Florence 5

May 21, 2011

The days continue blazing azzura, a Tuscan summer arrived early and in full glory. This morning it was the Brancacci Chapel. It is hard to know under what conditions what makes such judgments, but the Massacchio frescoes were as revolutionary as the David, fully recognizable in their humanity, luminous and present despite time and ruin. They do not have, or need, the defiance of the David. Their maker was as brilliant as and more at peace than was Michelangelo. The beautiful film they made about the chapel and its artists suggests that Massacchio was notoriously indifferent to worldly things. Perhaps that was the difference. Four towering cypresses in the Brancacci courtyard. Sparrows nibble away at the sample gelato cones in the café where we had our coffee.

The rest of the day we lolled about in the sunlight, drinking too much and seeing what passed in front of us. Last night I bought an Italian The Hobbit and there was music and dancing on the Piazza de Republica. DJ has done research, and is able to tell me who did what panel in which fresco, and the history of that church we are too tired to cross over and look at directly. Both Rome and Florence turn out to be far more intimate and lived-in than one expects them, from the history books, to be.

Evening into night: we sat in the Piazza de Santa Croce and watched the passing show, which included a couple of hundred people arranged in red, white, and green tT-shirts (representing the Italian flag) reciting chorally some long piece in Italian. The patriotic show was punctuated by gangs of bridesmaids leading their brides in merry humiliation through the streets. Herons flew above the swirling clouds of swallows, making their way up river for the night.