Italy: Firenze

Posted on November 8, 2013 Updated on November 12, 2013

Ever want to just go shopping for hours on the Ponte Vecchio? Have you ever dreamed of seeing the famous statue of David created by Michelangelo? Are you longing to see The Giotto’s Bell Tower? Or how about The Dome of Brunelleschi? If you answered YES to all these questions, then it’s time you go to Florence, Italy where all of your wishes and dreams can come true.

Ponte Vecchio, the oldest of Florence’s six bridges, is one of the city’s best known images. Probably going back to Roman times with its stone pillars and wooden planks; it was built in stone but then newly destroyed by a flood in 1333. And in case you were wondering, Ponte Vecchio means “Old Bridge.” The five arches became three and the main part was widened. The shops, housed under the porticos, first belonged to the Commune which then they were rented out. But later, towards the 15th century, they were sold to private owners; raised parts and external terraces, extending towards the river and altering the original architecture in an anarchical, suggestive way. 

Giotto’s activity as an architect is documented not just in Lives by Vasari(where he is called a sculptor and architect) but especially for the assignment he was given in 1334 as magister and gubernator of the Florence Cathedral factory. This interest is also shown by the care and attention he always placed on defining architectural space in painting. Giotto is also attributed the construction of the Scrovegni Chapel, in Padua, where we can find many similarities in buildings painted by the artist. And still, perhaps, as magister, Giotto built the Bridge of the Carraia, opened in 1337 and which has now disappeared, appreciated for its structural simplicity and advanced technique.

The figure of Brunelleschi was in tune with this new world. He perfectly incarnated the figure of the Renaissance man, free, intelligent and trusting in the strength of his ideas. He was the son of a wealthy Florentine Notary and had been educated in a liberal manner; from boyhood on wards he’d shown interest in sculpture, mechanics and mathematics. To him we owe the study of the linear prospective which up until him, had already been used, but without precise rules of reference. The building of the dome on Florence cathedral, by Filippo Brunelleschi, can be considered one of the Renaissance’s main building enterprises. The highest expression of a new attitude, placing man and his abilities at the centre of the world and finding in classic antiquity the premises for cultural rebirth after the dark Middle Ages. 

In Autumn 1504 the people of Florence witnessed an exceptional event: after four days travelling round the city, transported with the care and attention normally reserved for great events, inside a wooden cage running on greased beams,Michelangelo’s David finally reached its destination, the Piazza della Signoria– and was immediately celebrated as one of the greatest masterpieces of the Renaissance. When he created his David, Michelangelo was not even thirty, but had already produced works of great value such as the Tondo Doni which can be found in the Uffizi today. His David was so successful that he was called back to Rome by the Pope himself, Giulio II, for whom he would then paint the famous Sistine Chapel.