After lunch we ventured just North of the cathedral to the neighborhood dominated by the Medici. Our first stop was the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi, the first Medici mansion and the forerunner for the Renaissance home. This may qualify as the biggest disappointment in Florence (not an easy prize to win as the Italians are notoriously careless about their art and equally contemptuous of their obligation to the tourist trade which keeps this part of the city alive). We found that this whole Medici turf including their parish church of San Lorenzo with its Medici chapel gave us problems.
The Medici-Riccardi was the first real home for the Medici clan and the model for Renaissance homes. Founding father Cosimo, not wanting to flaunt his wealth, had his favorite architect Michelelozzo design a simple place in 1444 and he worked on it for 20 years. Later remodellers the likes of Michelangelo had their hand adding to it (the quality of tradesmen was pretty good in those days). Eventually his descendants got more uppity and moved to the Palazzo Vecchio and even later to the Palazzo Pitti.
The entrance courtyard (top of page) was inviting but what's behind it would soon disappoint: Today the Medici-Riccardi is a government building with only two rooms and a courtyard open for public viewing. What you get vs. the price of admission (including the physical exertion of climbing up and down high stairways to get to the few open rooms) makes this a very poor value. The American couple we shared an elevator with were actually planning to go to the admission desk and ask for their money back!
The highlight of this building is the Magi chapel (photographs forbidden) up a high stairs. Benozzo Gozzoli's frescoes of the Magi entering Bethlehem in fact depict various important personages who came to Florence in 1439 (twenty years before the picture was painted). Also present in the plaster: images of the artist and his tutor, Fra Angelico. The gilt ceiling and marble inlay flooring are also impressive.
Up another long stairs, we see the Sala di Luca Giordano, a large ballroom added by the Riccardi (the second family to own this mansion). Here's a picture of its ceiling by the Neapolitan Luca Giordano--famous because he painted this fresco very fast:
The ceiling supposedly shows the later Medici's ascending into heaven. By this time sucking up to your patrons was really going for the baroque.
The walls are also beautiful with mirrors and gold paneling which the uneven lightening made difficult for my camera to capture.
Through the ballroom window, one can see the Renaissance courtyard below. Over the fence on the right is the church of San Lorenzo which we will complain about shortly.
Descending the stairs, we decided to visit an exhibition showing a modern artist. Ordinarily we wouldn't have bothered as most of the good artists left Florence for Rome years ago. But we were feeling so cheated out of our admission price that we ventured through trying to squeeze some value out of the stop. The exhibition wasn't too bad and we were able to photograph these two cultural icons:
Here's a view of the Medici-Riccardi taken from the other side of the wall above. One can see how poorly this building is being kept up. Repairs on the wall don't even match the original (or attempt to). It this any way to treat a Michelozzo building updated by Michelangelo? We need some Houston deed restrictions in this place! No wonder the statue in the foreground (some Medici or other) looks so disgruntled.
The picture just above was taken across from the Medici-Riccardi on the large steps in front of the Medici's parish church: San Lorenzo. If you turn around to see the entrance of the church, you see this:
Highly decorative, isn't it! We have here a typical Florentine approach of make buildings look incredibly non-eventful from the outside and lavish on the inside (as here), or just the opposite with the Duomo. In fact, Michelangelo drew up plans to apply a marble skin which Florence never got around to installing.
We found this church closed every time we wanted to get into it except for once, after dark, when it opened for a few minutes, perhaps to let some tour in. We jumped through the entrance. By then, the nightime light was very bad and this purplish photo below was the best I could do:
The place was actually much darker than this!
This is the site of the oldest church in Florence, going back to St. Ambrose in 393, followed by a Romanesque building in the 10th century. The present building was designed by Brunelleschi in the early 15th century and is the forerunner for the Renaissance church.
The church has several extensions which are artistic and architectural jewels -- all closed. These included the Laurenziana library and the Medici Chapels (really their graveyard), both by Michelangelo. To Florence's defense, the ceiling of the Medici Chapel had fallen a week before we got there. This explains their timing but not their maintenance procedures. All we could get was this picture of it from the outside, supporting our hypothesis that the building's outside and inside will look quite different. Maybe someday we will get to go inside.
A beautiful building or beautiful rooms but too dark and too closed for us to appreciate! Someday we will have to go back to Florence to see it. The highlight of visiting this area is that the steps of San Lorenzo church shelter a huge leather market and I was able to buy several belts.
Our last tour of the day was the Franciscan church of Santa Croce--one of the few beautiful on both the outside and the inside. Please join us by clicking here.
Where do you want to go today? Here's a few choices:
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