After walking 6 miles yesterday in Venice, and 5 the day before around Florence we took it a bit easy this morning.  Our day started slow and late, and we eventually got ourselves to the Pitti Palace to see the actual palace part. 

The Pitti Palace was actually not built by the Medici family as most assume.  Rather, Luca Pitti, a banker, built it for his family.  It was considerably smaller.  The home stayed in the family till 1549, when Eleanor di Toldeo purchased it from descendants of Pitti.  She was the wife of Cosimo I de’ Medici.  The house was wildly enlarged and a new wing was  added.  Also built was the secret walkway I mentioned earlier, called the Vasari Corridor.  Eleanor’s son marks the first person to become a permanent resident of the palazzo.   Today it hosts several museums and more art than anyone can possibly stand, much of it collected by the Medici family over several hundred years. 

Printed, cardboard guides in every room described the artwork.  They really added depth, because unless you possess scholarly knowledge of art, none of it makes much sense.  I took pictures of the ceilings, whose ornateness was probably overkill even for the time period.  I wondered about practical things, like who dusts all the nooks and how often?  It does make me want to do more with my ceilings at home.  They are all below. 

One of the museums available at the Pitti Palace was a modern art museum.  I got excited.  I expected to see something from MOMA, like a rotting bagel with organic, strawberry cream cheese smeared on it as a mechanism to invoke the dynamic tensions between Capitalism and 14th century Feudal land grabs.  Apparently, though, in Italy the term Modern Art means 18th to 20th century, up to World War 2.  The crazy mod art … MOMA’s bread and butter, if you will … is considered Contemporary Art.  Those are different museums altogether.  

I downloaded a companion app to go along with the Pitti Palace.  I searched for the most official app I could find.  Alas … $2.99 went to waste.  The app I ended up purchasing was just Wikipedia’s text … total scam.  It wouldn’t annoy me except I did the same thing with the train tickets to Venice.  I accidentally used an official looking (but not actually official) website to purchase them.  They worked, it was legit in some sense, but I overpaid.  Sometimes international travel can be humbling.  

Overall, I had hoped for less art and more about the Medici family and how they lived.  Still, the Pitti Palace is a beautiful place.

We met RBD outside the tower around 3 and explored San Lorenzo after that.  The leather market where my parents met is no longer there.  The city closed it down years ago because overly aggressive salesman scared the tourists away and pissed off the locals. Really, it just sort of moved and scattered.  I am standing approximately on the spot where my parents met. 

On a whim, mom looked up an old friend, Elisabetta, whom she met roughly 40 years ago while living in Florence.  We wandered down a nondescript alleyway off the plaza in search of one particular door of one particular building.  Mom buzzed and waited.  Sure enough, Elisabetta not only hadn’t moved but was still alive!

Originally from Ohio, Elisabetta left the U.S. and never came back.  After spending time in Italy as a student, life back home never appealed to her again.  So she said to herself, “If I’m going to go, I have to go now,” and gave it two years.  She eventually married an Italian and for sixty years has lived in Florence.  I admire people who looked at the hand life dealt and said, “No, reshuffle, I want something else.”  

We walked back to the tower along The Arno for an early night.  RBD, jet-lagged, barely made it through dinner. 

Tomorrow, we drive Ferraris.