Florence: Artistic and culinary extremes.

4/3  We started at San Felicita to see the Deposition by Portormo.    According to Peterson, it reflects "an entirely new canon of forms and colors ... [that] could capture deep emotion and still retain the disciplined, formal order....  [It is] the last and purest essay in Florentine painting to invoke intense feeling...."

 

  We next revisited the Pitti Palace to see the Medici Treasures.  Amazing, but not enlightening, craft and jewelry work.

 We walked a bit in the Boboli Gardens behind the palace.  Too steep and gravelly for Leslie to enjoy.  Nice lunch at a small place near the palace,  Toscanella.  Pastas.  Ice cream at Trinita Gelateria, our favorite.

   Bruce went alone up to the top of the Duomo.  465 steps.  Motive was partly to view the Vasari frescos closer up.  But only limited opportunity through a smeared plastic screen.

  Here's the view from the top, looking SE toward Santa Croce over our historic district neighborhood.

    This image was taken while waiting on line for admission to the Duomo Climb.

Cropped and rotated:

4/4  We went to the Bargello.  It is booked as a sculpture museum with a Michelangelo room.  That rather understates the contents.  It does contain many sculptures including Michelangelo's powerful Brutus and charmingly tipsy Bacchus (a very early work):

We became entranced in the ivory room.  It was full of amazingly intricately carved pieces.   Included was a delightful, 5th century Adam naming the animals.

Also of interest were panels reflecting the French chivalric tournaments.

Next was the Garrand collection.  Apparently, he just collected lovely examples of anything that seemed interesting to him.  Locks and keys, Swiss Army surgical tools?

We were then thrown out of the museum.  It closed at 12:50, not to reopen that day. We will return.

4/5  Today, we made an early start.  We visited Sanitssima Annunziata, famous to tourists for its portico of del Sarto frescoes, and one each of Portormo and Rosso, his students.  Several were under repair and not viewable.  Almost all of the rest were  badly faded.  There was no artificial lighting.  

  But the inside of the church was not disappointing.  It is dominated by the altar; the altarpiece painting was miraculously completed by an angel. (hence, "most sacred annunciation").  

The scene is beautifully illuminated by scores of candles left, in part, by newlywed couples seeking blessings.

We then went to nearby a nearby museum that preserves a last supper tableau by Andrea del Castagna in 1447.   It is renowned for its extreme devotion to academic perspective.

Our last stop today was at the San Marco Museum.  This is still a working Dominican Monastery.  But is it also a large complex frescoed almost entirely by Fra Angelico.   This lovely annunciation is its most famous work:

We found any number of smaller works done with incredible detail and pious devotion even more impressive:

We were particularly entranced by his Last Judgement:

Leo:   pizza salami onion, olive 

Gastone:  milanese, shrimp and rabbit raviolo, signature dessert.

I ghibillini : pizza tuscan salami ; conversation with Florentine architect couple.