4 months 3 bags 2 chances: Other stuff from Florence

Souvenirs

Drew decided he NEEDED a leather bound notebook and after almost 24 hours of angst "should I spend 8€ or should I save" he made his decision. Not kidding, he did not stop talking about the notebook for a day. He bought it and got a discount "for being special" and then another one when I told the market guy that Drew was paying with his own money. Drew was chuffed that he got his 8€ book for 6€ (that's 25% off dad). He immediately began taking voluminous, pedantic notes at our next stop , San Lorenzo's basilica.

"The Notebook"

Zoe's boots

Zoe had decided before we left home that she wanted to buy a pair of Italian boots. She was really good at knowing what she wanted and looked in many stores for the right pair at the right price. Found a great pair in Rome, but they didn't have her size which is now a 37 aka not girls shoes anymore.

She found a store with a few pairs she liked, tried them on over a few days, checked other stores, got advice from all three family members then chose the ones she liked.

The next few days involved quite a bit of strutting.

Well you can tell by the way I use my walk....

Best pillow ever:

Having a nap on the stairs of the Basilica San Lorenzo. Super pillow until his two little girls came to find him and the pillow wanted to say hello.

Speaking of which, our kids found a "pillow menu" at the Milan hotel. You know tghe ones where you can call down and get a different pillow more suited to you delivered to your room. The European pillows are in general, almost flat objects covereded in a pillow slip and seemingly no more than the feather of an emaciated duck known to its friends for its crappy feathers. Anyways, it was very cute listening to Zoe and Drew call down to the "feather section" (almost certainly, the non- english speaking laundry of el cheapo train station hotel we are wstaying in) to ask for a duo of goose down pillows to be delivered. Tehy asked, delivery occurred and lets jsut say the pillows were a damn site better than the aforementioned concentration camp duck feather pillows Ree and I got to use. Proves again that you never know till you ask.

The old brown labrador pillow Italian leather

Palazzo Vecchio (aka old palace) and The Piazza della Signoria

This is now the town hall of Florence but was the "forum equivalent" in the time of the renaissance. It is visually stunning and from it, lead cobbled roads toward all the big Florentine attractions - Uffizi in one corner, Duomo down the road etc.

The sculptures are remarkable. Cant imagine walking through the roads of Northbridge and coming face to face with a hellenist statue of magnitude as opposed to a Hellenistic youth high on ICE.

Pigeon on Cosimo

Always found sculptures my favourite kind of art. Michelangelo never used drafts or guidelines, he said sculpture was inside and all he had to do was chip away the superfluous stone. As you stare at some of tthe works, its quite incomprehensible how this occurred practically, how did they get the depth right and how ddid they get the scale right. David is almost 5metres tall. Interestingly, the marble of the original David was rejected by two other sculptors as being inferior or too hard to work with before Micheelangelo took the work on.

Spot quiz, what was Michelangelo's surname?

The Palazzo Vecchio itself, has its entrance guarded by spiritual man in the form of David and physical man Hercules. Now that is a damn fine entrance. Try to walk along that path without feeling a few inches smaller.

David and Hercules - Renaissance bookends - the pen and the sword

Who writes history?

This is the sculpture of Hercules as he kills the monster Cacus (who becomes cactus). As well as providing the physical strength to stand complementary to the spiritual strength of its neighbour David, The Medici wanted all to know that they were back from their exile (see Savonarola below). The statue was also therefore meant to represent the Medici in their battle and and subsequent victory over the Republic of puritan Savonarola. It was, and all of Florence knew it.

As per usual though, history is written by the winners. Had the Medici not returned from exile, they would have been represented as the monster Cacus and the Republican "party" for want of a better word, who commissioned it for that reason would have been Hercules.

Damn fine abs

Cacus becomes Cactus

Imagine the Statue of Liberty.....but holding up a head

Perseus with the head of Medusa

The Rape of the Sabines is famous as a story from the time of Romulus (see roman forum) and as a painting as well as this sculpture. It is hard to imagine how the intertwining figures are all that is left after the rest of the marble has been chipped away.

Rape of the Sabines

The sad story of Savonarola or why in the long run, nobody likes a do gooder.

Savonarola

In summary, Savonarola was a Friar, who preached a mix of populist politic suffused with biblical references from the book of the less than fully sane Luke.

