Florence, Italy, is one of our favorite places.

They say you either love Rome or Florence.

We love Florence.

We only spent 4 days in June. It wasn’t near long enough. Nothing would ever be long enough to experience all of Florence.

We flew from Frankfurt Hahn to Pisa, then took the train into Florence. There’s a little shuttle bus from the airport to the train station.

We bought Firenze Cards to save time and money on all the museums.

We took a city bus to our apartment. It’s probably our least favorite booking we’ve ever stayed in.

Then, we waited outside the door of the building for about an hour for the agent to arrive and let us in.

Then, we headed to dinner around the corner.

Day 1 (evening)

We ate dinner at Perseus Restaurant.

Florentine steak.

There was enough for our entire family to share.

Tori loved the tiramisu.

I got the porcini mushroom pasta. Divine.

Tori got some lovely ravioli.

The table wine was great and we had a few glasses. They estimate and charge accordingly.

Our precious waiter took amazing care of us.

He brought us bread and fagioli all’uccelletto, or cannellini beans made in the manner of little birds.

According to Florentine gastronome Giuliano Bugialli, the curious name of this dish comes from the manner in which little songbirds were traditionally cooked.

He absolutely adored Alex and pet him every chance he got.

We walked across the street to explore the Piazza della Libertà.

Day 2

We went to the Galleria dell’Accademia to see The David.

Also, Michelangelo’s Slaves line the hallway leading to the David.

We walked down Via dei Calzaiuoli from the Piazza del Duomo all the way to the River Arno.

We passed the Orsanmichele church, but didn’t go inside. Niches hold statues of the saints from Donatello.

We strolled through the Piazza della Signoria. There are lots of statues – modern, replicas of ancient, and some actual originals.

We went to the Uffizi Museum.

I don’t recommend doing both museums in one day. Whew!

There’s a darling little rooftop cafe. We got some drinks to rest a bit.

Around the corner was the Dante House and museum.

We were pretty exhausted, but it only took a few minutes to explore. Our Firenze card covered it, so…

We learned a lot about Florentine politics and Dante’s life. There were lovely illuminated copies of The Divine Comedy.

Day 3

We spent the morning in the Piazza del Duomo.

First stop was the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo.

Alex was enthralled by this crucifix and just stood there for the longest time, gazing up at it.

The Penitent Magdalene is a wooden sculpture of Mary Magdalene by Donatello, created around 1453-1455. The sculpture was probably commissioned for the Baptistery of Florence.

The Deposition by Michelangelo, completed between 1547 and 1555, depicts four figures: the dead body of Jesus Christ, newly taken down from the Cross, Nicodemus (or possibly Joseph of Arimathea), Mary Magdalene, and the Virgin Mary.

Giotto’s Campanile or Bell Tower stands beside the Duomo. The line was super long to walk up, so we skipped that.

We also didn’t wait in the line to go up into the Duomo. The actual church is rather bare, except for the lovely ceiling.

Architect Filippo Brunelleschi is entombed in the Duomo crypt, near the bookstore.

The Baptistery has a lovely ceiling also.

We had a fun cafeteria lunch at Leonardo right off the square. The kids had fun choosing what they wanted.

We toured Santa Croce Basilica in the afternoon.

It was raining and made for a fun walk from the Duomo.

Michelangelo, who died in Rome in 1564, was buried here beneath a monument with allegorical figures of Sculpture, Architecture and Painting, designed by Giorgio Vasari. Michelangelo’s tomb served as the model for others, such as the tomb of Galileo, who died in 1642 (his monument was made by Giovanni Battista Foggini). Funerary monuments continued to be added to the interior, including ones to Niccolò Machiavelli, Vittorio Alfieri, Gioachino Rossini and the cenotaph to Dante Alighieri (1829).

The chapels are amazingly gorgeous.

The great Giotto frescoed the chapels of the banking families Bardi and Peruzzi (1320-25), respectively, with scenes from the life of St. Francis and from the lives of St. John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist.

Don’t miss the leather school in the back of the church and tour all the beautiful chapels!

Michelangelo’s house is now a museum. Casa Buonarroti is just around the corner! We weren’t able to make it and it was pouring rain.

Day 4

We went to the Galileo Museum.

We arrived just as they opened. Super fun for kids and adults!

There’s a neato sundial right outside the museum.

There are two of Galileo’s fingers, removed from his corpse by admirers in the 18th century, on display!

