The Uffizi

I had two days after my conference to go see some things. So, I spent a day in Florence and a day in Rome. Florence was kind of a big deal during the early Renaissance. They had the best artists, the best scientists, and the best political thinkers. The Uffizi gallery showcases the best, or at least most famous, art Florence contributed to the Renaissance, with the notable exception of the Michaleangelo's David which is in another museum. The Uffizi is large and full of many many pieces of art. I will here highlight some less famous pieces that caught my eye as I was wandering through. 

Here a centaur is getting his hair pulled. A reminder to everyone, it is not nice to pull someone else's hair. No I don't know why there are busts in the pedestal. I assume they were the ones who caught the guy pulling the centaur's hair but all the signs in the whole museum were in Italian so I'm not really sure. 

There were a surprising number of statues of people surprised to find ducks in their togas. It must have been a serious public safety concern there for a while. 

I liked this "bust of an old man." It had the most character of most of the statues there.





Another public service announcement: Please do not step on the turtles or sit on the seahorses.

Here is the Annunciation via sparkler. Very appropriate for the 4th of July.

Here is a different Annunciation that I actually quite like.







Several people had pet dragons, which is pretty cool.
 







I liked this picture of St. Anne (Mary's mother) watching over Mary and Jesus.


 I also liked a statue of Joseph and Jesus. There are lots of depictions of Mary and Jesus but far fewer of Joseph.






Speaking of the Holy Family, I liked this paining which I call the Madonna of the why are you climbing on me.














There was a series of paintings of the cardinal virtues.
We have Fortitude, Temperance, Faith

Faith, Charity, and Hope

 Hope, Justice, and Prudence.

An example eclectic Renaissance fashion. 

And a reappearance of our friend Tobit, his dead fish pet, and oversized angel friends. I'm still not sure why he didn't notice that his friends might be angels. C'mon Tobit, get your act together.

The Uffizi has many small rooms full of art of long long hallways lined with statues.

In one of the halls there was a cool rotunda that was very ornate. The whole dome was lined with mother of pearl shells so that it looked like it was glowing. The floor was fancy mosaics and there were impressive statues inside. 

  From the balcony you can see the old town hall. This is the building that they put Michaelangelo's David in front of. There is still a replica there.














The museum had just finished restoring DaVinci's Nativity. The old version had gotten so dark over the years you really couldn't see anything in it. Apparently, a church commissioned DaVinci to paint the Nativity and he started, but then got side tracked. After a few years the church gave up and transferred the commission to a different artist. He followed the DaVinci's general layout but also made his own modifications.