Early aside - Luke is the only book of the new testament I have read and truthfully, mostly in passing except for the book of Revelations which I read in Jerusalem in 1987. I read it because they showed "The Omen" at midnight in a Jerusalem cinema. Very religious Jews standing out the front shouting insults at moviegoers. Not very nice.

The book of Revelations marks Luke as what would be called today, "a nutter" or more precisely "schizophrenic with paranoid delusions". There is a six headed monster and also the great line " let he who hath understanding reckon the number of the beast for it is a human number, its number is six hundred, three score and six. Thats where the number of the Devil comes from BUT its all a mistranslation. The real number of the Devil is 6 by 6 by 6 aka 216. Pedantic Maybe, but when you're dealing with mythical beasts that were themselves mistranslated you gotta be accurate.

But back to Savonarola. In his defense he did preach an anti corruption, anti despotic (aka anti-Medici), anti exploitation of the poor platform. He was also a zealot who preached repentance and Catholic renewal (turf the corrupt clergy) and made a a bunch of his own prophecies including the coming of a cleansing scourge to wipe evil from Florence.

The establishment made fun of him and his followers were known of as "wailers" however he was a fine orator and his message was (mostly) likeable so his following grew. A bit like Pauline Hanson. The wailer name caught on and his followers started calling themselves "wailers" (but in Italian).

Luckily for Savonarola but not Florence, Charles the somethingth of France invaded and threatened Florence. Savonarola was now seen as a prophet. He got to chat to King Charlie and arranged for the expulsion of the Medici and set up a new Republic with the aim of turning Florence into the world centre of Christianity (and he forgot to mention, put him in a position more powerful than the Pope).

For a while this whole "puritan thing" caught on with laws against public drunkeness, homosexuality, "immorality not otherwise specified" and then as time went on, the police would patrol the streets for those not dressed appropriately or not behaving with the correct degree of circumspect propriety. This sounds surprisingly like the policies of the likely next Prime Minister of Australia.

The Pope got VERY annoyed with Savvy when Savvy started making up laws based on Church doctrine that wasn't in fact doctine. Worse, when the Pope wanted him to send help for a battle with the French, Savvy declined and then defied orders to rock up in Rome to explain (he was a friar remember) so the Pope banned him from doing Friar work.

For a little while Savvy was a good boy but his power came from sermons so eventually he started sermons again. Savvy continued the puritan thing but with more and more vitriol as usually happens when one power tries to suppress another. He began making up the odd prophecy or two in retrospect (which kind of makes it less of a prophecy) and was great with what one reference called "pious theatricals" as well as a bit of "bonfire of the vanities" which besides being the best Tom Wolfe novel by far (by far) is not what I am talking about.

Bonfire of the vanities quite literally meant burning objects that could lead to sin. Sure this is a wide definition, but to Savvy it meant perfumes, mirrors, nice clothes..... Many of these Florentine conflargations occurred in the Piazza della Signora (the one with the Statues above, which the palazzo Vecchio entrance guarded by the statues of David and Hercules). The idea of burning objects of sin wasn't invented by Savvy at all, but he was very good at them and presided over the most famous "bonfire" in1497. It is said that Botticelli (he of the birth of venus), burned some of his paintings as he became a wailer member of the Savonarola school of no fun.

Anyways, pissing off a Pope is not usually good for your health as Savvy the now not so savvy (nice one huh) came to realize. He got excommunicated in 1497. Things got worse with a trial by fire to see if God would show Savvy to be a true prophet. His right hand man (right hand Friar) had agreed to the dare without actually asking Savvy (also not Savvy). A classic case of never underestimating the courage of the non-combatant.

In probably his last bit of good luck, the whole shebang got rained out, much to the chagrin of the thousands that had come to watch. The bad luck was that the crowd blamed Savvy for the failure of the trial and like all good crowds, rioted. Soon after that his two right hand friars and Savvy got arrested then tortured. Savvy confessed to making up the odd prophecy or two.

After a couple of days, the three were lead into the square, found guilty of being heretics and sentenced to death immediately. They were literally derobed or is that defrocked? (the ritual degradation of a cleric) then hanged and burned in the square. As per Bin Laden in 2012, to stop any martyrdom occurring, their ashes were collected and scattered in the river Arno which is about a 3 minute walk away.

