Today, we got to start off the day in a new city: Florence,
Italy! We woke up early at 7:30am and got some breakfast at our new hotel. We
headed for a nice long walk to Piazzale Michelangelo which has a great
panoramic view of the entire city of Florence. It is a long hike up these
slanted stairs that goes up quite a ways on the mountainside. It is an
incredible view of the city from the outside looking down on it. After we had
taken all the pictures we wanted and learned about Michelangelo, we headed down
to Basilica of Santa Croce. This is a very famous basilica because it is home
to the tombs of Michelangelo, Galileo, they claim Dante, and many other famous
people. It was really interesting to see the gothic style arches inside and on
the front façade.
We have been progressing through learning about the different
styles and types of architecture, even though we haven’t actually had our
lessons on them. We are getting to see so many different kinds of buildings
that it is necessary to mention what style they are, so we have already learned
a ton about that. It is interesting to learn about the different ways that
different countries and their architects came up with to solve the problems
created by wanting to build these huge arches. With the gothic architecture
style, they used flying buttresses as the way for the sides of the arches that
are part of the main area to hold itself up. Even within this area, there were
different approaches between the French and the Italian. Learning about these
different solutions and seeing them firsthand is exceptionally helpful since
there is so much overlap between some styles, and it is hard to classify them.
Dr. Erdogmus drew us a sketch that had both the Italian and French styles of
this, and that was very helpful so that I can identify each of them. After
going through and seeing all of these tombs of famous Italians, we made our way
over to Santa Maria Novella.
Santa Maria Novella is especially interesting to all of us
on this trip because Dr. Erdogmus actually had the opportunity to do non-destructive
testing on this building to see how the ribs in the vaults actually were
acting, and whether they were structurally related or just decorative. This
building was interesting because it was originally built in the Romanesque
style, and then the façade was added later on in the gothic style, so that
doesn’t really fit with the rest of it. The façade actually rises higher than
the rest of the building to more or less conceal the different style behind it.
We were able to go inside this building and Dr. Erdogmus talked to us about how
the different shapes and styles of vaults and bays are impacted by geometry.
Only more square shaped vaults are conducive to having a dome at the top, and
the rectangular ones don’t work well for this. After all the discussion there,
we went to Basilica of San Lorenzo. This is the home to many of the Medici
family who were one of the most important families in all of Italy. The
basilica was mostly designed by Brunelleschi and parts were designed by
Michelangelo. It is incredible how it seems like there is so much stuff that is
design by these famous artists that never gets talked about outside of being in
this class and if you visit or live around it. I had no idea the number of
buildings and other artwork that Michelangelo designed or all the buildings
Brunelleschi designed. You could see the richness and the power that the Medici
family obviously had in Florence. They were able to afford commissioning some
of the great artist of all time on their own basilica, just to basically show
how great they were. After this we were going to go see the baptistery at the Basilica
of Santa Croce, but the line was extremely long, so since it is so close to our
hotel, we are going to do that later on our own.
After we had completed all our tours for the day, we had a
little free time to go do whatever we wanted until our 2nd group
dinner. Dr. Erdogmus wanted me to help her and Ariel, our TA for the trip, pick
out food for our picnic lunch on the terrace on our hotel, so we had to meet up
a little earlier than everyone else for dinner. I went and took kind of a nap,
and just rested while I uploaded some of my photos from my camera onto my
computer. After my nap, I got a little work done on my journals and such. Then
we went out to the supermarket, a grocery shop, and a fruit stand/store combo. We
picked out different meats, cheeses, breads, fruits, vegetables, some vine,
water, and desserts. It didn’t take us as long as we thought it might, so we
had plenty of time to go get the tables on the terrace and prepare the food.
All of the food was very delicious and there was plenty for everyone to eat.
Then we decided we wanted to go see the view from Piazzale Michelangelo, which
we had seen this morning, during the sunset. We thought we had to hurry and we
were all full of energy. We were walking pretty fast most of the way over to
it, and then we decided to start jogging up this hill and then a series of
slanted steps that take us up the hill. I had my backpack with me, so I started
out not too bad, but by the time I got to the top set of stairs, I had to walk.
We had definitely got our exercise for the day!
The view of the sunset over the
mountains/hills in the background was phenomenal. I took a ton of pictures of
the different sunsets, since at every moment it is changing and special in its
own appearance. After we sat there and enjoyed the sunset, we also got to
observe the lights of the city start to turn on. It was also a very beautiful sight
to behold. Then we went back to the hotel and watched a documentary/movie on
the Medici family and how Brunelleschi’s Dome actually ended up getting built.
The building was originally built with the intention of having a dome built on
top, but they didn’t have the technology to accomplish it yet. Then finally
Brunelleschi was able to come up with a design that works, but the process was
not without problems. After all the troubles the Medici family had, he was
finally able to accomplish his goal of building the world’s largest dome, and
even without the support of temporary wooden scaffolding.
After we finished the movie, I went down to the Wi-Fi area
and caught up on journaling/blogging and uploading my photos. Now it is time
for bed, cause I am extremely tired from our walking and running up hills that
we did today.
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