meeting place of a company of men dedicated to helping the disenfranchised (poor, prisoners, those condemned to death) at the end of their lives. Also, according to the most helpful guard I've ever come across at any site in Italy, the catacombs had just been discovered in Rome and there was a fascination with the dead and the grotesque at that time.


Vasari, the author of The Lives of the Artists, was an apprentice to Andrea del Sarto. He wrote at length of Vasari's submission to his "faithless" and "vixenish" wife.

The art critic John Ruskin was not a fan. He called Andrea del Sarto's Madonna with St. John and St. Francis a "heap of cumbrous nothingness and sickening offensiveness."

Here's hoping that you have a good day and that it not be a "heap of cumbrous nothingness."

il VENTUNO di luglio

via Cavour, no. 21
Gathering place of the Macchiaioli.

Aha! It's not all Renaissance art in Florence. The Caffe' Michelangiolo was where, in the 19th century, the Macchiaioli met to discuss arts and politics. They are Italy's answer to French Impressionists.

What do you think? Do you like their work?

il VENTI di luglio

Piazza del Duomo, no. 20
La Misericordia di Firenze

(Can you see the Campanile reflected in the window?)

This religious organization dates back to 1244, with the mission to help the sick and bury the dead. Over its long history, it has succored the poor during the plagues of the 1300s and 1600s, assisted those suffering from the Spanish Flu in 1919, provided aid to the wounded during WWII, and started giving tetanus shots just days after the flood of 1966. I guess I should have a little more patience for its ambulances which block the Piazza del Duomo.

I visited its museum this trip, only to discover that just one room is open to tourists in July and August because, of course, so few tourists are in Florence in those months.

il DICIANNOVE di luglio

Costa S. Giorgio, no. 19
La casa di Galileo Galilei

Ok, I fell behind posting because this one was across town and up a steep hill and I knew that I had to wait until I had a free (cooler) morning to walk over there.

Most of Galileo is buried here, in Santa Croce.

But a few fingers and a tooth are here, in the museum dedicated to the history of science:

When he died he wasn't allowed to be buried in a sanctified cemetery, but 100 years later, after overwhelming evidence supported his views, his body was moved. A science historian who was at the burial ceremony, however, couldn't resist cutting off parts of the scientific genius and keeping them for himself.

il DICIOTTO di luglio

Eighteen Medici balls

Everywhere you go in town you are faced with the Medici balls. Here are just three examples.

In the Convent of San Marco. Pretend there are six balls -- it's too hot to go out and find another set of six.

Thanks. In exchange for pretending there were six balls, I'll let you see the pretty cloister:

At the Medici Chapel:

In Ss. Annunziata:

il DICIASSETTE di luglio

via dei Servi, no. 17
Casa di Massaccio

Massaccio's (1401-1428) most famous work is the Brancacci Chapel. Fun facts from Wikipedia: "Masaccio's application of scientific perspective, unified lighting, use of chiaroscuro and skill in rendering the figures naturalistically established new traditions in Renaissance Florence that some scholars credit with helping to found the new Renaissance style. The young Michelangelo was one of the many artists who received his artistic training by copying Masaccio's work in the chapel. The chapel was also the site of an assault on Michelangelo by rival sculptor Pietro Torrigano, who resented Michelangelo's critical remarks about his draughtsmanship. He punched the artist so severely that he 'crushed his nose like a biscuit' (according to Benvenuto Cellini), which deformed Michelangelo's face into that of a boxer's."

It's easy to miss as the entrance is right next to one of the most nondescript churches in town, Santa Maria del Carmine.

il SEDICI di luglio

via Ricasoli, no. 16

 I took this picture wondering what could have happened over the years beyond this gate.

When I turned the corner, I realized that it was the headquarters for the great designer Emilio Pucci. The Pucci family is from Florence and, therefore, keeps the main office here rather than in Milan. All of the small windows above the balcony are all trompe l'oeil.

I couldn't understand all the African images on the building, but it appears that since Renaissance times the Puccis have had Africans in their coat of arms.  Who knew?

ll QUINDICI di luglio

via Guicciardini, no. 15
La casa di Francesco Guicciardini.

Guicciardini was a Renaissance historian, one of the first to use government documents to support his arguments. For historians who have ever logged in hours in the archives, you have Guicciardini to thank.

Based on these quotes, I guess it's not surprising that Guicciardini was at times a friend and critic of Machiavelli. In fact, I read somewhere that Machiavelli lived next door for a while. 

"One who imitates what is bad always goes beyond his model; while one who imitates what is good always comes up short of it." --Francesco Guicciardini

"Since there is nothing so well worth having as friends, never lose a chance to make them." --Francesco Guicciardini 

via dei Bentaccordi, no. 15

La casa di Michelangelo Buonarroti.

You might have heard of Michelangelo. He is the inspiration behind this and other more classy examples:

Just to be fair, a few quotes from Mike B:

"Faith in oneself is the best and safest course."  

"I am a poor man and of little worth, who is laboring in that art that God has given me in order to extend my life as long as possible."
"I am still learning."
"I have never felt salvation in nature. I love cities above all."
"I hope that I may always desire more than I can accomplish."
"I live and love in God's peculiar light."  

il QUATTORDICI di Luglio

Piazza Strozzi, no. 14

The oh-so-imposing Palazzo Strozzi.

The Strozzi family may have had the same amount of money as the Medici, but never their power. The interior courtyard: