Walking Florence

I kicked off the first day of G’s conference by doing a walking tour. We’ve done a few of these before - they are usually free and run by students and you basically tip them whatever you think the experience was worth. Previously the best one I have experienced was in downtown Manhattan, but this one took the cake. Way too much content to take it all in, but the highlights included lots of details about:

• the rise of Florence from a few years BC to a European powerhouse given the strategic merchant location between Rome and the rest of Europe, and being on the river

• the Medici family’s ~350 year reign over the city, made possible by their investment of the profits from being merchants into banking (and most notably, becoming the bankers to the Vatican)

• Medici’s great patronage of the arts, but also the use of artwork as an advertising medium - they basically commissioned great artists to work in Florence as a way to promote their business and the region. One of the earlier patriarchs of the family actually spotted Michelangelo’s talent when he was a teenager and became a guardian to him, paid for his training etc. This publicity is why he was in the minority by being famous in his lifetime as a renaissance artist. 

• The fact that they were total ballers in vanquishing their main rivals the Pitti family (after a few attempted murders of their rival patriarchs and efforts at building houses bigger than the other)

• The temporary overthrow of the Medici’s which made Florence a republic for about 40 years (and the republic commissioned ‘David’ to celebrate the Medici’s pissing off) and the return of the family after exile (and the Medici’s commissioned ‘Perseus with the Head of Medusa’ to celebrate things going back to ‘normal’).

• This overthrow/take back scenario was definitely evidence that the Medici’s weren’t necessarily loved by the population. After kicking the Pitti out of the Pitti Palace, they actually constructed an amazing corridor across half the city so they could get from one palace to another without risking coming in contact with the public who might want to do them harm. It runs through houses, churches, and across the river above Ponte Vecchio. Only one family refused to let them take some space in their house for the corridor, so it makes one small deviation. That family was never heard from again. 

• the eventual decline of the Medici as a result of the final heirs being a gay son and daughter to frail to have kids. In an interesting turn, it was this end of the lineage that resulted in The Uffizi gallery. Knowing that the great dynasty was coming to an end, the frail daughter wrote a contract with the city of Florence that meant she would donate the entire collection of the family artwork to the people of Florence, on the condition that it could never be sold and it would be free to access for all people on certain days of the year. The collection was stored in the Public Offices of the city at the time (given that the Medici ran the whole place, it was basically their family business office anyway), and that is where it has stayed since - hence the name of the gallery Uffizi (‘office’.). 

Expecting to learn much more about the culture of the place on Friday when we do our tours of the Uffizi and also La Accademia.