Elsien's Traveblogue

Florence, Tuesday 10th February 2009
I have rather been avoiding so far Florence's most famous son, Mr Buonarotti himself. Maybe out of a kind of snobbery, because all these hoards of tourists are after Michelangelo, or maybe because I did rather a lot of Michelangelo last year, when I read all of the Irving Stone biography of 'The Power and the Glory' – have you seen the film with Charlton Heston? I saw it many years ago and only remember Michelangelo's tantrums!
Michelangelo's main tourist attraction, the copy of his 'David' at the Piazza della Signorie, is being restored, so the tourists are now reduced to taking each other's pictures by a rather monstrous fountain with statue of Neptune, nicknamed the 'White Blob' by the Florentines. I may yet have to go and see the original David, as it's in the Academia across the street from my apartment, not called 'David' apartment for nothing!
However, you cannot escape Michelangelo forever here in Florence, so I did have to go and see the Medici Chapel, where Michelangelo sculpted the memorial to some of the famous members of that family. I'd imagined the memorial to be in one large piece, but in fact it's in several bits. I had to study these bits last year as Benvenuto Cellini copied them in his famous salt-cellar. They are rather moving, I have to say: Dawn, Dusk, Day and Night, and sculptures of some of the Medici members. The Medici Chapel is sad in the same way that the Strozzi Palazzo is – the Medici family came to nothing in the end – it's even quite difficult to discern traces of them here in Florence. Before I came here I read a book, in Dutch, in an atrocious translation, by one of the last of the Medici family about his ancestors, and even he is doubtful about the continuing heritage of his family in the city they dominated for so long. Well, going to see the Medici Pitti Palace tomorrow, have to get up early for that, will keep you posted!