A Stop In Lucca

Our Florence visit ended with a great family dinner Saturday night at our favorite Antico Ristoro di Cambi, devouring nearly 4kg of bifstecca fiorentina among the 5 of us. It was so good, as Rebecca said, we were too busy eating to take any pictures. Next morning, I picked up Penelope and brought her to the camper. Our plan was to have her for a week, visiting Lucca, Pisa, Padua, and Venice, while her parents toured more of Tuscany in a rental car. First stop for us, en route to Pisa, was the walled city of Lucca, which we had enjoyed on a previous visit (http://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2011/06/lucca.html).

Lucca wall

Penelope weighing in; she'd never seen a coin-op scale

Rorschach test: Vicki saw this as a Macbeth poster alluding
to Game of Thrones; I saw it as a Macbeth poster designed by
Jack the Dripper (Jackson Pollack)

Walking Lucca's walls, an experience we wanted P to have; the rain was not part
of the plan

Lucca lions adorning the wall

At length we got to a ramp that led us to the cathedral; note funny faces

Among the notable features of this old building are its facade columns, no two
of which are alike; it's like they were members of the column-of-the-month club

P and me at the sign of the pilgrim's maze

Beware of serpents

More funny features among the intricate carvings

"Never call me 'side-saddle sissy' again!"

Helpful toy model of Lucca in the gift shoppe; sort of a star fort

Le piogge di aprile portano i fiori di maggio

Peaking in at the dome atop an art nouveau bank (it was Sunday)

Just a few blocks on, another big church with funny columns

Thus

At last we are at the major sight for me, the Piazza Anfiteatro, a big square
where the 2nd century Roman amphitheater once stood

Inside, a market; note curvature of buildings

Attempted pano showing curvature of the universe

Lucca's other major sight, the Torre Guinigi, with its roof-
top forest

Ognissanti, 2019

Another favorite is the Ognissanti, the church of all the saints (and also all the martyrs, known and unknown), located in the Vespucci neighborhood. It's a little out of the way and certainly not one of the biggies as Florence churches go. We go there primarily for the Vespucci thing, which is complex, and also for the Ghirlandiao Last Supper and others in the refectory. It is open for visitors only on Saturdays and Mondays and hence there are few tourists and no field trips.

From the little market across the street

The building dates from the 13th century but it was re-modeled extensively in
the 17th ("if it ain't Baroque...").

I have photographed Ghirlandiao's wonderful St. Jerome
before; this is actually a copy, as Vicki astutely noticed;
the original is undergoing restoration 

"Amerigo, the beautiful" Yes, that Vespucci

Botticelli's St. Augustine

Simonetta, the love of Botticelli's life, had married into the Vespucci clan and
is buried at Ognissanti; Botticelli is buried, as he requested, at her feet; he carried
the torch for 46 years after she died

Outside in the cloister...the 1966 flood waters got this high

Ghirlandiao's Last Supper takes up one end of the refectory and is remarkable
not least because Leonardo studied it before doing his Last Supper (which we'll
see next Saturday in Milan)

It's remarkable too because the sinopia is on an adjacent wall and one can see
some of the changes effected from the design

Other sinopias

Other frescoes

This Annunciation has always interested me--it is clearly
older than the Ghirlandiao pieces in the room; it was
Saturday morning and a volunteer docent was able to tell me
it was "anonimo" but dated 1300. Woof.

More Ghirlandaio At The Basilica of Santa Trinita

Florence, like any other Italian, or, for that matter, European, city, is loaded with churches, and in the historic precincts you can never walk for more than a minute or so without passing yet another. Santa Trinita appears to be no more than a storefront in a fashionable shopping district, and we'd walked by it many times. But I'd read that it held a Ghirlandaio masterpiece, and so this time we stopped in. (The main chapel frescoes at SM Novella are by Ghirlandaio, who, by the way, was Michaelangelo's teacher). You never know what treasures are lurking in these places.

Better commentary than I can provide

With the Divine Illumination lights on

Santa Maria Novella, Again

Another favorite in Florence is the Santa Maria Novella church, Dominican, dating from the 13th century. The church building and architecture are impressive enough, but it is the artwork within that most impresses. This was our fourth visit since our retirement travels began, and we're still discovering things to like about this church. Previous posts include http://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2017/11/florence-santa-maria-novella-church.html, http://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2013/10/santa-maria-novella-2013.html, and http://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2011/06/santa-maria-novella.html. Few of the following pix are new to the blog. But this is one of my favorite places, and it's my blog.

Nave view

The meridian

Early Botticelli Adoration over the main door

Masaccio's Trinity

Pulpit designed by Brunelleschi; from here
Galileo was first denounced

Major Giotto crucifix; the place is like a Renaissance who's
who; did I mention that the 1560s remodel was by Vasari?

Lippi's Expulsion from Hieropolis in a side chapel

Featuring the farting dragon (some people insist it's merely belching)

Way high up in an adjoining chapel, a Duccio Christ with 2 angels

Perhaps the main glory of this place, the main chapel, with
its three high walls of Ghirlandao frescoes

Thus

The chapel windows also designed by Ghirlandao 

Beautiful inlays in the choir

Brunelleschi's nude Crucifixion

In another side chapel, some really old frescoes, three walls, mostly featuring
Dante stuff

Church altar

Yet another chapel: three-legged Jesus?

In the sacristy, an incredible Della Robbia (the sacristy
doubles as the gift shoppe; but don't exit through it...there's
much more)

Out in the Green Cloister, frescoes by Team Ucello; the
little sign on the left shows how high the Arno's waters
reached in the great flood of 1966

And now in the Spanish Chapel, a personal favorite, with giant walls and
ceiling frescoes by Bonaiauto, glorifying the Dominicans; and Christianity

A vision of the Florence duomo, before it was built? Some say not; pictured are
 many of the Greats of the age, not least Dante, Boccacio, Petrarch

Out in the mortuary wing; not recommended for 7 year olds

More of the Green Cloister and Ucello and other frescoes

Now in the refectory, Madonna and Child by Bernardo Daddi...very old...died in 1348,
like a lot of people back then

One of the gloriously restored Ucellos

The Great Cloister is huge, adorned mostly with 17th century frescoes; not so
interesting; but from the cloister I was able to peer into one of the shoppes of the
SM Novella Profumo Farmaceutica, which we visited in 2011; muy famoso; see
http://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2011/06/elixirs-balms-ointments-balsams.html