Tour of Duty: An art pilgrimage in southern Europe #2: A Rendezvous with Flora and Venus in Downtown Florence - Florence, Italy

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May 2003

Here we are in Florence, once home to some of the most important painters and sculptors of the Italian Renaissance. It is and always has been a merchant city, wealthy and influential in Italy despite its comparatively small size. Under the influence of humanist leaders and patrons, the Medici family, art transcended the religious and entered the realm of mysticism and humanist ideals. This is seen most in the dream-like diaphanous works of Sandro Botticelli.

The viperish English writer and art critic John Ruskin in his Italian travel diary of 1840 reserved his most scathing attack on the heavy brooding presence and the heavy stone buildings of Florence. Indeed Florence is a city built on heavy stone and marble, and this feeling of solidity predominates today, as one walks the city streets and a plethora of cobbled lane-ways.

All the major tourist attractions of Florence are within a few kilometres of the main train station. These include the 14th century Duomo, Uffizi Gallery, Academia Gallery, Ponte Vecchio Bridge, Medici Chapels, the Pitti Palace and Boboli Gardens and Santa Croce church.

I stayed in a small tourist hotel called Leonardo's, booked through BootsnAll. It is a gem of a place for only �65 a night for a double, and you are located only 200 metres from the Duomo. One walks from the small lane of Via Trebbio to the immense Gothic-inspired 14th-century church and Romanesque dome built by Brunelleschi in white marble, with patterns of black green and pink marble. Beside it is the 10-storey bell tower of Giotto, built in the same tessellated mix of marble. In front of both is the Baptistery of San Giovanni with its suite of 10 panelled bronze doors brushed with gold patina – the "doors of paradise" created by Ghiberti in the 15th century. Don't miss these doors. Take in the detail of the figures: such is the relief on each of the panels that each figure emerges literally from the panel.

While the Duomo commands middle earth, sacred Florence, the more secular city surrounding it is full of modern shops which have been built into the 15th-century stone buildings and opened up with wide glass windows to make for a changing kaleidoscope of impressive shops, taverns and eateries fixed with chrome and brass. Window shopping here takes on another dimension. The bright colour of the windows of the clothing stores, glove shops, leather goods, to name a few, contrasts with the austere grey and brown stone walls.

Florence was and still is city of guilds. The shops reflect specialty interests long gone from other cities. While crossing the Arno via the Ponte Vecchio bridge one is charmed by the many small goldsmith and jewelry stores hung precariously like little boxes over the sides of the old bridge. These craftsmen's families were bequeathed this bridge for their commercial use five centuries ago by one of the Medici rulers.

On the south side of the Arno River is the Pitti Palace and the Boboli gardens. The gardens are looking a bit tired to me, but I am from Melbourne, Australia, which has the most attractive public garden spaces and gardens one can imagine, so I have been a bit spoilt in the botanical department.

A grand panorama of Florence can be gained from the Michelangelo Steps on the south side of the Arno. A bus can deliver one there as well, as the walk is very steep and long. The day I set out was 'May Day', a public holiday. No buses were running. Thanks to Karl Marx and the unionists, I suffered for them and did it gladly!

Back to the art realm, the main reason international visitors come to Florence. My wife and I went to the great Vasari-designed shrine of the arts, the Ufizzi Palace. What grabbed my attention is this gallery: First the painting of the Holy Family by Michelangelo with its luminescence of green, orange and blue vestments around the family has a quality missing in other works. The Annunciation by Leonardo da Vinci holds one's attention with its clean figures, focus and detail in the figures of Mary and the angel and the detail in the background.

However, I yearn for more secular things in art. I say quite unashamedly here that Florence for me is dominated by the mystical, classical- inspired paintings of Sandro Botticelli, who painted in the late 15th century and was a native son of Florence. The room in which his paintings are held, one finds hard to leave. Just like a Bunuel film I saw many years ago where guests could not leave the room, I found myself drawn back time and time again to gaze upon the dreamy, wan faces of Venus in the Birth of Venus and the face of Flora in the Allegory to Spring (The Primavera). What drugs were these beautiful, lithe, clear-eyed models on at the time? One is mesmerised by these paintings, because they are mystical and floating, yes in possession of a strange energy.

It is interesting to note that Botticelli was equivalent to a "rock idol" of the 15th century Florentine court. He was patronised by the ruling Medici family, and his work and eminence were enhanced by their quest for humanist rather than religious idealism. Botticelli paintings capture this spirit, and even 500 years later the world is still 'lifted up' by these beautiful, detailed paintings of nature and love. No nails and wood and blood on these canvases.

Finally, we went to the Academia gallery to gaze upon the body of David. I missed it on my last trip and must admit to being a bit blase this time before entering.

Once inside my wife instructed me on the power and purpose of the four immense unfinished "captive" sculptures by Michelangelo. These are a powerful precursor to the main figure of Michelangelo's David in the tribute Michelangelo's hall. There in all his glory the smooth perfect finish of David contrasted so dramatically with the rough-hewn captives. One cannot but be impressed by the detail of the carving in the figure. Was it really carved from marble? It looks like it has been cast from a mould. This ancient critic is transfixed and moved – genuinely moved.

After a week's R and R in Umbria, a third installment will come after a tour of the citadels of Venice, that city that Ruskin loved so much for its dreamy spires and salty air and reminded him of Turner and his misty sea paintings. Somehow Florence failed to impress Ruskin, and he was rude about it. The solid rock of Florence gives way to the flourish of Botticelli and the elegant lithe bronzes of the 16th century sculptor Cellini and Cellini's Perseus hand offers the cut head of the Gorgon to all to see in the Piazza Della Signoria. But perhaps it is directed to the gaze of the spiteful Ruskin, in the hope that he should be petrified and his tongue laid still for all time. Florence is much better than he described – check it out for yourself.

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