This long story leads up to the picture below which is a stone inset into the paving in front of the statue of Neptune between the Bronze horseman Medici (now usually with pigeon on his head) and the David Statue in front of the church. Its pretty much the only reference to Savonarola left in Florence and marks the spot where he was executed in MCCCCXCVIII

So all this got me thinking. If the renaissance was the greatest period of human spirit in the last 1000 years and it came about in an environment of aspiration for the building and creating the new by standing on the shoulders of giants. A time when 1000 years of staid rules were put aside for art and science to flourish - isnt it interesting that the role of the rule maker and the do gooder was to terminate the renaissance period.

Around the world more and more it is the simple, easy to understand politic of the extremist with single phrase sound bites and policy seemingly not much unchanged from the Savonarola's of the world that gain traction. The crazy politic of the Bush administration funded by the puritans of the US today or the scaremongering of the current Aussie Federal Liberal party are even more scary when I think of them in this historical context.

I accept that I am no historian and that my interpretation of the history i am writing may be way off and based on not enough reading. I once again take no responsibility for any inaccuracies other than to say that i tried.

Around the outside of the Uffizi gallery are 28 statues. Seemed unfair to me that Raphael got to miss when all his other buddies were included.

Strange bunch. Buonarroti goes by his first name and Donatello'sname isn't Donatello (Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi)

The exclusion rectified

Its a traveling kids lucky day when the yearly Gelato festival occurs when you are visiting

Oh yeah baby

Zoe's kind of festival

Hyperboy LOVES a gelato festival

Other than the close to inedible mojito gelato cocktail (which came with our tasters show bag), the other flavours were delicious and required numerous taste tests.

Another gold nosed statue. This boar is much less freaky than the gold nosed creepy Dubrovnik playwrite dude. Still, shows how people will do dumb things for photos, videos, luck etc.

On that point, why do we have to smile in photos? Are we always meant to be happy in them so we can more easily believe we had a good time when we look back on them?

The celebrated gold nosed boar

Some colourful things that broke

Our 3€ Rome umbrella is on its last legs. Damn you hawker guy who swore on his mothers grave as to its (I assume the umbrella's and not the grave's) durability.

What's most amazing is the speed of Hawker network. One minute all they have are handbags, slime things for kids, trinkets and then, as the first drop of rain hits, Bam, suddenly there are umbrellas and ponchos for sale. It's a bit David Blaine / Copperfield. If businesses could work at this speed! Bet they don't have committees or management groups.

3€ Rome umbrella

In much sadder news, the wheels of the kids suitcase did not enjoy the Caserta cobblestones and over time deteriorated to unusable. Finding baggage repairers on florentine weekend proved hard but Ree was up to the challenge. Alas, although the case has a lifetime warranty, there are no distributors in Italy, Switzerland or France. Turns out you can't just change a wheel on these ones as the wheel and bracket are a single (unavailable proprietary) unit. What about changing all the wheels we ask. Not possible.

So choices are carry the case, get new case or maybe a trolley with wheels to put the case on? If new, then what size, what colour? What to do as trinkets increase in number? Is this the actual definition of boring?

Too hard, but as carrying the case = Lozza carrying the case, so it was time to say bye bye to a very cool piece of luggage. I am still cross with the manufacturers as I don't think 6 weeks is a very long lifetime of use. Ree thinks it has been a tough few weeks but come on.

Not designed for heavy load and old, cobblestone streets

More perplexing mannequins

These were in a window. Seeming design flaw of mannequin boobs?

We take no responsibility!

Did I mention we weren't the only ones in Florence?

Two rallies on a Saturday afternoon

Rally #1: W

Whilst enjoying a damn fine gelato or two, there was a bit of a commotion with vans of swat like carabinieri suddenly appearing, sirens blaring, then popping out of the vans to talk on their phones, chat to mates, look damn fine and have a cigarette or two.

Reason for there appearance was a rally opposing the policies of the current coalition or maybe it was anti G8 (theory of a Gelato seller).

Regardless, as per rally for Cypriot independence, Zoe went to investigate. Drew would usually go too, but it was, after all, a gelato festival.

Zozo protests........about something

Rally #2 was a car rally (demonstration of old cars )through the streets. It was very cool with old cars tooting, people cheering and good time had by all.