Final day in Florence

What with all of the travels and adventures of the trip, in many ways I would have to say that my favorite overall day had to be our last day in Florence.

 

As the final activity for me from the Janet Arnold conference, we had a special tour through the Palazzo Vecchio, which was the central Florentine palace of Cosimo de Medici and Eleanore of Toledo.  Despite all of the opulence of the palace, I honestly cannot say that any of it sticks in my memory.  Why?  Because I had just had it.  Over the course of the days, I saw and experienced so much stuff that I just hit a wall in terms of opulent exhibition.  Hand-painted frescoes, lapis lazuli encrusted ceilings, finely carved and gilded wooden sculptures…. OVERLOAD, OVERLOAD, OVERLOAD!!!!

 

By the time I left the Palazzo, it was just a little bit after noon, and I felt drained.  By this point, I was supposed to meet Paul and then join some other friends to cross over the Ponte Vecchio, take a bus to a nearby hillside, crawl all over Roman ruins, and view the highest vantage-point overlooking Florence.  But I just couldn’t.  No more!  No more!!!!  Mentally, I was waving a white flag.

 

When I met up with Paul, I think the look on my face must have said it all.  I just… couldn’t.  I couldn’t keep running a mile a minute.  I couldn’t go and see any more elaborate displays just yet.  So in utter sympathy, he lovingly agreed to blow off our previous plans in favor of wandering around.  WooHOO!  We strolled through the Florentine street market, where I picked up a to-die-for leather Armani jacket, and had an exquisite lunch at a local hole-in-the-wall restaurant.  Eventually, by mid-afternoon, we found ourselves ready for a new journey.  Looking at the map, I found that we were not far from where the statue of David was supposed to be.  “Let’s go there!” I said.

 

Ending up at where I *thought* David would be, I proved once again my inability to interpret maps.  But low and behold, we were at the Museu di San Marco.  “What the heck?” we figured.  “We’re at an old church museum.  Why not?”

 

But when we entered San Marco, it didn’t strike me as a typical church.  It had a lovely cloistered garden, but no centrally enclosed area for a mass.  Turns out, San Marco was not a church, but a Renaissance monestary.  The upper floor was completely intact with individual monks cells, each with its own perfectly preserved Renaissance fresco.  SWEEET!

 

The final cells that we viewed belonged to none other than Cosimo de Medici and Savanarola, the freakboy of the Inquisition.  But wait, it gets better.  In one large central room, a full scriptorium with no less than 30 intact antiphonals, and a display of the tools and techniques used to create the illuminated pages.  SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!  Yes, the illuminator in me geeked out at the unexpected find.  And in the gift shop, the best selection of illumination books I had yet seen on the trip. 

 

CANDYLAND!!!!!!!