palazzo pitti
started the day buying an aircast, cause my honey loves me.
then she got some pics of the famous doors to the baptistry before the tourists swarmed
detail of the facade
tori on the ponte vecchio
a closed, and an open shop on the ponte vecchio
not a great margin for error, on anybody's part
we headed over the ponte vecchio and to the pitti palace. now this was the longtime home of the medici family, so why is it called the pitti palace? it was built for lucca pitti, a banker who really wanted to outdo the medici family. he hired the greatest architects and artists to build a magnificent home, including brunelleschi (who designed the duomo). the cost of such an undertaking proved too much and pitti's heirs went bankrupt trying to cover the costs, at which point the medicis stepped in and bought it. let me tell you, these people spared no expense. every detail is amazing. and they loved their ceilings. they must have spent a lot of time lying down, just to be able to take it all in. hmm... that sounds a bit dirty.
let's start with the fact that this place must have had a hell of a front lawn, but maintenance must have been too much, so they paved it over with pebble stuff. it looks so wrong. it was so obviously intended to be a sprawling swath of green, that people still sit and lay on it as if it were. really strange sight.
a cool fountain with the anti-lawn in the background
at every window, a lion with the ducal crown. on either side are iron braces to hold torches
the building and grounds are massive. we started with the museo d'argenti where the most amazing things for which i cannot remember the name - they are stones carved in the reverse, some of them so tiny as to be invisible to the naked eye, are housed, along with illuminated books, mosaic art, precious gems that have been carved or used as decoration in art pieces, and lots of ancient jewelry.
then we headed out to the gardens. o.m.g. my mind reels in just trying to describe everything we saw. the statuary was magnificent. they built a grotto and made it look like it was a natural formation, and filled it with statues, some of which seem to grow out of the wall (and seemed very much like the unfinished works in the david hall). you could feel the cool air, but we could not go inside. on the path to the grotto there were orange trees growing along the wall. oh, i really wanted one! too many guards about, as i'm probably not the only one with that inclination on a hot day.
we headed up a side path, thinking it would be less steep that the central path, which was daunting. we ended up going in a circle (though we did discover food and water left out for the cats), so we headed up the central path.
a small example of the detail in this place
for a sense of scale
the duomo and bell tower
they had the coolest water fountains. each one had 2 heads in it, in different configurations. i don't know when they date to.
an out of the way corner found while walking in a circle
grotto from a distance
grotto detail
preparing to take the direct route
tj in front of the amphitheater
details like this are what really blows me away
cannot post any more pics with this client - too labor intensive. you'll have to wait til i get home.