Home again, home again jiggety jig

The last full day in Florence, we were booked on a tour of the Palazzo Vecchio private bits. So we went straight there to cover the bits not on the tour, which was nearly everything. Cosimo certainly fancied himself, he’s there on the ceiling portrayed as Jupiter. I’d forgotten that Florence was the capital of Italy briefly, after the unification, until the Pope agreed to give up Rome, and Cosimo’s enormous state room, the Salone dei Cinquecento, was fitted up to be the Parliament house.

There were some nuts who had read Dan Brown’s latest fantasy and taken it too seriously, and the guide was polite but firmly discouraging. I haven’t read it myself, so I wouldn’t know how convincing it is, but I can guess.  I did try the first – I can’t  remember the name, but it was so badly written I never got more than a couple of pages in. Same with Fifty Shades of Grey – I picked it up in the queue at Sainsbury’s and thought it would have to be very rude indeed for anyone to bother to struggle through that turgid prose.

The “secret” bits were excellent. We went into two private treasure rooms, one arranged for Cosimo and one for Francesco. The guide knew his stuff, and was really thorough at explaining the iconography of the ceiling and wall paintings, which formed a kind of filing system for the treasures. Then we went up above the Salone dei Cinquecento, to see the roof trusses supporting the roof and holding up the ornate ceiling. It’s quite a sight.

There are a number of cabinets with pietra dura inlays, and we both fell for one with every drawer decorated with birds and flowers. So Phil can have that, and I’ll have to have the Donatello of Judith with the Head of Holofernes. The original is inside the palace, it’s a copy outside. I thought the original of Cellini’s Perseus was in there too, but it wasn’t, or not on show. But if I could take only one thing home from the whole of Florence, it would be the Perseus.

It was another glorious day, so after lunch we walked across the Arno and up to Piazzale Michaelangelo, which was a bit of a disappointment. There are superb views over Florence, but it’s largely car park. 

The view from Piazzale Michelangelo

Actually, it seems to be where middle aged bikers congregate to show off – a sort of Matlock Bath of Italy. It seemed to be nearly all Harleys as well. It reminded me of giving Will an I Spy book when we went to the French Alps, and keeping finding him talking to tough looking, tattooed, German and Italian bikers, trying to establish exactly which Ducati or Triumph or BMW they were riding, so he could tick it off in his book. I must say they were all very nice to him. I expect they were flattered by the interest. 

One of the old gates. 

On the way down, we saw in a little wild bit some sort of small hutches, or kennels, painted in the city of Florence colours. There was a notice on the fence, saying that this was cat colony number three, and that no one was to harm the cats, which belonged to Florence. There was absolutely no clue as to why Florence runs at least three cat colonies. Can it be for vermin control? Semi feral cats might be a good way of keeping down rats. Maybe Boris might like the idea for dealing with pigeons in London.  

Cat Colony Number 3

I spotted houses with plaques to Elizabeth Barratt Browning, Sir John Pope-Hennessy and Andrei Tarkovsky. Garibaldi seems to have stayed in at least two places.

On the Monday, we had to take the bus back to Pisa airport at midday, so we had time to visit Santa Maria Novella, which was just round the corner from our hotel. 

Santa Maria Novella is another Dominican monastery. It's huge - the church is massive, and there are four cloisters, three large and one small. A chunk was taken to make room for the railway station and the school for carabinieri, and it also suffered badly in the 1966 floods. By the flood markers, the water was at least five feet deep. So it has been being restored more or less ever since. The buildings are fantastic, and the frescos in the Spanish chapel are in pretty good condition, but some of the rest is pretty far gone. They have taken two large Ucello frescos down and have them on frames, for restoration, in the refectory. I'd love to know how you take down and move a massive chunk of plaster without doing more damage. Also, come to think of it, how do they put it back? 

The Cloister of the Dead

There's a Giotto painting of a crucifix above the nave, all gold and light. It's high enough not to have been soaked. 

The Green Cloister

There was another good reliquary, a gilded arm from elbow to finger tips, with a gilded arrow through it and a window in the forearm with a little piece of bone - allegedly, a bit of Saint Sebastian. You have to laugh.










So then bus to Pisa, somewhat delayed by two policewomen, looking at licences and doing endless paperwork, giving carbon copies to the driver and despatcher, who were both clearly just keeping their tempers. 

Then back to England, daffodils, forsythia, magnolias, dandelions and primroses. Even the trees look as much in leaf as they were in Italy, although it's quite a bit cooler.