We’re running a little late this week — sorry about that. Naomi’s been taking care of two sick kids, and Steve spent yesterday as a zombie thanks to a COVID booster. So in place of an actual post about Florence, you’re getting a postcard. If nothing else goes sideways, you’ll get a real post next Wednesday.
The city as seen from the Piazzale Michelangelo, with the Tuscan hills beyond.The Ponte Vecchio bridge, as seen from the Piazzale Michelangelo, across the Arno from Florence. A private corridor was added to it for a while at the insistence of the Medici ladies, who didn’t want the riffraff to see them going back and forth between their city and county palaces.This is the Cathedral of St. Maria del Fiore. Florence’s major cathedral, and unlike Rome, which re-uses ancient marble, Florence quarried brand new green and white marble.Part of the old city wall, on the same side of the river as the Piazzale Michelangelo (across the river from Florence).
The Basilica of Santa Maria del Fiore, seem from across the water. The dome on the right is Brunelleschi’s Cupola. It was only finally built a hundred years after the Basilica was begun, partly because massive churches take a long time to construct and partly because there were major structural issues with the dome that took a really great architect to solve.Entrance to the Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze, where I learned all about why Michelangelo was so unique.The Great Synagogue and Jewish museum of Florence. You can tell it’s the synagogue by the green dome — nobody else has one.Porta San Niccolo, one of the gatehouses of the old wall, deliberately left standing.
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