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27 Oct 04: The highlight of the day was our excursion to the Academy of Fine Arts. It usually has very long lines, so we had previously made a reservation for 13:00. At the time we arrived, however, there were maybe 5 people waiting and we were whisked inside to purchase our tickets. Upon entering, one finds oneself in a long, high-ceilinged corridor exhibiting the sculpture of Michelangelo. Along the walls, the Academy has displayed several unfinished sculptures, four of which are the famous "Prisoners". These 3-meter high male figures seem to be struggling to escape from their marble bonds - most have only the front parts of their bodies chiseled out of the stone, and their faces and extremities have yet to be revealed. An inexpressible emotional communication takes place here between artist and viewer. I found the chisel work fascinating, from what must have been thumb-sized marble chips gouged out of the stone with forceful blows where the figures were being roughed out, to the fine rows of marks only millimeters apart where the artist delineated his anatomically faithful contours of muscle and sinew. Moving to the end of the hallway, we entered a high, domed space - almost cathedral-like - wherein stood the David. This is properly pronounced Dah-VEED, I am informed. There have been only a few times in my life when I have been rendered mute - this was one of them. I have seen countless pictures of this work, but I have never been told nor have I read anywhere that the statue is 14 feet tall! It is mounted on a marble platform another 6 feet high, so that David's crown of touseled curls towers a full 20 feet (6 meters) above the gallery floor. His hands and head are outsized yet strangely, not disproportioniate. Again, you can read all about the details elsewhere, but there is no substitute for or adequate description of the visual and visceral impact of its presence at close quarters. There are benches surrounding the work, and we spent about 20 minutes there, taking it in from all angles along with a group of about 20 others. The silence was palpable - it was a reverential experience. Michelangelo executed this work at the age of 26 - I think I was being unsuccessfully instructed which fork to use for salad at that age. The rest of our tour of the Academy took an additional hour and a half. It is packed with statuary, paintings, and iconography. One whole large room was stuffed with plaster sculptures made by students of the Academy as demonstrations of their learning about the many styles of the masters whose works are on exhibit there. The Academy is still a vital, working institution of learning today, where the artists whose works will grace our homes and public buildings tomorrow are honing their craft skills today. Have I mentioned the profusion of art on display in this city? It positively bristles, flows, sprouts, bubbles, exudes, bursts, oozes, irrupts from every surface. Building sides are festooned with carvings and frescos, lamp posts and railings drip with wrought iron embroidery and scrollwork, statuary strides forth from innumerable niches. Indoors, every available surface is covered with paint, either in the form of frescos or constrained by frames from breaking out and claiming adjacent space. The city reminds me of a tropical rain forest, where amid a steamy atmosphere the richly nourishing bioenvironment is so astonishingly fecund, that if you turn your eyes from any spot and look back moments later, tendrils of some newly mutated species are straining to squeeze out and claim space in the already verdant and vine-choked canopy. We had a late lunch and returned to the hotel to relax for the rest of the afternoon. We were planning to attend another concert across the street from the hotel at 21:15 and would eat dinner early - the evening meal usually commences about 20:00 in this part of the world, so I'm talking 18:30 or so. I read and took a little nap, then we went to dinner. At this point I want to describe the difference between me and my wife in these matters. For me, most of the time "food is fuel". While I do enjoy a fine meal, I'm usually just as content with simple fare. My modus is just to walk down the street until I encounter a likely establishment and enter to eat whatever looks palatable on the menu. My wife, on the other hand, is an adroit researcher of guidebooks who carefully considers the type of food offered, the walking distance to the establishment, the ambience, the prices, etc. For this evening she had chosen the Osteria del Porcellino, described as having a "romantic ambience", a "fresh, seasonal menu", and as "dark, dense, and candlelit". All these descriptions were accurate. For the primo piatto (first course) I had a potato tortelli dish with a tomato and ground beef sauce, followed by a massive cut of tender, buttery grilled beef, Florentine style. My wife had gnocchi smothered in a gorgonzola cheese sauce and a roasted vegetable platter. We both had Tuscan-style chocolate pudding and cappucino afterwards. We lingered over the meal for quite some time, discovering only as we walked back to the hotel that we had completely forgotten about the evening concert - indeed, it was over by the time we got back, and we retired for the night. Click
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