Yes, the school and I went to the famous Uffizi Galleries (Uffizi means "offices" in Italian) but since they don't let you take pictures AND I was busy on an Art History scavenger hunt, nothing about that visit posted here.
Total non sequitur here, but you know how you hate those people who have insider connections and because of that get to do things that you never thought you could do. Well, it happened to me and I am totally grateful for it. The director of our program has a friend who works IN the Accademia of Florence. Yeah, the Accademia that houses Michelangelo's famous "David". He calls her and she meets us out in the street and lets us in the back door, thereby skipping the entire line. In addition, because the Accademia is primarily a conservatory, it has an entire section on musical instruments. This friend works in that part of the Accademia and gave us a performance on a replica one of the earliest pianoforte ever made. TOTALLY INSIDER.....I wonder how often I am missing out of treatment like this.
Although this looks like a harpsichord, our insider guide is actually playing a pianoforte. A harpsichord picks at the strings, thereby only one volume of sound can be made. The pianoforte has a "knocker" (can't think of the word) that hits the string, thereby the player can vary the volume of the sound. Pianoforte literally means "softloud."
Here's one of the "prisoner" statues which shows the process of carving out a statue from a chunk of marble.
Ahh, David. This is actually the copy of the real one. This copy stands in the Piazza outside the Uffizi.
This 5th Century BCE Kouros shows how far man's ability, Michelangelo's in particular, had come in 1,000 years.
The famous Ponte Vecchio over the Arno River.
Going back to the Etruscans, here's the Chimera of Arezzo, one of the most significant bronzes of that era.
We studied both the Chimera and this man, Aule Metele, the Orator. Once again, it's so cool to see in person those pieces we studied in class.
Sunset over the Arno. Goodbye Florence...until next time.
Total non sequitur here, but you know how you hate those people who have insider connections and because of that get to do things that you never thought you could do. Well, it happened to me and I am totally grateful for it. The director of our program has a friend who works IN the Accademia of Florence. Yeah, the Accademia that houses Michelangelo's famous "David". He calls her and she meets us out in the street and lets us in the back door, thereby skipping the entire line. In addition, because the Accademia is primarily a conservatory, it has an entire section on musical instruments. This friend works in that part of the Accademia and gave us a performance on a replica one of the earliest pianoforte ever made. TOTALLY INSIDER.....I wonder how often I am missing out of treatment like this.
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