Florence is a museum. Being ground-zero for the Renaissance explosion, it is a fascinating museum. It's not that one will encounter unfamiliar ideas, but rather encounter the birth of the sort of society that enriches the mind. Art was abundant, science piqued everyone's curiosity, people with wealth funded people with talent to produce enduring work of great value - David, for example, or a heliocentric cosmology. In Florence, it's possible to see how this society unfolded. Finally, we got there. And spent three delightful weeks exploring.
The Classic Photo of Florence from the Piazza Michelangelo
News & Notes
We've summarized our Florentine trip with ePostcards. They cover only a small part of the visit, and skip very significant sights. For example, Cappella Brancacci is a spectacular wing of a Renaissance church covered with great frescoes. Here is a part of one painting by Massacio in which five people manage to get along with only eight feet. In the Renaissance almost anything was possible.
Five Dudes from a Massacio Fresco
With the history of the Renaissance being tightly tied to the history of the Catholic Church in that period, we saw a lot of religious art. Because of this 1330 painting by Simone Martini, The Annunciation with St. Margaret and St. Ansanus, we became very interested in how artists illustrated the Annunciation, the moment in which the angel Gabriel tells the Virgin Mary she will be the mother of Jesus. We have created a page describing our research on this subject. Caution, it's a thorough treatise by a couple of obsessive nerds, and is not for the faint of heart.
Martini's conception of the Annunciation
Right after returning from Italy, we dashed to Libby MT to help Jim support the STOKR bike ride. (We've helped several times on this Habitat for Humanity fund raiser.) This year we welcomed 295 riders to the Yaak Summit rest stop, a new record. As always, schmoozing with the riders was lots of fun.
Piper Creek Summit stop on the Scenic Tour Of the Kootenai River, STOKR
When we finally got home to enjoy our backyard, we noticed that for only the second time we have newts living in our pond. Estimating, we have a half dozen in each of two generations, presently dubbed big newts and little newts. As before, we think they are Long Toed Salamanders, Ambystoma macrodactylum. They feed on the algae that naturally grows on the side of the pond; happily ours has food enough for a hundred million or so.
Notice the Long Toes Are Already Visible
