January 18, 2026

January 18, 2026

We left after breakfast towards the Arno River. We stopped on the way to circle the facade of the Orsanmichele Church. Unlike most churches that commission statues for the interior, this one has niches all around the exterior of the building. Each was paid for by different guilds and sculpted by the best of Florence. Donatello’s St George slaying the Dragon sports a shield so it was not surprisingly sponsored by the Armor’s Guild.

We continued through the Piazza della Signoria with its Neptune fountain and equestrian statue of Duke Cosimo I. Also in this central square is a medallion marking the spot where Savonarola was publicly burned at the stake in political backlash. Only a year earlier he had inspired a revolution and held a ‘Bonfire of the Vanities’ where citizens burned sinful art and books in the same spot.

Across the square we walked through the Uffizi Gallery courtyard checking out the 28 statues in niches. Instead of saints like Orsanmichele, these contain the most famous of Florence history.

We next followed the Vasari Corridor on the ground from the Uffizi and across the Ponte Vecchio. The bridge used to be full of butchers and tanners. Cosimo didn’t like the smell permeating his new passageway so he threw them out and invited goldsmiths. They are still here to this day. Aimee is disappointed to find they haven’t opened their shops for the day. They are boarded up so tight there is no window shopping either.

We continued following the corridor to Santa Felicita Church where we enter and spot the private balcony where Cosimo and his family would worship, never having to mingle with ordinary citizens.

We finished at the Pitti Palace. Cosimo’s wife didn’t like the castle-like Palazzo Vecchio so after about fifteen years they bought this unfinished palace and had Vasari renovate and enlarge it. It is now an Italian state museum.

After having our tickets scanned multiple times, we decided to start on the highest level and work our way down. We start in the Costume Gallery that begins with the outlandish and bulky clothes that royal women wore in the Renaissance. Normally I would be snoozing right now, but the collection was interesting because it followed Italian high fashion all the way through the Belle Epoque and Flapper eras to the mini-skirt of the 1960’s.

Also on the upper floor was the Modern Art Museum. It was kind of a misnomer only in that it was more recent than Renaissance and Baroque. There is nothing ‘modern’ in it. I enjoyed our walk through the galleries.

The art is all in what probably was the living quarters of the royals who owned the palace after the Medici’s died out. For a time that even included some French Napoleon relatives. The collection included a number of Romantic Era paintings, along with lots of the ‘de rigueur’ portraiture. I was intrigued with two female statues in the probably standard fashion of the day.

We then moved down to the main floor and toured the Palatine Gallery. It has over 500 Renaissance and Baroque paintings filling every spot of wall space in these highly decorated palace rooms. Each hall is dedicated to a different mythical story or god and decorated with brilliant ceiling frescoes. It would take days to do this art justice. My favorite was the Venus Room.

On the ground floor we quickly ran through the Treasury of the Grand Dukes. It is a little bit like the royal collection we saw in Dresden but on a more modest scale. Even then it has a most outlandish collection of ivory carvings, not to mention amber, crystal and other stones.

From the Pitti Palace, we worked our way back across the Arno, checking out the facade of the Palazzo Bianca, and the now open jewelry stores of the Ponte Vecchio. We crossed over the Santa Trinita Bridge which was blown up by the retreating Nazis in WWII. The stones of this prized Renaissance structure were fished out of the river and carefully reassembled. The sun is in the right position for photographing the Ponte Vecchio. We popped into the Santa Trinita Church to check out some nice Ghirlandaio frescoes.

We were waylaid getting across because of a long line of Vespa scooters on a club road rally. Most of them must be 2-stroke as they leave a stinky cloud of gas vapors behind.

We next passed through the Piazza Repubblica with its triumphal arch built into one side. We sit and watch a street band play some music for a few minutes.

After resting at our hotel room we go for lunch at the same spot as a few days ago. For some reason it is jam-packed today and the service is very slow. Despite that the Chicken Cacciatore (hunter) was very tasty. The Chianti wasn’t bad either.

After lunch we toured the nearby Basilica of Santa Maria Novella. Like all the others it is very cold inside. Shockingly the gift shop is inside a chapel making it the nicest one I have ever seen.

The best part of church is the choir area behind the altar. It has a bunch of colorful frescoes by the Renaissance artist known as Ghirlandaio. He shows his mastery of linear perspective. Michelangelo worked for him on it too at the age of 13. Even then he was masterful enough to show depth by painting shadows of non-descript figures.

The tour continues in the vast set of cloisters in this Dominican facility. We run through the Spanish Chapel, the Cloister of Dead, and the (really) Large Cloister before exiting.