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| Florence |
Because I am stuck partly in the 20th century, my ability to connect from my digital camera to the internet while traveling or being able to blog every day is an impossibility. It was Rosemary who suggested I use my A5 Galaxy phone while we were in Venice and in Florence in 2019. It was then easy to post the photographs onto Facebook and write a short description. This method became my blog on the fly. Now Facebook is reminding me of these photographs that I took and I thought that the best route was to write a new blog (this one) and post those photographs with the original written paragraphs.
Looking at those photographs, and some of them including a smiling Rosemary, I cannot possibly regret that we did travel together and had so much fun.
Below was the blog on the fly.
Upon Rosemary's request I am placing here a picture of our Hotel Berchielli room. She wants to show off to our two daughters
The red pass hanging from Rosemary's neck gives us (I have one too) access to all museums and many churches without having to line up.
My grandmother often told me "La ignorancia es atrevida." I dare to say that I am ignorant and particularly about art. My Vancouver photography friend Jan Gates suggested I visit la Chiesa Santa Felicita to see the Pontormo. I was thinking that when Jan suggested this that Pontormo was certainly known by his family. Upon seeing Pontormo's The Deposition From the Cross a pleasant German explained the painting in broken Italian. I remembered Argentine painter Juan Manuel Sánchez telling me something about Mannerism. Thanks to Sánchez and Jan my ignorance has diminished a tad and I have now discovered a great painter. And right next to that luminous Pontormo there was another, an Annunciation. Over both Pontormos there are four darkish circles featuring the evangelists painted by Bronzino.
Even though we are using our hotel laundry service Rosemary washed some clothes in the bathtub and then placed them by our two windows for a final dry. I could not resist doing a modern version (alas a puny one) celebrating the intense red of Florentine painting
The inspired Museo Dell' Opera Del Duomo has several reproductions labeled as touchable. Rosemary touched.
A souvenir kiosk, the only refuge from hordes of tourists trampling the pavement, all with their phones up, snapping the Cattedrale di Santa Maria di Fiori.
The wild pig (jabali) gives good luck.
After puffing up 463 spiralling steps to Brunelleschi's dome the 360° view was a washed out noon sky. But I did note the shadow.
Museo Dell' Opera Del Duomo, not a place for a person with a bad knee. But certainly worth the effort.
One of the finest and most beautiful museums that we have
visited is the Museo Dell' Opera Del Duomo. From the outside you would never
know what is inside. Inside, stark, ultra modern architecture sparsely exhibits
works of Renaissance art. Here is one of Michelangelo's Pietas (in reality a
deposition from the cross in which artist Tiberio Calcagni also contributed.) That's Rosemary on the right.
Always in my mind when I look at those photographs is this idea, that while we did have all that fun, I never would have thought about the fact that I am now writing of those events and Rosemary is not here. Why is it that we live in the moment without taking special consideration of how impermanent that happiness in the flesh can be?
Even in my daily menialities like today, Sunday February 27, 2022 (I am placing this blog in yesterday's vacant space), while vacuuming with our portable and very good Dyson that Rosemary urged I buy but which she never used I look at it and ask myself (is it a banal question?), “Why are you here and not she?”
