Last Saturday a little group of us (Johanna, Artie, Neil and Elisabeth and Caitlin, two girls from Knox who are studying in Spain) went to La Specola, the zoological history museum. I had a fabulous time. For only four Euro we got to see room after room after room of taxidermied animals (a couple of which are now extinct, since they were made about two-hundred years ago). It started off with all the big cats and antelope and such, then moved on through all the phylum. There were rodents big and small, apes, alligators, at least five rooms of birds alone, turtles, sharks, everything. And then the other half of the museum had these fabulous wax sculptures of the human body for anatomy studies in the 18th century (since it was illegal to study from cadavers). I’m not sure if they were life-sized or not, but if they were, then people were pretty tiny back then. And even though they were wax, the models were really realistic. I felt a little nauseous at the end of the tour because the last room had four little models of plague scenes, where the artist literally sculpted what the effects of certain plagues looked like. So there were these rotting green bodies with organs hanging out that looked exactly like the real thing (or so I imagine), but a little decaying body you could hold in your hand. They were really spectacular but I was put off my feed just a little. Well, not too much, since I bought a book about the waxes.
Because it was Saturday, there was a special room open that had skeletons of a bunch of animals. The remains weren’t that interesting in themselves, but the means of exposition was the most fascinating to me. I guess because there is such little space in these galleries (because there’s just so much stuff to look at in Florence), they like to pack everything in really tight. So the horse skeleton was wedged in next to the antelope and deer skeletons, and the elephant led a tight little parade of a hippo and some other large, stocky animals. There were even the unassembled bones of some sort of whale back in the corner that were all stacked up, I guess so you could imagine what they’d look like put together. It was really worth the trip, though, so I’m glad I had a good group of people to share it with.
After La Specola, most of us parted ways, so Johanna and I went to the Boboli Gardens, since that was just down the street. It was a beautiful day (if not a bit too sunny), so the effect of the place was spectacular. It felt like we really should have been 17th century aristocrats tooling around the grounds on a little pony. Our ticket got us in to see not only the gardens but the costume museum as well. I thought that was really interesting, since they had clothes all the way from Cosimo di Medici in the 1400s! The size of their clothes (and waists!) was more proof that people in the past were really tiny. Most of the mannequins they were on were too big for them. But some of the old things they had were really fabulous (even if they were never worn). They had clothes dating all the way up to about the 80’s, but they got pretty weird and obscure about 1940, so we weren’t really enthusiastic about them. The best part about the exhibition is that it took place in these rooms that were still decorated as they would have been in the 18th century. We didn’t go in the Palazzo Pitti, but apparently it's all decorated the same way. It was just cool to see the 18th century clothes in that setting, because it was like all these Jane Austen movies that are coming out now, but right there where I could (but wasn’t allowed to) touch it.
The major source of my photos comes from our ambling around the gardens, though we saw only about half of them. I guess I can start with this little guy, who was actually swimming in a fountain outside of the gardens, but he's a good introduction to my theme of the day, which was taking photos of sculptures that were creepy in some way. So! Here's the moldy breast-stroke baby.
The actual entrance to the gardens was up this cool flight of stairs with a barrel vaulted ceiling. I know that all of you in the Midwest are suffering through a miserable winter, but don't envy the sunshine in these photos too much, because it was actually pretty cold this day. (Ha, but by "cold" I mean about 40 degrees Fahrenheit.)
This is the back of the Pitti Palace (Palazzo Pitti in Italian) that you see when you walk up the stairs and walk up a little ramp (sort of pictured in the first one below).
And because the palace is on a hill, it overlooks Florence. So here's yet another shot of the Duomo! (Are you sick of it yet?)
This is around the back left side of the palace. I have no idea where these two little arches led to, but they were cute together. And the second shot has a nice rhythm to it, I think, if you don't mind the honking security camera. (I could Photoshop it out if I weren't, you know, lazy.)
