Uffizi, 2017: Reformation Exhibit

November 2nd was our third visit to the Uffizi since retiring. I've looked at my previous Uffizi posts and found very little. The "NO FOTOS!" policy precluded anything much, since the museum in those days fairly swarmed with guards anxious to exert their authority (when not busy texting friends, family, watching YouTube, etc.). This visit was different, of course, and I got the pix I always wanted of so many favorites. In posting now, I'll try for some moderation, but there will be several Uffizi posts this year.

It was the anniversary of Luther's 95 Theses, and the great museum did a special exhibit of its Reformation-era holdings from the north, mostly Cranach and Durer. Cranach and Durer! Two of our favorite non-Italian artists! So I'll begin with them before going to the museum's chronological beginnings, the Duccios, Cimabues, and Giottos.

Cranach's Madonna, Bambino, and San Giovanni,
so to speak; awful lighting, glass, and glare;
nonetheless... 

Show me a more insightful and sympathetic representation
of the Madonna, anywhere

A Cranach Adam and Eve

Original Sin, woodcut

Durer Adam and Eve engraving...Durer was
the first to figure out there was money in
doing prints for the masses rather than one-off
paintings for bishops and princes

Rules of civility were suspended during the Reformation

Cranach's portraits of Luther and Katharina von Bora, Mrs.
Luther

The lack of civility got worse as things moved ahead

There are many things you can't do at the Uffizi, but you can
take pix!

And so we are off, on a relatively uncrowded day

Florence Palazzo Medici-Riccardi

We visited the old Medici palace way back in 2011 (https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2011/06/medici-tombs-palazzo-medici-riccardi.html), and I remember sneaking just one photo from its artistic masterpiece, Benozzo Gozzoli's Magi Chapel, completed in 1459, a multi-wall procession of the Three Kings, well, actually, prominent Florentines/Medici allies, dressed up as the imagined retinue of the Three. It is magnificently well-preserved, detailed, and brilliant, but in 2011, the "NO FOTOS!" policy was in full force. Not so now. Stay as long as you like, take as many pix as you want...I got carried away, of course...

Medici crest...they were apothecaries before they invented banking

Elevation, sort of, showing the rusticated bottom two floors

Interior courtyard, very Rennaissancy

Now in the Magi Chapel...

View of "main" wall; the guy on the white horse, right, is said
by some to be a young Lorenzo the Magnificent; others say he
was way too young to be so pictured and is in the procession
to the left...

Another wall

It's an irregularly-shaped room and has more
than the usual 4 walls

Related, perhaps, to the leopard we did not see in Africa

Lorenzo?

Among the salons; after Vicki tore me away from the little chapel

In the 2011 post I had mis-identified this as a
Botticelli; it is rather a wonderful Filippo Lippi;
the Bambino's pose particularly striking

Hall of mirrors

Sort of

Usual ceiling treatment, dating from the Riccardis, who owned
the place after the Medicis moved out

We are thinking of something like this for Le Duc

In addition to housing the museums, the large old building also
houses provincial government (county) offices; here, the
provincial council chambers, decorated with beautiful 16th
century Florentine tapestries depicting the four seasons

In the basement, a museum of Roman busts, a bit of which is
pictured here

Florence Santa Maria Novella Church, 2017

Santa Maria Novella is one of our favorite churches in Florence, mostly for its age and the age and historic importance of its art. We visited in 2011 and 2013, and I blogged about SMN twice, at http://roadeveron.blogspot.it/2011/06/santa-maria-novella.html and at http://roadeveron.blogspot.it/2013/10/santa-maria-novella-2013.html. Photography is now permitted in the church, and consequently I have scores of new pix that are composed and not clandestine. Nonetheless, I'll focus below on art not mentioned in the previous posts, some of it very newly restored and displayed.

Interior view of the great 14th century Italian Gothic, Dominican

A large, exquisite Botticelli Nativity, high above the main door

Water conservation measures in effect...

OK, I've posted this twice before, Massacio's Trinity; can't do
this church without noting its greatest masterpiece

Rene Ssance, Saint Stabbena, 1489

Detail said to be of Dante in the Strozzi di Mantova Chapel

Brunelleschi's Crucifix, done as a reaction to Donatello's rather
more famous one; nude

Stained glass, designed by Ghirlandaio, who did the great frescoes in the apse
(previous posts)

High up there, three boys, done, it is said, by Ghirlandaio's pupil, Michaelangelo
Buonarrotti

In the Strozzi chapel, Filipino Lippi's St. Philip Driving the 
Dragon from the Temple of Hieropolis

After being driven from the temple, the dragon farts

Dragon farts are particularly noxious

Most interesting umbrella stand ever, so far

The large cloister at SMN is covered in 14th century frescoes, many faded beyond
recognition (not pictured here department: the Spanish Chapel...see 2011 and 2013
posts for this pretty incredible place and its beautifully-preserved 14th century
frescoes by Andrea di Bonaiuto)

Among the cloister frescoes was a Genesis cycle by Ucello, thought to have been
damaged beyond saving in the 1966 flood; its most interesting instance, this
Flood scene...

And others, now miraculously restored and prominently displayed

Detail: orchard scene; note the Serpent is a woman, a Medieval convention that
will shortly disappear

Part of the whole glorious room of restored 15th century Ucellos

Same area, refectory, a painting now restored simply by having removed the
painting below, which had covered the older scene's lower center for centuries

Gotta have a food scene in the refectory; incredible church; always our first stop
in Florence

Travel Update #122

So we are in Rome now, a few days to visit favorite sights, a few days to pack and get Le Duc ready for winter storage. We were five days in Florence, then a day each in Arezzo, Assisi, Orvieto, Bomarzo (Monster Park) before getting here, so, obviously, I have some catching up to do on the blog. More than obviously: much to our pleasant surprise, there has been a change in Italian policy for national cultural sites...photos are now permitted! No more will the cry of "NO FOTOS!" be heard in so many famous museums, cathedrals, chapels, and other institutions. The upshot for the blog is that I now have many pix from the Uffizi, the Santa Maria Nueva, the Medici/Riccardi Palazzo, Francesco's Legend of the True Cross in Arezzo, the New Chapel in Orvieto, and so on. Hundreds, certainly, maybe thousands of new pix, and not just the quick, clandestine, parthian shots of yore. So, we may be a bit further into November before I get all this sorted and posted. Until then, "NO FLASH!"