Day 63 Art that continues to speak

Going to church has been difficult in Europe, as we have not found many English-speaking congregations. However, every time we visit a city or checked out an art gallery in Europe we are surrounded by Jesus, the Madonna, the Apostles and an ancient faith being proclaimed by long dead artists. Our last full day in Florence was a chance to wade into Florence’s deep well of artistic treasure.

We began the day at the Baptistry, a chapel attached the main cathedral. This building with its huge dome was built to remind the locals of the significance of baptism, a rite celebrating that in Christ they had passed from death to life. With artistic and gilded brilliance the interior, especially the dome and the exterior doors of the chapel tell story after story from the old book. Later we visited the main cathedral with its famous dome, which of course is even grander and more majestic.

Later in the morning we visited the Medici Chapels, the burial place of the famous Medici family who ruled Florence for many generations and were responsible for collecting much of Florence’s fine artistic treasure. Here we meet for the first time the artistic brilliance of Michelangelo with his huge marble sculptures, ‘Dusk’ and ‘Dawn’, and ‘Night’ and ‘Day’. We are not art experts by any means and to be honest we sometimes find the medieval religious art, which is so prevalent in these parts, rather overwhelming. However standing in front of these marble masterpieces was a moving experience

After lunch it was back to complete our day of art history. At Galleria del ‘Academia we were again exposed to hundreds of years of Florence’s artistic masterpieces but Michelangelo’s ‘David’ seems to be in another league. Arguably the most famous sculpture in the world and the reason many people come to Florence ‘David’ up close was magnificent. Two other artists had begun work on this particular block of marble only to give up as the marble was too flawed and too difficult to work on. We marvelled at a masterpiece created from a block of stone that was twice rejected by others.

Finally we ended the day at Galleria del Uffizi the largest gallery in Florence with over 2000 pieces on display. Botticelli’s ‘Birth of Venus’ and ‘Allegory of Spring’ as well as Michelangelo’s ‘Holy Family’ completed a day where even we could appreciate the mystery and brilliance of art and its ability to continue to speak powerfully through the centuries.