Ton’s lovely description of the unexpected pleasure of being the only visitors at a museum sparked warm memories of my visit to the Bargello museum in Florence.
It had been a dream of mine to visit Florence ever since I took a Renaissance art history course at Mount Allison University, so when I did get there 15 years later, I wanted to see every piece of art in the city, which is a mighty tall order! I did very well, cramming pretty much everything I had wanted to see into the four days we had to explore.
My sister-in-law and her then-partner, who live in England, had both been there before and took a much more sensible and leisurely pace. Dear Steven stuck with me for the first two days, but after I inflicted both the Uffizi and the Pitti Palace on him on the second day, he cheerfully waved me off early on the third morning and met up with me later.
I’m grateful I kept a good journal of that trip, pasting in tickets and cards of places we visited. It’s only because of that foresight that I have a good record of the morning I was Thelma Medici:
Monday, November 3, 2003
Up early and off to the Bargello via the San Lorenzo market, which opens at 7 am. Beautiful things everywhere, the vegetables so fresh and plentiful, so much to see.
Arrive at the Bargello at about 8, too early, so go for a cappuccino at a little place close by. The man behind the counter had a classic sophisticated look: well-groomed dark hair and moustache, dark trousers, freshly-pressed white shirt, maybe a little sad looking. No other customers.
I watch as he opens a bottle of sparkling wine or champagne with a pop, puts another stopper in and puts it away again. A few minutes later, an older man comes in. They say a few brief words to each other in Italian and the waiter pours the man a drink from the bottle he had just opened, like he had been expecting him, which I imagine he had.
Finish my coffee and head to the Bargello. It had been a prison at one time, as well as a place of execution. You first walk into the courtyard where the gallows once were. I go straight into a room where Verrochio’s David stood all on his own. After years of improper cleaning and restoration, they think they have him back in his original finish: dark with beautiful highlights. Also he is no longer standing on Goliath’s head, but rather the head is off to one side as they believe it was meant to be. Not a very big work, but powerful. Sweet face.
The museum is not particularly well signed, so I decide to wander up a staircase and end up in a room with various carved ivories, and into another room filled with a mishmash of antiquities, jewellery, and paintings.
The next large room turns out to be the Donatello room. What will always make this my favourite place in Florence is my great fortune to be here by myself for what seemed like a long time. There was the original St. George from Orsanmichele looking off into the distance and the stone relief below. Then his St. John and his two Davids. Also the competition panels for the Baptistry doors by Ghiberti and Brunelleschi, more Donatellos, Della Robbias and Ghibertis.
So wonderful, and, for about 10 minutes, the beauty in this huge hall with its sleepy guard was miraculously all mine.
Finally, the doors swung open and in trooped a noisy tour, so I continue on to the Giambolgna loggia to see his amazing bird sculptures.
If I visited today I might snap a quick photo on my phone to capture the moment, but it lives only in my diary and in my head. The heavy quiet, the morning light through the windows, the hard floor. Donatello’s two Davids are especially clear: his early stiff marble giant-slayer, and the later sinuous, seductive bronze. My art history professor at Mt. A told us that the flirtatious pose of the bronze work clearly showed that David had seduced Goliath and then, when the giant was distracted by the youngster’s beauty, David cut his head off. The professor’s proof of this was that David is still holding the rock that the Bible says he hurled at Goliath to knock him out, not needing to use it at all to capture and defeat Goliath. Who knows? For a few minutes, it was all mine.
I remember the rainy early morning drive from my sister-in-law’s house in Ipswich to the Stansted airport for the cheap Ryanair flight to Pisa. I wasn’t giving any thought, as I would now, to climate change or my carbon footprint because that wasn’t at all part of travel for most of us then. All I was thinking was that I needed to make the most of that quick trip to Florence because I might never get another chance. Age and circumstances have made me more grateful for such luxuries of time and opportunity, but it was a rare conscious acknowledgement on the part of my younger self that I was about to do something to carefully imprint on my memory.
It was the last trip I made to Europe, though time will only tell if it will be my final trip; if it was, I am content. David was all mine for a few minutes.
