FLORENCE

In September 2001, we began our month in Italy in Florence, staying at a small hotel, Orto de’ Medici (Garden of the Medici), on the site where Michelangelo, whose patrons were the Medici, had his studio. The hotel was owned and operated by the gracious and dashing Florentine father-son duo of hoteliers, Bufalini the Elder and Bufalini the Younger.

Because we arrived a week after 9/11, Florence was not as mobbed with tourists as it usually is. And despite warnings following 9/11 telling us travelers headed abroad, to “not act like noisy Americans,” to refrain from wear things like t-shirts that betrayed our nationality, when Florentines learned we were from the states, we were greeted with sympathy. In one church, a priest came over to us, mentioned 9/11, and, hands uplifted to the heavens, he commiserated: “Ah, tragedia! tragedia!” (Then he told us the church had lots of bills to pay, prompting us to leave a fat donation. A friend had warned us that not much is free in Florence.)

Another friend, a painter, describing Florence, said that the city has so much great art, you can get sick looking at it all. And it’s true: everywhere the Madonna and child. Everywhere the crucified Christ, either on the cross or just taken down from it, anguished Mary and other adoring followers gathered around, cradling his body, with clutches of cherubim and seraphim hovering. There is art depicting St. Peter, being hoisted up onto the cross for a particularly juicy upside-down crucifixion, and sculptures and paintings of St. Sebastian, with arrows stuck into various bodily parts.

One day, on a tip from the Elder Bufalini, we went to Cenacolo di Sant’ Apollonia (St. Apollonia’s Refectory) where we saw, in the anteroom of the refectory, two 15th Century paintings by Neri di Bicci. In one, “Madonna and Child Surrounded by Saints,” the child has his hand fishing inside his mother’s bodice. In all the art we gawked at in Florence, or elsewhere in Italy, we didn’t come across another painting like it.

Inside the refectory itself is a huge, gorgeous ca 1447 “Last Supper” by Andrea del Castagno. No photos allowed in the place; the girl collecting admission fees said that for over a year, the government had forbidden photos in most places. Too much ripping off of their art.

We exhausted ourselves running all over the city, dodging the swarms of noisy, polluting, incessantly-beeping motorbikes, the clutches of handsome college students - slender boys flirting with gorgeous, stylish, high-browed girls who looked much like their ancestors in the art all over the place. (And everywhere: lots of classy, high fashion stuff featuring a good deal of leather.)

In the cloister of Santa Maria Novella, which featured Della Robia art high up in the ceiling arches of the building, we came across Rick Steves and his crew, doing a travel bit about the place, repeating a take over and over till they got it right, as students sat off to the side on the cloister lawn drawing what they saw.

On another tip from the Elder Bufalini, we went to see the Santo Spirito Church, in a slightly shabby plaza. The church was closed, but we chatted with a couple of guys sitting on the steps. One, a pottery teacher, spoke fluent English. He was born in Palo Alto, but now was living in Italy. When I remarked that the plaza seemed peaceful, he said I wouldn’t have thought so had we seen the very recent near-murder of some drug dealer right in front of the church. “His skull was split open by a machete and you could see his brains. “ The potter went on to say there was “too much ancient stuff” in Florence. “It’s all old stuff,” he said. We couldn’t disagree with that.

One day we crossed the Arno, and got views of the city from the other side of river; another day we visited the Boboli Gardens, again looking across to the city from that peaceful oasis.

A couple of times, the Elder Bufalini let me up onto the roof of his hotel, reachable by going through a snug top-floor apartment under construction for the Younger Bufalini. On the roof, you look straight across to the Duomo. More immediate, lower down, are the red-tiled roofs of the immediate neighborhood.

The second time Bufalini the Elder escorted me up to the little rooftop deck, he hung around to see what I found so interesting. I was using an early digital camera, and showed him a few tight shots of rooftops. “Ah,” he nodded, when he saw the closeups of the rooftops, “Particolare!” There is in these photos a photo of the Elder Bufalini, dapper in his butternut-yellow suit jacket. (See last photo in the Florence 2 Gallery.)

On our last day, already nackered from scurrying around the city, we decided to climb the Duomo’s ancient stone stairway, built between the inner and outer walls of the great cathedral, ending at the very top of the Duomo. We got there when the Duomo opened for the day, paid the fee, and started up the worn stone steps that wind and twist, and occasionally run straight for a few yards, disorienting you the whole way. Not far into our climb, the mobs arrived, and for the rest of the 467-step slog to the top, we often had to flatten ourselves against the outer shell to let the clutches of mostly-young people sprint up ahead of us.

At the base of the famous dome, built by Brunelleschi in the face of much speculation that he couldn’t pull off such a great structure (162 feet in diameter; 296 feet high), you can step out onto a platform for spectacular views.

From the platform, you look down to the cathedral floor, where tiny people, many in tour groups, stare up at the dome while the guides blat about the thing.

Looking up from the platform, you see the fabulous fresco on the interior of the dome’s cupola, starting at the peak with heaven, and ending at the base of the dome with juicy pictures of the torments of hell. The fresco was started by Giorgio Vasari in 1572, and finished by Frederico Zuccari. I lingered so long on that platform, entranced, shooting away, that the spoilsport Duomo employee stationed at the door to the platform had to urge me away.

Then, back to the stairway for the last slog to the top of the dome.

At the top, outside, there’s the spectacular view of the city below, and a straight line view over to Giotto’s Campanile (bell tower).

The climb was worth it the effort, though it was several days before my aching legs began to recover.

You will see all this stuff, and more, in these photos of Florence. Edited out were many street shots of people going about their business. Not cut out are photos of laundry strung between buildings. Wherever I go, I never pass up a chance to shoot laundry drying on racks or lines. You’ll see those laundry photos here (as well as some taken in the hill towns of Umbria and Tuscany, in Venice, and plenty more on the small, colorful island of Burano, in the Venetian lagoon).