Since early in the nineteenth
century
FLORENCE has been
celebrated as the most beautiful
city in Italy. Stendhal staggered
around its streets in a perpetual
stupor of delight; the Brownings
sighed over its idyllic charms; and
E.M. Forster's
Room with a View
portrayed it as the great southern
antidote to the sterility of
Anglo-Saxon life. For most people
Florence comes close to living up to
the myth only in its first,
resounding impressions. The pinnacle
of Brunelleschi's stupendous
cathedral dome dominates the
cityscape, and the close-up view is
even more breathtaking, with the
multicoloured
Duomo rising
behind the marble-clad
Baptistry
. Wander from there down towards the
River Arno and the attraction still
holds: beyond the broad Piazza della
Signoria, site of the towering
Palazzo
Vecchio , the river is spanned
by the medieval shop-lined
Ponte
Vecchio , with the gorgeous
church of
San Miniato al Monte
glistening on the hill behind it.
Yet after registering these
marvellous sights, it's hard to
stave off a sense of disappointment,
for much of Florence is a city of
narrow streets and heavy-set,
oppressively dour palazzi
that show only iron-barred windows
and massive, studded doors to the
outside world. The alienating
effects of this physical
entrenchment are redoubled both by
an unending tide of mass tourism.
You'll find light relief to be in
short supply.
The fact is, the best of Florence
is to be seen indoors. Under the
patronage of the Medici
family, the city's artists and
thinkers were instigators of the
shift from the medieval to the
modern world-view, and churches,
galleries and museums are the places
to get to grips with their
achievement. The development of the
Renaissance can be plotted in the
vast picture collection of the Uffizi
and in the sculpture of the Bargello
and the Museo dell'Opera del
Duomo . Equally revelatory are
the fabulously decorated chapels of Santa
Croce and Santa Maria Novella
, forerunners of such astonishing
creations as Masaccio's superb
frescoes in the Cappella
Brancacci , and Fra' Angelico's
serene paintings in the monks' cells
at San Marco . The
Renaissance emphasis on harmony and
rational design is expressed with
unrivalled eloquence in
Brunelleschi's architecture,
specifically in the churches of San
Lorenzo, Santo Spirito and the Cappella
dei Pazzi . The full genius of
Michelangelo, the dominant creative
figure of sixteenth-century Italy,
is on display in the fluid design of
San Lorenzo's Biblioteca
Laurenziana and the marble
statuary of the Cappelle Medicee
and the Accademia - home of
the David . Every quarter of
Florence can boast a church or
collection worth an extended call,
and the enormous Palazzo Pitti
south of the river constitutes a
museum district on its own.