And this is the huge lawn directly behind the palace. Yes, that's green grass in February. The gardens are really cool because they're not ruins--you really get a sense of what it would have been like to be here three or four-hundred years ago.
Johanna and I walked down this big hill, and then came to this big path. Most of the gardens looks like this, I think, though this was an especially big path.
We came across this huge fountain at the bottom of a hill (which I don't have any good photos of--sorry), but right before it was this really creepy statue! It's like the sculptor forgot that people have lips...!
And around the fountain (I guess it was more of a pond, really) were these demon/monster guys who probably spit water at one time, but now just look really goofy.
We walked around the fountain but then decided to go explore the other half of the gardens, so we had to walk back up the huge hill we walked down. We chose a different path, though, and I think it was a bad decision. It was so steep that by the time we got to the top we were both out of breath! (I don't know if it looks as dramatic in this photo as it felt, but for context, you can see the fountain we were looking at between the trees at the farthest point back.) It was like walking up a toboggan slide.
So after that little jaunt, we decided to go up a bit more, where we found yet another fountain/pond (which I liked a lot more than the first). The center figure is Neptune, and this big arc of water shoots out from somewhere behind him. Over time he's turned a bit green, but I think that gives him character.
We spent a little time at this fountain, then went up those stairs you can see behind Neptune and got a really great view. First you see the fountain, then the lawn, then the Palazzo, then Florence behind it all. It was pretty great!
We found a little set of stairs after walking around up top for a while and decided to see what was at the top (because we like walking up so much). It was, in fact, the porcelain museum. They had a bunch of old dishes, which though I am sure is interesting to some, it wasn't my favorite thing of the day. (Don't get me wrong, I love Antiques Road Show--I just can't appreciate a plate, I guess.) But there was a little garden in front of the museum with these little maze-hedges that people seemed to love so much.
But the best part of being up that high was the view we got of the untamed part of the Pitti property.
There was much more to see, but the light was fading and we were tired so we decided to save the rest for another day (even though the tickets were ten Euro!). But I do have one more sculpture to share. Just as we were leaving we saw these reliefs that someone restored really poorly, so this lady has a nice little white tip on her nose and chin.
And that was pretty much it for Saturday. It was definitely a good day--one of the best I've had since I've been here, I think.
On Wednesday I went back to the chianti winery that I posted about earlier. So I had some really fantastic food that day. Then on Thursday, we went to Janet's (our main art history professor) house for dinner. She's lived in Florence for about forty years, I think, and she married an Italian name Giuseppe. He used to work in a restaurant, so he made us a six-course meal. It was fantastic. I can't even describe it. Well, I'll try. First we had sparkling wine with three different types of bruschetta--one with tomato, one with hummus and one with artechoke and cheese. The second course was white wine with a spinach and cheese crepe that was rolled up and had a cheese and marinara sauce. I could have eaten just that, but there was so much more. Our next course was pumpkin ravioli in a cream sauce which were amazing. They really were pumpkiny, but since the pasta wasn't too salty it was perfect. And the cream sauce was actually really light so it didn't overpower the pumpkin. I thought that was the end of the meal because it was so much food, but then Janet brought out the main course, which was chicken with tomato sauce, some sort of big beans and roast potatoes. Even with the sauce on it, the skin of the chicken stayed crispy. Oh man, I almost died. Oh, and we had it with this really heavy red wine that was really strong but good. Then for dessert we had tiramisu. Now, I've never liked tiramisu before because I don't really care for coffee. But. But this. Was. The best tiramisu. Ever. The whipped cream was so thick and flavorful, and she put this chocolate powder on top that sort of melted into the rest of the cream... it was a dessert that you dream about. And we had it with this delicious dessert wine that tasted like almonds. And after we ate the tiramisu Janet brought out dark orange-flavored chocolate. I was so full. I really felt sick but so good at the same time. We arrived at her house around eight and ended up leaving around midnight. And we were eating the whole time. It's undoubtedly the best I've eaten since I've been here. Settignano was amazing, but this was the meal to end all meals.
