Florence and Many Monsters
May. 21st, 2007 09:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
smokingbootOh my.
So beguiled have I been with the tiny villages around the Valdechiana, so caught up with full blown rose scent and the sun spilling itself in eggy neon over the mountains* I was actually not that fussed about visiting the Great Firenze herself. What an idiot I would have been.
There is absolutely no way to describe the treasures of Florence, no superlatives sublime enough for the Uffizi Gallery, the Pallazo Vecchio, the Piazza Duomo, thethethe...better writers than I have tried and failed, so I will be lazy and not even try. Some places make you want to go seek further horizons, others may perhaps make you want to stay and do cute homely things, have a holiday home. Florence makes me want to spend a month there and learn the language, learn and learn and learn some more. I love it. I love it as much as Venice, or Rome; maybe more, though it has less melancholy than the first, and is somehow heavier than the second, something about the light. But it crackles with intelligence and humour and sophistication.
The crowds and queues are horrendous as one would expect from the city at the heart of the renaissance but we found something small and magical far from the madding crowd; the Biblioteca Laurenziana Medicea, a place housing the Medici library and made famous by Michaelangelo's staircase and vestibule; the library itself is a cool cloistered place around a small courtyard with an orange tree blooming in it.
We went in to see an exhibition based on the theme of imaginary monsters, and there they were, illuminated manuscripts from down the ages, riddled with satyrs, mermaids, dragons, phoenixes, human headed snakes, cherubs, centaurs...delightful, and a kind of yearning proof of a world sick of saints, desperate for different shapes. The angels were there, but more for their wings than their virtues; the cravings of imagination were everywhere. I wanted to invite every artist and calligrapher who contributed to this jewelled collection of fabulosities** into the 21st century where they could have studied animation or prosthetics, or at least enjoyed some top quality LSD; a good time would be had by all.
Cryptozoological mysteries abounded during that visit; fellow travellersbad_moon_rising, squintywitch, larians and I found ourselves bemusedly staring down at the Arno river, as large furry dirigibles floated along or bimbled among the river reeds, eating bread and apples. We had no clue what they were. Capybaras? Dire rats? Tyrannotribbles? Later googling revealed that they are water rats, or water voles, now thoroughly endangered in Britain due to the introduction of the mink and intensive farming practices.
I appreciate that they are not technically monsters being a) identified and b)very cute, but if they carry on stuffing their pretty wee faces, monstrosity is surely on its way. On the Arno they are protected, so even if one dies of portliness, it will be respected, probably hollowed out and used as an institute of cryptozoological learning.
The day had one more animal mystery for us, but this we never solved. On the way home,bad_moon_rising and squintywitch saw a strange beast in the headlights. The former saw a creature that seemed half fox or half cat, very low to the ground with a striped tail, and wondered if it was a huge maine coon cat, the latter saw something like a stripey chinchilla/cat with varrrrst outsize ears. We are all none the wiser.
* La Colonica seems to have achieved the impossible and turned me into an early riser. Couldn't help it,the mornings were too lustrous to miss.
**It's my lj I can make up words if I want to.
So beguiled have I been with the tiny villages around the Valdechiana, so caught up with full blown rose scent and the sun spilling itself in eggy neon over the mountains* I was actually not that fussed about visiting the Great Firenze herself. What an idiot I would have been.
There is absolutely no way to describe the treasures of Florence, no superlatives sublime enough for the Uffizi Gallery, the Pallazo Vecchio, the Piazza Duomo, thethethe...better writers than I have tried and failed, so I will be lazy and not even try. Some places make you want to go seek further horizons, others may perhaps make you want to stay and do cute homely things, have a holiday home. Florence makes me want to spend a month there and learn the language, learn and learn and learn some more. I love it. I love it as much as Venice, or Rome; maybe more, though it has less melancholy than the first, and is somehow heavier than the second, something about the light. But it crackles with intelligence and humour and sophistication.
The crowds and queues are horrendous as one would expect from the city at the heart of the renaissance but we found something small and magical far from the madding crowd; the Biblioteca Laurenziana Medicea, a place housing the Medici library and made famous by Michaelangelo's staircase and vestibule; the library itself is a cool cloistered place around a small courtyard with an orange tree blooming in it.
We went in to see an exhibition based on the theme of imaginary monsters, and there they were, illuminated manuscripts from down the ages, riddled with satyrs, mermaids, dragons, phoenixes, human headed snakes, cherubs, centaurs...delightful, and a kind of yearning proof of a world sick of saints, desperate for different shapes. The angels were there, but more for their wings than their virtues; the cravings of imagination were everywhere. I wanted to invite every artist and calligrapher who contributed to this jewelled collection of fabulosities** into the 21st century where they could have studied animation or prosthetics, or at least enjoyed some top quality LSD; a good time would be had by all.
Cryptozoological mysteries abounded during that visit; fellow travellers
bad_moon_rising, squintywitch, larians and I found ourselves bemusedly staring down at the Arno river, as large furry dirigibles floated along or bimbled among the river reeds, eating bread and apples. We had no clue what they were. Capybaras? Dire rats? Tyrannotribbles? Later googling revealed that they are water rats, or water voles, now thoroughly endangered in Britain due to the introduction of the mink and intensive farming practices. I appreciate that they are not technically monsters being a) identified and b)very cute, but if they carry on stuffing their pretty wee faces, monstrosity is surely on its way. On the Arno they are protected, so even if one dies of portliness, it will be respected, probably hollowed out and used as an institute of cryptozoological learning.
The day had one more animal mystery for us, but this we never solved. On the way home,
bad_moon_rising and squintywitch saw a strange beast in the headlights. The former saw a creature that seemed half fox or half cat, very low to the ground with a striped tail, and wondered if it was a huge maine coon cat, the latter saw something like a stripey chinchilla/cat with varrrrst outsize ears. We are all none the wiser.* La Colonica seems to have achieved the impossible and turned me into an early riser. Couldn't help it,the mornings were too lustrous to miss.
**It's my lj I can make up words if I want to.
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no subject
Date: 2007-05-21 10:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-21 02:16 pm (UTC)But then, you seem to be in a pretty magical place yourself:-)
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Date: 2007-05-21 06:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-21 09:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-22 09:27 am (UTC)Dire rats and tyrannotribles made me chuckle :)
Glad to make you smile!
Date: 2007-05-22 06:01 pm (UTC)http://www.lacolonica.com/
Don't be deceived by the photos: They are from the garden looking at the lodge, which, while charmingly convenient, cannot compare to the beauty of the garden/grove in May, just before season starts.
Our two weeks, including flights from Nottingham to Pisa, hire car and two weeks self catering in the lodge came to £450 per person. A fine place to chill in, should you need a time of balm for the spirit, the local train station is 40 minutes away and trains for Florence leave every hour.
But should you wish to immerse yourself utterly in the city, you could surely find something at the right price - and all over the city, art to love, hate, and stimulate!