Last night we had a wonderful lecture about the Art of the Renaissance, and today we had the opportunity to walk around the city to see some of the masters. Our first stop was at Santa Maria Novella, the first great basilica in Florence built by the Dominicans in the 1200’s. Among the many frescos, it has an example of Masaccio’s earliest use of perspective.
Construction of the Florence Cathedral (Il Duomo di Firenze) began in 1296 and took 140 years to complete. Its magnificence is impossible to capture in a photograph. When the construction of the dome became particularly difficult, Brunelleschi studied the construction of the Pantheon in Rome (built in 117–128 AD) to find a solution. It is considered one of the most impressive projects of the Renaissance.
We also went to the Accademia Museum where we saw Michelangelo’s famous statue of David. Our art history guide explained that Michelangelo was no fan of the Medici family. The eyes of David, with a warning glare, were turned towards Rome to where the Medici family was banished.
Michelangelo, like no other of his time, captured emotion in his sculptures. Just look at the eyes of David
And here we have our fearless leaders. Matteo on the left is our Program Director for this part of our trip, and Simone was our art history guide.
As if the day weren’t wonderful enough, we had an amazing evening at our home hosted dinner. The travelers were divided into 4 groups of 10 each. Our group rode about 30 minutes outside of Florence to Strada in Chianti up the winding hills of Tuscany. With great anticipation, our bus drove through the iron gates to a 400 year old farm house with an incredible view of a pink sky at sunset.
Christina, our hostess, is a professional chef who teaches cooking classes as well as being a private chef. She prepared an absolutely delicious 4 course dinner for us with Chianti wine from her brother’s vineyard. Below is a picture of Christina and her husband.
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