Since early in the nineteenth century
FLORENCE has been celebrated as the most beautiful city
in Italy. Stendhal staggered around its streets in a perpetual
stupor of delight; the Brownings sighed over its idyllic
charms; and E.M. Forster's
Room with a View portrayed
it as the great southern antidote to the sterility of
Anglo-Saxon life. For most people Florence comes close to
living up to the myth only in its first, resounding
impressions. The pinnacle of Brunelleschi's stupendous
cathedral dome dominates the cityscape, and the close-up view
is even more breathtaking, with the multicoloured
Duomo
rising behind the marble-clad
Baptistry . Wander from
there down towards the River Arno and the attraction still
holds: beyond the broad Piazza della Signoria, site of the
towering
Palazzo Vecchio , the river is spanned by the
medieval shop-lined
Ponte Vecchio , with the gorgeous
church of
San Miniato al Monte glistening on the hill
behind it.
Yet after registering these marvellous sights, it's hard to
stave off a sense of disappointment, for much of Florence is a
city of narrow streets and heavy-set, oppressively dour
palazzi that show only iron-barred windows and massive,
studded doors to the outside world. The alienating effects of
this physical entrenchment are redoubled both by an unending
tide of mass tourism. You'll find light relief to be in
short supply.
The fact is, the best of Florence is to be seen indoors.
Under the patronage of the Medici family, the city's
artists and thinkers were instigators of the shift from the
medieval to the modern world-view, and churches, galleries and
museums are the places to get to grips with their achievement.
The development of the Renaissance can be plotted in the vast
picture collection of the Uffizi and in the sculpture
of the Bargello and the Museo dell'Opera del
Duomo . Equally revelatory are the fabulously decorated
chapels of Santa Croce and Santa Maria Novella ,
forerunners of such astonishing creations as Masaccio's superb
frescoes in the Cappella Brancacci , and Fra'
Angelico's serene paintings in the monks' cells at San
Marco . The Renaissance emphasis on harmony and rational
design is expressed with unrivalled eloquence in
Brunelleschi's architecture, specifically in the churches of
San Lorenzo, Santo Spirito and the Cappella dei
Pazzi . The full genius of Michelangelo, the dominant
creative figure of sixteenth-century Italy, is on display in
the fluid design of San Lorenzo's Biblioteca
Laurenziana and the marble statuary of the Cappelle
Medicee and the Accademia - home of the
David . Every quarter of Florence can boast a church or
collection worth an extended call, and the enormous Palazzo
Pitti south of the river constitutes a museum district on
its own.