Today we went to the Convent of San Marco. When we got there we started to follow along with a tour but since we only had about an hour before it closed we spilt apart and wandered on our own. It was so interesting to walk along and see all of their chambers. I personally think they looked like prison rooms. It was a a little room with a beautiful painting of course depicting some religious scenes, and every room had a different picture. Only some rooms had a window that looked out to a courtyard and that all. Further down one of the main hall ways lead to their exhibition that showed all books from the thirteenth century. What I found even more interesting besides the impressive books that looked like they weighed at least twenty pounds each is that they explained how they were made. Some of the books are bound with dark leather and have large metal buckles, used to close the book. The pages are made form a lighter animal skin that is stretched and dried out until ready for use. The ink colours are primarily made through minerals. They start off with a basic colour pallet and then expand upon there. There were many different brushes made our of animal fur that were used to depending on the depictions in the page. In some of the books there are pages that have paintings with extremely detailed drawings, I can’t imagine how long it must have taken to not only make a page but to even creat a whole book! No wonder the general public was not able to access them. Some if drawings even had real gold flakes that were stuck on with fish glue. It seems like such an amazing art form that is now nonexistent due to the printing press and today’s modern technologies.
We had some time to kill before we went into the Academia. So we went off to grab a quick bite. I had pershutto?!? And me,on for the first time. Now I was a tad skeptical about meat and fruit together, but After my first bite I can see now why it’s so common here!
Later went to see our boy David! There are actually signs outside the Academia to direct the tourists, but instead of referring it to the Academia its ‘David’s Museum’. There were four really interesting statues known as slaves. Michelangelo believed the sculptor was a tool of God, not creating but simply revealing the powerful figures already contained in the marble. Michelangelo’s task was only to chip away the excess, to reveal. Therefore these four slaves are pieces of his that were never finished. Once we got to David and to say that up close and personal he Is bigger than what I imagined. Seriously the size of his toes is basically as it as my forearm! What is also interesting is that his pupils are heart shaped, now there is no way to actually see this in person since his huge, but I promise that it’s true! There were so many things to see and tell, but something that stood out to me was an exhibition where all there were was busts and statues. Yes of course they are interesting to look at but what I enjoyed was that they explained how they made plasters and created moles of the original statues. I got rather mesmerized and watched the video they had for about a full half an hour. That process is to complex, tedious and messy that there is no way that I can fully explain it. All I know is that it takes precision and patience. Another super interesting thing about the Academia is that for the majority of write ups about the art work piece they had another section that showed and spoke about the restoration that had been done to it.
After heading back to our place and grabbing a bite to eat and resting up. We decided to make the most of the day and hike up to the see the sunset at piazzale michelangelo. Now we didn’t know what time the sunset and as we crossed by the bridge it was such a stunning sight! The water had reflections in yellow, and red hues from the sun. With that in sight we quickly hurried up to the top of the hill and got to see the rest of the sunset. We found a place to sit down of the stairs even though there were hundreds sitting and enjoying view and one another’s company. Even though the sun had set the stairs were still warm from the sunlight that day.