Birds, beauty, perambulations, and a bottom feeder

Walking the Florentine streets, we came across many things of interest. A few Irish pubs selling Kilkenny, a great Irish beer that is unfortunately not exported to the U.S. My mother’s new favorite digestif, limoncello – a sweet essence of summer lemon groves liqueur that may be the closest drink we have to Ray Bradbury’s dandelion wine. Christmas lights strung across the narrow streets, lighting the window shoppers, low-hanging constellations in blue and white. Taking the advice of my brother’s roommate, we took special care in crossing the streets – many Florentines zip through the city on scooters like rabbits late for very important dates – occhio!

In Piazzale Michelangelo, above the city and across the river, a green copper copy of the David stands above kitsch booths and buskers – we heard delicate classical guitar played by a focused youth with his back to the views. This piazza and the cemetery higher up on the hill are not to be missed.

From the banks and bridges of the river Arno, we caught frequent glimpses of the Duomo and the crenellated tower of the Palazzo Vecchio, admired skullers from the world-champion Florentine crew club and the reflection of Ponte Vecchio on the still waters of a cloudy day. My brother and I also saw some locals feeding imperial Roman quantities of bread to a flock of pigeons and a family of nutria – rats of the sky and rats of the water. Brilliant.


Perhaps the oddest aquatic sight was the giant catfish we saw pulled from the river by Hemingway’s Italian old man. I would not have thought such a beast possible in those waters. Leaving the fish up from the water’s edge, the fisherman waded back to shore through a whorl of gulls. He was loaded down with long rods, a cooler, a net large enough to seine for shrimp. He rode off on his bicycle and we did not stay to see whether or not he returned for his catch.

Exit music for a film, with leather and stone

On today's trip through memories of Florence we visit Santa Croce. This piazza has retained a smaller, older feel than her more famous Fiorentine sisters. Last Sunday's marathon finished there, a thought to keep you going during 42 kilometers of hills and gasping questions. Inside the church are buried a cadre of famous Italians, including giants of literature, art, science, and politics: Dante, Machiavelli, Galileo, Michelangelo... The central door is massive but it was not enough to hold out the flood of 1966 – a plaque on the wall marks the water's high line.

Exploring the church, through the carefully lit scriptorium, out past the stained-glass transept, a visitor can wander into the Leather School and watch masters craft leather into bags, purses, wallets. The reflections from angled mirrors and the orderly collections of worn tools could have kept me mesmerized for hours.

Tucked into a dark cellar just off a spacious courtyard we found a small exhibit dedicated to the printwork of native son Pietro Parigi. Anyone who has read the Catholic Worker will recognize his simple, rustic style. I am fascinated by this art form; some favorites include the California artist Tom Killion and the book The Man Who Planted Trees by Jean Giono.

During two visits to the neighborhood around the church, we heard great street musicians – a trio named Grupo Romm Dracula's that is comprised of stand-up bass, djembe (or its cousin), and a hammered dulcimer, a stringed instrument resting on a stand that is played with small mallets. The members are Romani, or gypsy, and perhaps have brought strains of the Middle East, even India with them to Florence. [On a side note, this minority is currently much maligned here in Italy, as so often in the past in so many places – e.g. the word “gyp,” as in “That market vendor gypped me.” Xenophobia: a topic for another day...]

The music was new yet somehow familiar, like a bite of some untried sweet that carries remembered tastes, spices. Novel madeleines. Watching people walk away down a narrow Fiorentina street, with the lyrical skipping music playing behind me, I felt like a camera recording the closing scene of a movie. I was reminded of the ending of The Third Man; I later confirmed, through conversations with my classic-movie-knowing family and a bit of Internet research, that the score of that great film noir featured a zither, a close relative of the dulcimer. Romani music – yet another rabbit hole to wander down some other day.

Trading post cards for boarding passes

For Thanksgiving this year, I ate no turkey and watched no American football. There were no pumpkin pies cooling in my kitchen, no traditional Quaker hymns sung across generations. I did receive a gift beyond worth when my parents and brother came to visit for a week. We spent our time together in Tuscany, mostly in Florence with a day-trip to Siena. We rambled and ambled, wined and dined, raptured at art and city and captured moments on film. To avoid gluttony of reading and writing, I will try to describe the vacation in installments. Hey, it worked for Dickens and Matthiessen, right?

The Uffizi. A grand palace with an overwhelming collection of art. Countless Adoration of the Magi; innumerable Madonnas, including Madonna of the Pomegranate, the Long-necked Madonna, and a dark 15th century portrait that reminds me now of Munch, found by museum representatives at a flea market in Milan in 2002. I learned about the martyrdoms of various saints: Sebastian killed by arrows, Florian thrown from a bridge with a millstone chained to his neck. Many of the Masters are there: Caravaggio, Botticelli, Raphael, da Vinci, Michelangelo, Giotto, Titian, Dürer... Having now traveled a bit in Italy, I recognize its plants, architecture, and landforms in Renaissance art: who knew that Bethlehem looked just like the Tuscan countryside? At night, the city sparkles along the river and the dome of the cathedral still boggles the mind despite the shadows.

The Accademia. We lucked out and, with the combination of a slower tourist season and an afternoon rainstorm, walked right in without waiting in line. The pen-and-marker graffiti along the wall lining the sidewalk attest to the expectant purgatory of visitors past. The small museum has one room of amazing paintings and another exhibition area of musical instruments from the Medieval and Renaissance periods. However, the gallery’s main attraction is Michelangelo’s David, and rightly so. A few unfinished sculptures precede the David and show some of Michelangelo’s process and genius. The 17-foot tall David is... Giorgio Vasari, Michelangelo's contemporary and biographer, said: "Whoever has seen this work need not trouble to see any other work executed in sculpture, either in our own or other times, by no matter what craftsman." The stone seems more alive than some people I’ve known. I had to remind myself of optical illusions when I saw his chest swell with breath. With tired feet and a curious mind, I was happy to sit and stare for a long time. To think that Michelangelo completed the sculpture by the time he was thirty...