Florence Immersion, Album 7
Bill Cook arranged for the group to have private access to the Uffizi - the home of Florence's most important Renaissance art work. The museum is closed on Mondays and the group had the place to ourselves.
There is plenty of art in the Uffizi clearly in need of restoration. But there is much art the Wabash students saw that is simply stunning. You have to remind yourself constantly the art is 500-600 years old in many cases.
Professor Cook has a unique ability to look at art from different artists and centuries to make comparisons and show how the artwork progressed.
After presentations and going through the Uffizi, the group got to experience a rare Florence treat. Cook had arranged for the group to take a walk through the private connection from the Uffizi to the Pitti Palace. The fourtheenth century Medici family ruled as an aristocracy and could move between their home and workplace with a private hallway running over the Arno River, through a church and office building. The hallway is lined by the world's largest collection of artists' self portraits. Cook had seen the hallway twice but made sure the students knew it was quite a privilege.
Right behind David and the Florence Siena Cathedral is the Orsanmichele - a church in downtown lined with Renaissance-era statues from the great sculptors. The Orsanmichele is only open on Mondays. The outside statues are replicas now but the originals are on display in an adjacent builiding.
All but one of the original statues are on display.
The statues are a combination of marble and others cast in bronze.
One of the statues is a foursome - you can't tell in the photo but the two on the right were carved from the same stone. The two on left are separate figures.
The final stop of the day was at the Florence Cathedral museum where many statues and other pieces of art work are on display. Many originals, pieces too fragile for display, or no longer wanted in or on the church are stored there for public display. The statue was Michelangelo's last work - the burial stone for his grave. He never completed it.
