Jewel of the Renaissance

Firenze gets it just right.

Rome has the remains of a mighty ancient empire and is the seat of the wealthy Vatican and in that, it exudes a certain arrogance. To the traveller, Rome is a disjointed set of landmarks and artifacts lacking a sense of belonging to the city. The ancient ruins, wondrous churches and sublime carvings are all just slaves to the money minting machine that is Rome, stiflingly thrust upon the traveller in an attempt to subdue him into awe. For good or for ill, the old world remains, but Rome has moved on. 

And on the other hand is Naples, which in its attempt to maintain the ancient Roman and medieval Italian roots has forgotten to wake up from centuries old slumber. Loose cobblestones on roads well worn with over centuries of use, garbage littering the streets and mold encrusted walls fill the historic part of this port city. While indeed beautiful, one gets the feeling that the city has taken a step backward in time since when it was first constructed. 

Florence gets the balance just right! 

From the moment you step out of the train in sight of the Basilica Santa Maria Novella, through the winding roads that take you past the Uffizi, Vecchio and Duomo, Florence enthralls you with the beauty of the Renaissance. It is old and it is new, in a way that is hard to describe. Like the feelings from five centuries past are somehow magically transported to blend in with the modern world. It is still a tourist haven, but unlike Rome, it hasn't lost control. That is what Renaissance is as a concept - a love of art. And Florence has that in abundance. There is a certainty that the city cherishes its ancient marble residents, many of whom still stand where they were first stood. No, these are definitely not slaves to attract tourists. 

The city stands now as you would imagine it once did when the Medicis walked the streets. Would not the bottegas on Ponte Vecchio still have sold trinkets and fine clothing back then as they do now, visited by the fashionistas of the day? Yes, one can imagine that music would have played in the street corners entertaining passersby on pleasant summer evenings. The streets would have been filled with tourists as they are today, people who had come to witness with their own eyes the marvels that they have heard so much about. A lot has changed in the past six hundred years, but the spirit remains. 

And what a wonderful experience it is for a traveller to walk through these streets. To come by chance upon the Piazza della Signora, where Florence seems to have decided that it has too many precious works of art and that some of them can just be tossed out for the public to soak in without any museum fees. If ever we need giants to defend us from Godzillas and Kaijus, let us just wake them up from frozen slumber. Each one of them looks just about ready to jump off the pedestal and walk to battle. Hercules and David guard the doors of the Palazzo Vecchio, but Cellini's Perseus steals the show in this star studded crowd as he stares down in disgust at the headless body of Medusa. Michelangelo's David is impressive here, but one look at the original in the Accademia is sufficient to make you feel that Goliath never stood a chance. 

And speaking of goliaths, the massive cathedral in red, white and green - Santa Maria del Fiore looms over the city, far taller than any buildings around it. It is near impossible to describe the feelings upon seeing the near three dimensional bronze reliefs of Ghiberti on the doors of the baptistry, or the innumerable museums with arguably the greatest art in the world, or seeing the memorials inside the Basilica di Santa Croce honouring some of Italy's greatest sons buried beneath it. It is great walking through the city which fostered the many of the greatest artists in the world. In its glory days, Florence was patron to the glorious quartet of Donatello, da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael. It was home to Dante, Machiavelli, Brunelleschi and Vasari. The list is too long to detail here. 

But as I walked through the streets, I started to wonder why we stopped. When did we stop making such soulful pieces of art? Why do we not still cherish people who use their hands to do things that another cannot repeat? Why have we shifted all our efforts on making identical plastic toys that everyone wants to own? Can you imagine Donatello and Michelangelo competing by alternately making their sculptures one inch longer or few kilos lighter? I am as big an atheist as any other, but through this trip I started to wonder if I was seeing possibly the only good thing to come out of religion. David is more than a statue of some man. It is a character with feelings, about to perform an action that would shape the world. And this emotion and story goes along with the sight of the sculpture. Religion provided the character mythos, the money purses, and to the artists, a certain desire to impress. 

If someone has a chance to go to only one city in Italy, skip Naples, Venice and Rome. Go visit Florence. Because Florence gets it just right.