On my way back to the hotel I pop into the Palazzo Medici Riccardi. A bit of a disappointment here. The Museo Marmi was disappointing, however the Capella dei Magi is nothing short of spectacular. The depictions of the entourage of the Magi capture the faces of real people.
After a nap I went out again to encounter Florence. I think I may want to climb the cupola again, or the tower, or both. At the Piazza della Signoria I realized that I hadn't eaten for a while, and had my heart set on a risotto de la mare. "Finito" said the water, so it pasta with salmon.
I paused at the place where Savonarola was burned, as people walked over the tablet in the piazza (while I was trying to read it). No one seemed in the slightest bit interested. I also flashed, in a complete non sequitur to Helena Bonham Carter fainting on the piazza in "Room with a View". Time to take a walk. Down to the Arno I go across the Ponte Vecchio to Oltrarno, just to walk and to see if I restaurant that I liked was still there. No, it's now called "Nova" and judging from the menu, it's nothing like the interesting cooking that went on there before. So I continue on walking up the river, or is it down the river to the Ponte a Vespucci where I cross the Arno again and stop by the church of Ognissanti where the good monks are getting ready to say Vespers (I tried to go at the Duomo where the doorman assured me it was solo Domenici, yeah right.
Then it's my task to see if Il Sostanza is still open. Barton Sheffield and I went there in 1989, and had a wonderful meal. I tried it again in 2005 and it was still good. I'll go back again - the place seemed to be open.
I walk over to Santa Maria Novella, where I assured Arthur that they buried monks, and then planted a poplar on top of them. It must have been some other church, perhaps Santo Spiritu, or Santa Maria del Carmine; I know I saw it somewhere. No at Santa Maria Novella, monks are buried at the perimeter of the courtyard, almost a cloister, just inside the walk way, or in the walls that line the courtyard. And the trees...they're cedar, not poplar. Oh well.
On my way home, past Santa Maria Maggiore, and San Lorenzo with it's Medici Chapel I notice the erasures in buildings. As I have often said, Italy is a place of interiors, but the exteriors are just as interesting. Arches, doorways, cornices, windows, niches, all are erased but not completely. It's as if the city is a palimpsest, with a whole new story written over sections of it.
Time to stop.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment