The Road Goes Ever On

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

A Day At The Uffizi

By my count, this was our eighth visit to the Uffizi, the first in 1979, the most recent way back in 2017. Before 2011 or so, visiting the Uffizi was mostly a touristic obligation. About that time we studied some art history--thank you, Great Courses--and developed a taste for the art that preceded the Renaissance. Now we spend an inordinate amount of time in the single digit rooms of the Uffizi, with Cimabuie, Duccio, and Giotto, Martini and Francesca, and others. Things I would earlier have dismissed as the "Halo Rooms" we now savor. After the two Botticelli rooms, down the hall, the game is pretty much over for me, and seeing a Cranach or Durer later on only makes me yearn for the 15th century Flemish masters. But I digress. Despite the respect and regard, a lot of this stuff brings out the worst of my impish nature, so apologies for that...

A small Giotto in which you can see, by comparison with the Cimabuie and
Duccio elsewhere in the room, what all the fuss was about in 1305: these are
paintings of credible people, with emotions; not of static Byzantine mosaics

Baby J was not a thumb-sucker; rather, all four fingers...scholars disagree on
whether this was 3 (for the trinity) + 1 (for the unity) or the duality squared...