SGI: Art and architecture

Art is pretty much what Florence does. It's what Florence is for. Florence's entire persona, as it were, is based on being the spiritual home of the best art the Western world has had to offer since around 1500 (and quite a lot of classical sculptures from long before that). The tourist map of Florence, the one they hand out at hotels, has a list of "major museums and monuments" that's about 100 strong. It's rather intimidating. Similarly, Venice is positively crammed with Tintorettos and Titians, only they're mostly (but not entirely) in churches, rather than museums. That doesn't mean they're free, though, the churches do charge entrance fees.*

So these two cities between them house a positively ridiculous proportion of the Great Art of the world. Great Art that covers the full spectrum of subject and style, from gilded madonna to naked nymph. Mind you, if you happen to think that the full spectrum of art might extend beyond limpid feminine eyes to - say - sunflowers; or that style might conceivably move beyond baroque to - say - impressionism, or expressionism, or anything after around 1800 (at a very great push), you're liable to be disappointed.** Of course, if you're a Renaissance buff, or just happen to have a thing for rather camp dancing boys, you're in for the time of your life.




In any case, who cares if the range is rather limited? You can't fail to be impressed by the sheer muchness of it all. And the architecture is a delight. Florence is, frankly, rather scary; it's full of huge blocky buildings built on a scale designed to remind all the peasants on the streets of just how powerful and important the people who lived in them - the Medicis and their ilk - really were. Nowadays most of these palazzos are museums of one kind or another. Behind their monstrously large, studded wooden doors are monstrously large stone stairways and monstrously large marble halls, filled with... tourists. Lots and lots and lots of tourists. If you're lucky, and taller than them, you might get to see some art. Or you could content yourself with gawping at Santa Maria del Fiore (better known as the Duomo, though since every city in Italy seems to have at least one Duomo, that could get very confusing): the delirious pink, green and white marble facade (now with added mosaics!!!) is an object lesson in why not to allow an architect with an indecision problem loose on your cathedral.***

Venice is completely different, and not just because of all that water. (The water is fun, though.) Venice is, frankly, ludicrous. It's a beautiful,**** colourful toy town, constructed in a crazy labyrinth of canals and alleyways. (There's hardly anything that can be dignified with the name of "street".) And of course, every so often the alley simply ends, very matter-of-factly, in water.



But the true nuttiness of Venice is found in some of its many, many churches. Venetian builders clearly had Ideas about the scale and style that was appropriate for the house of god. They had seen classical temples, and they figured that what was good enough for Zeus wasn't nearly good enough for Jesus. (Not to mention, they'd gone and put up the Basilica de San Marco - that huge monument to their stolen saint***** - which gave them something to live up to.) So they stuck up these wonderful, epic buildings, with elaborate facades and trompe l'oeil decoration and suchlike, the kind of thing that needs to be viewed from a good 50 metres or more back or you can't see anything.

But there isn't any 50 metres back. There isn't even 5 metres back. There's about 2 metres if you're lucky, because Venice is tiny, and crowded, and all the buildings are really close together. Still... a builder's gotta dream, right?

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* Not during services, of course. But during service times they're very sensibly not open to tourists. You could try to sneak in, but I think they might notice if you were angling for a better view of the diptychs instead of muttering along to the Creed, in Italian. And if you don't mind pissing off the devout Italian mammas, you're braver than I.
** With the very noble exception of the Peggy Guggenheim museum in Venice, which has a wonderful collection of modern art, including all the usual suspects and some surprises.
*** Okay, okay, I love it. But I'm sure a truly dignified city shouldn't let this sort of thing happen.
**** Albeit somewhat decrepit. Shabby chic is the Venetian style. It's somehow impossible to imagine the city as ever having been fresh and new; and any building that dared to get a fresh lick of paint would no doubt be thoroughly snubbed by its neighbours. Proper Venetian houses would never stoop to anything so tacky as a facelift.
***** True. They pinched the remains of St Mark from the Alexandrians, then ran home and built this big damn multi-domed extravaganza, thoroughly drenched in gilt mosaics, to basically say: "NER ner ner NER ner!" Very devout, the Venetians.