They took the most sacred parts of Galileo’s body—the fingers the scientist used to hold his pen and adjust his telescope—as holy relics, and stored them in a glass container.

We walked around the Oltr’arno.

I was so excited to see this masterwork of Masaccio, Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise.

We ate a lovely lunch riverside at Golden View.

We took the city bus to San Miniato.

The evensong service in the crypt is not to be missed. It was breathtaking.

Our grand finale was viewing Florence from Piazzale Michelangelo.

Florence is definitely a city we’d love to return to and explore even more.

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We’ve traveled to Rome and Florence and studied Michelangelo’s art extensively.

Michelangelo was a true Renaissance man: sculptor, painter, poet, engineer, architect.

His memorial is in Santa Croce church in Florence:

Some of our favorites:

The Doni Tondo at the Uffizi Museum in Florence.

Tondo means “in the round.” Michelangelo designed the frame, but didn’t create this one. Michelangelo hated painting, especially portrait painting.

Funny story has it that the minor nobleman who commissioned this piece for his bride’s wedding gift disliked the peasant look of the Holy Family and the nudes in the background, so refused to pay. Michelangelo had a fit and doubled the price. They went back and forth, even shouting in the streets, and all of Florence watched it like a tennis match until he finally agreed to pay.

Michelangelo’s 4 Slaves or Prisoners at the Accademia Gallery in Florence:

He designed these (and the Moses) for the tomb of Pope Julius II, that was never completed.

Also, St. Matthew at the Accademia Gallery in Florence:

He was commissioned to complete all 12 apostles for the city of Florence, but they were not completed after the Republic government fell.

Palestrina Pietà at the Accademia Gallery in Florence:

May or may not be Michelangelo. There’s very little info about it.

The David, of course! At Accademia Gallery.

He won a contest to create a statue for the city of Florence from a damaged block of marble that had been lying open to the elements for almost 50 years.

The Deposition, also called the Florence Pietà, the Bandini Pietà or The Lamentation over the Dead Christ, and thought to be a self-portrait as the face of Nicodemus. At the Duomo Museum.

Giorgio Vasari noted that Michelangelo began to work on the sculpture around the age of 72. Without commission, Michelangelo worked tirelessly into the night with just a single candle to illuminate his work. Vasari wrote that he began to work on this piece to amuse his mind and to keep his body healthy. After 8 years of working on the piece, Michelangelo would go on and attempt to destroy the work in a fit of frustration. Vasari gave several reasons why Michelangelo destroyed his Florentine pieta:

“…Either because of defects in the marble, or because the stone was so hard | that the chisel often struck sparks, or because he was too severe a judge J of his own work and could never be content with anything he did. It is | true that few of his mature works were ever completed and that those entirely finished were productions of his youth. Such were the Bacchus, the Pieta of the Madonna della F^ebbre [in Saint Peter’s], il Gigante [the David], at Florence, and the Christ Risen of the Minerva [Santa Maria sopra Minerva], which are finished to such perfection that a single grain could not be taken from them without injury. Michelangelo often said that, if he were compelled to satisfy himself, he should show little or nothing. The reason is obvious: he had attained such knowledge in art that the slightest error could not exist without his immediate dis- covery of it. But once it had been seen in public, he would never attempt to correct it, but would begin a new work, for he believed that a similar failure would not happen again. He often declared that this was the reason that the number of his finished works was so small.”

In Rome, we stood in awe of The Pietà, in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.

Also, we kept putting in a Euro to light up the chapel with the statue of Moses, in St. Peter Vincoli:

Shhh…we snuck a picture of the Sistine Chapel ceiling at the Vatican:

We love traveling to see art and history come alive!

Activities:

Notebooking with famous art and artists printable pages from Productive Homeschooling.
We made our own paints from natural materials when we reviewed Michelangelo for Kids. There are 21 educational activities in that book!
We made little frescoes of our own and realized how difficult it is!

Alex painted a beach scene.

Katie painted a river with flowers on the bank.

Tori painted a fruit basket.

In the morning, they were dry and the colors were faded. We realize how precise and complicated making the perfect consistency of plaster is for the colors to stay true. We used liquid watercolors, which probably aren’t the best for fresco-painting.

Michelangelo is one of our favorite artists of all time!

Resources:

I also like this art website.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading The Agony and the Ecstasy: A Biographical Novel of Michelangelo by Irving Stone.

Florence with Kids