Pitti Palace and The Accademia

During our final week in Florence, Randall took the class to see a couple of art galleries in Florence. The Pitti Palace was a palace owned by some of the wealthiest dynasties to live in Florence. The Medici’s, the most powerful family during the Rennaisance in Florence and possibly Italy called it home, as well as Napoleon in the 19th century, and the King of the unified Italy during the 20th century Over the years, especially when the Medici’s were the residents, the palace started being filled with artwork, from great Florentine artists like Raphael. In fact, the Pitti Palace has more artwork by Raphael than anywhere else. I was not that big of a fan of his work. Maybe that is because a majority of them are just portraits, but I think it could be after seeing the Vatican Museum and the Van Gogh Museum, the work really has to be stunning to catch my more cultured eye now. We walked through the Royal Apartments after, and I thought about sitting on everything that was set up in there. After our tour there, a few of us decided to see the Boboli Gardens behind the palace. This was a nice walk through the woods (something we really haven’t done in Italy) and through the amazing gardens that are there. It also gave a great overhead view of the city. Again, after seeing what the Vatican and Van Gogh had to offer, I was unimpressed with the Pitti Palace. Not that it was bad, but it was not knock the cover off the ball type artwork like the other two places own.

I felt the same way about the Accademia except for the 20 foot naked guy that people are staring in awe of. That naked guy is The David, which is one of Michaelangelo’s greatest works. There are replicas in Piazzale Michaelangelo and near the Uffitzi, but just like the rest of the artwork in the Accademia, they pale in comparison to the actual structure. David dwarfs everything else in the main room and the security guards try to stop people from taking pictures but that is an impossible task. Other exhibits I liked in the Accademia were the sculpture room and the music room, but it does not capture you like David does. While much of what I saw was not incredible, being in Florence for three weeks meant I had to see these places.