Brancacci Chapel, 2022

Ground zero for Renaissance art and art history buffs, along with the Arena (Scrovegni) Chapel in Padua. We visited the Brancacci Chapel in 2011, 2013, and 2017. But this was a most special visit, for reasons explained below. The best pix, for reasons explained below, are in the preceding years.

In the age of COVID revenge tourism, everything requires a reservation, a timed entry. Vicki had dutifully made ours for April 30th, 11AM. She thought. When we were in line, however, it was noticed our reservations were for May 30th. Alas! But an understanding and charitable official told us, however, to wait a few minutes, and if there were cancellations or no-shows, she would let us in. Indeed, we got in at 11:45. Blessed be this lady. First of two miracles that day.

Second miracle. I had failed to notice from the website that the whole of the Chapel was in scaffolding--investigations and restorations going on--but that the visits were continuing, in extremely limited numbers. (How we got the May 30th reservations is a mystery since, when we checked later that day, there were no availabilities left the whole summer!) In any case, we got in, with 8 other people. We hardly knew what to expect. Yes, there was scaffolding, as neat and clean and carefully constructed as I've ever seen. But the wonder of it all was that the scaffolding took you high up into the chapel, eye-to-eye with the more famous upper registers of the frescoes: looking at the paintings as the painter would have seen them, something no one ever gets to do except in these exceptional circumstances. Miraculous!

As I said the better pix from the Branacci are from my 2011, 2013, and 2017 posts, but I'll include a few below, just to give a flavor of the experience. Our most memorable visit to a most memorable place!

The scaffolding was there, but, being so close to
the paintings, you could look right past it

San Marco Museum

We visited San Marco in 2011 and 2013 and decided 2022 might be a good year to return. We'd just seen Fra (Beato) Angelica's tomb at the church of SM Sopra Minerva in Rome, plus many of his works at the Uffizi.

The religious complex of San Marco is known for many things...the interest and generosity of Cosimo Medici (the Patriarch) in rebuilding and upgrading it, the (arguably) first public library contained therein, the many, many frescoes and paintings by Fra Angelica, the burial site of Pico della Miradola, (arguably) the intellectual father of Humanism, another of Ghirlandaio's Last Suppers, and last, and least, the shrine of the demagogue priest Savanarola's take-over of Florence in the 1490s. The previous posts do the place some justice, but there are always a few new things, or things seen in new ways, and maybe a correction or two.... 

It's a huge place, earlier 15th century, funded by Cosimo and
designed by his personal architect, Michelozzi

The four interior walls of the cloister are decorated with these
beautiful frescoes, by Fra Angelica, Fra Bartolomeo, and others;
this one by Fra Angelica, two Dominicans welcoming Jesus as
a pilgrim; it's all about Dominicans, you see...

Fra Angelica's San Marcos altarpiece...he was adept at both the
International Gothic as well as the beauteous frescoes emerging
in the via moderna; as the blurb below suggests, while this is an
old-style sacred conversation, it is amply informed by Brunelleschi's
theories of perspective and by van Eyck's realism...

[click to enlarge] except Fra Angelica and his peers knew little
of oil painting, which van Eyck had pioneered and mastered a
generation before

Anyhow, Fra Angelica was also pretty adept at the lurid 

Last Judgment genre too

We of course never look at anything but the Hell
side, since it is always the more interesting

Apparently they feed you in Hell; maybe punishment for those
guilty of the sin of selective eating disorder?

Eat and be eaten 

But mostly he did the pretty stuff

"Wheel! Of! Ezekiel!" (Ezekiel 10:9-10, for those of you keeping
score at home)

Madonna et bambina?

True confession time: we're in the gift shop now, formerly a 
refectory, and I am not recognizing this Last Supper as one of
Ghirlandaio's; frankly, it is so colorful...re-done, I guess...that it
almost looks fresh; the only identifying signage said it was a
"photographic reproduction," whatever that could mean; every
site I've visited on the web identifies it as one of Ghirlandaio's
three Florence Last Suppers; I should have noted that the
composition is exactly like the one at the Ognissanti (except for
the cat); I still prefer the one at the Ognissanti...it is set in a
real refectory, it looks like it's been there for 500+ years, and
there's the synopia of it on the adjacent wall

Going upstairs where the monks' cells are...an Annunciation that
is one of Fra Angelica's biggest hits

Actual Tree of Jesse; not the figurative one that some people prefer

The library...see the description below...

Among several displays...books, hymnals, writing, copying, and
printing apparati

Must preserve the books, can't sell them, must permit the public
to have access to them...yes, maybe the first modern public library

Since we were here last, they've really upgraded the Savanarola
shrine; here, part of his cell (he was the head monk)

Among the relics

Said to be his cloak...note the gold trim; apparently he still has
some fans...

Spare parts and helpful model; great place...

Uffizi, 2022

April 28th we did the Uffizi, again. Art and art history have grown on us over the years, and the Uffizi has gone from obligatory tourist destination to highest-priority pilgrimage site. Holy ground. I have examined the posts listed below and commend them at least as light-hearted coverage of one of the greatest of art museums:

https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2011/06/uffizi-outtakes.html
https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2011/06/uffizi.html
https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2013/10/brancacci-chapel-2013-and-uffizi.html

https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2017/11/uffizi-2017-reformation-works.html
https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2017/11/uffizi-2017-botticelli.html
https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2017/11/florence-uffizi-2017-renaissance-fun-1.html
https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2017/11/florence-uffizi-2017-renaissance-fun-2.html

https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2019/04/a-day-at-uffizi.html

As always, there are a few more items to post, some of which, I swear, we have not see before...

And in English too

"I said, bring us a shrubbery!"

In one of the Botticelli rooms

One of the many challenges of art photography...you get it framed,
focused, etc...and then...

In the cartography room, something we'd not seen before

Street scene

Imperial eye-roll

Wing-fitting gown on a Durer angel

Not happy with the scorpion on her forehead

Space available; your Renaissance paintings here

"You tell Him I said 'Mother of God' is fine, but I
want Queen of Heaven too!"

Weirdest St. John the Baptist yet; "gollum!
gollum!"

Never miss an Elizabeth Louise Vigee Le Brun; 
she weathered the Revolution in the sunny south;
and other places; anywhere but France

Light-hearted Breughel-spawn Calvary, a copy
of Elder's famous Procession to Calvary, which
we'll see again, hopefully, this fall in Vienna 

"Thus always to body-shamers"

Interim Update #1,266: Another Removal!

Our time in Florence was up, wonderful as it was. Air Dolomiti and Lufthansa sped us north, via Munich, to Britland. For a night, we are holed up in an Ibis hotel at Heathcliffe. Didn't want to drive after dark in Kent, especially on the wrong side of the road and shifting left-handedly. But soon we'll be there, savoring the gardens. And spring, in Britland!

The lounge at Florence's Amerigo Vespucci airport was not well
stocked, at least by some standards, but, next to the battery of espresso
machines, it had just exactly the right ingredients for me, and for
my last few Negronis in Italy

The Ibis is right on the landing flight path for Heathcliffe; the 

soundproofing is amazing