Veni, Vidi, Vici, Ozzy

We are standing in the Duomo and some American lady approaches us.
"I heard your accent, you must be from America. We don't hear many American accents. Where are you from?" she asks.
(I don't bother telling her that at the moment half the tourists in the Duomo are American college students. It seems like any mall in Columbus, except for the Renaissance Art and Architecture.)
"We're from Ohio." we tell her,and judging from her accent it doesn't seem like I should tell her that I used to live in the hometown of William Tecumseh Sherman.
"So few people around here speak English." she responds.
"Maybe it's because we are in Italy." I offer in explanation.
She ponders that.

I have noted that neither of us can do marathon museum hopping, but we have discovered that if we hit a museum first thing in the morning, we are fresh and the places are enjoyable.

Case in point, the Basilica di Santa Croce. We tried to visit it the day before but we were too tired and it did not look so inspiring (no pun intended) but the next day...I felt inspired. And we are glad to have gone. The rule of thumb about Churches in Europe seems to be, if it's a working church, no fee to enter though they may have various exhibits tucked away and charge for that. Fair enough. If they have a huge dome and a thousand stairs to climb for a view over the city, they will charge and we'll pay and be delighted to do so. But the rule of thumb does not seem to apply to Florence. Nearest we can figure out, if it has a door, put an attendant at it and charge the public. Frankly, I don't blame them, the churches are works of art themselves. People seem to come to Florence to see churches and great art treasures and thus think nothing of standing in lines to see this and that....and paying.

Santa Croce has a long and wonderful history, most of which I still do not know since it is mainly explained in Italian (our friend is right....what is with all this Italian language stuff?). But, at first glance we can tell we have entered a gem of a Basilica. Currently they have massive scaffolding up behind and above the altar. Floor to ceiling scaffolding and the ceiling is a long way up. The roof of the basilica is wooden, and appears to have inlaid pieces too. Not sure of the term, but am sure of the effect...stunning.

Upon closer inspection, the area behind the altar (probably 8 stories high) has numerous workers/artists working on the frescoes which are astounding, according to the photos of the project. Hanging on the scaffolding, is the crucifix.

Actually it is a copy of the original from behind the altar but I like that they have included it within the work project and thus stated very clearly that this house of worship is still sacred. But we discovered later that there is much more behind this crucifix.

We wandered the entire sanctuary. Beautiful. The exhibits indicate that in numerous ways this church is tied to the illuminaries of the Renaissance through their work, burial or memorials. Off in one corner is a chapel and then there is a hall and it tells the story of this church, partially in English (I tell Makaila to go and find our friend and that these Italians are finally paying attention to her). This a Franciscan church and am a bit foggy on whether St. Francis actually was here or not, but he is obviously revered. They have a robe he actually wore, that is quite interesting to me. It could use some dry cleaning but that may defeat it's purpose, but I am intrigued.

Of its more recent history, the Arno River, a few blocks away, flooded in 1966 and brought several feet of water into the town and this very church, and left several feet of muck in the basilica. It was a tragedy. But the people of Florence took charge and there are pictures of the sacred crucifix being resecued (and here is where the English version of these events is lost and they keep printing Italian...what are they thinking?!) But it shows men and soldiers carrying the crucifix out of the church, where it evidently has crashed to the floor into the muck. The church and city painstakingly cleaned up (I assume the Army Corp of Engineers built some flood control on the Arno) and Pope Paul VI came and celebrated mass just outside the church doors in the piazza.

We wandered further down the hall of the cloisters and read about the thriving trade in Florence of leather work. This region has been connected with the trade of leather hydes for about a thousand years and the Franciscans, when they built the basilica continued the trade as a means of support. Sometime after WWII they trained war orphans in this art as a means of livlihood. Then about 1950 a distinguished Italian family joined with the Franciscans and now they have a world-class distinguished leather making venture. I am not sure how this capitalism/church thing is put together churchwise but the bags, coats, shoes and desk sets are incredible. Florence has more leather shops per capita than anywhere. Every street has numerous expensive leather shops. Beautiful works of art and design. The Franciscans are right in the midst of it. Good for them.

So, after touring the church, we toured the leather displays, I regretted that they did not go into winemaking like good monks, though I think designer bags is more lucrative. In one room they had pictures of the famous who had stopped in to see their leather designer items....Ted Kennedy, Jack Nicklaus, Prince Charles and Princess Di, a couple Popes and.....Ozzy Osborn. It was surreal. I don't think I ever imagined writing one sentence with those people in it. We decided not to buy anything since we still had to eat on this trip.

Another turn around a corner reveled a museum in the back of the cloisters and we entered it also, it was just off the gardens. The church had assembled various pieces of high art and historical items in their museum. Finding great art and history in the basements of Florence is about as difficult as finding beefy linebackers at Ohio State. So we enjoyed another half hour in the museum and what we discovered is that the sacred crucifix, nearly destroyed by the flood and blessed by Pope Paul VI now resides in the final room of the museum in of the basilica.

 Later as we walked across the Piazza out front, I came across a store selling religious items and one of them was a small copy of the crucifix. I bought it and will hang it on my wall in the office some day. It's an inspiring story. The owner of shop admired my choice and said told me who created the original crucifix which we had just seen, but alas, he said it all in Italian.

Our time in Florence is nearly over. You would be foolish to think that you could even scratch the surface of this great Renaissance City in three days, but you would even be more of a fool if you did not try.

Ciao,     Bob