Faith through Luxury

10/25/2013 - Florence, Italy

Today, I visited the famous Uffizi Museum. It is one of the world's best, with Botticelli's famous The Birth of Venus, many paintings of Raphael, the crowd favorite Nano Morgante, and many more. That would have been enough art for the week, but I also went to the Galleria della Accademia in the afternoon to see Michelangelo's David. 

Florence's Christian art seemed even more luxurious than Rome's. In depictions of the holy family, they are surrounded by gold. The wealthy commissioners of the paintings are sometimes shown along with the holy family (presumably, so they could get a portrait done with their gift to the church). Some paintings of the saints at the Galleria della Accademia were only used to show off the guild halls (for example, a painting of St Laurence with a banner of the bakers' guild seems to honor the guild more than St Laurence). 

Pictured: Cellini's statue of Perseus in Piazza della Signoria, with a replica of David in the background