Over half term, nine Sixth Form art historians flew to Florence, the cradle of the Italian Renaissance, for a three-day trip to sample the city’s cultural and culinary delights. Upon landing in the early afternoon, we immediately left behind our cosy hotel in the Santa Croce district, crossing the River Arno over the famed Ponte Vecchio to see Masaccio’s frescoes at Santa Maria del Carmine. Here, the scaffolding erected for research work allowed us to get up close and personal with paintings usually seen from a distance at ground level; an unforgettable first experience. We fitted in a gelato and a vertigo-inducing climb up to the top of the Cathedral dome for a panoramic view of the city, before a first dinner of both savoury and dessert pizza.
The next day saw us up early to visit the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, to see a host of sculptures originally created to ornament Florence Cathedral. The girls enjoyed visually recording their impressions of such iconic works as Donatello’s Mary Magdalene and Michelangelo’s later Pieta. We broke away from our focus on the 15th and 16th centuries to visit an Anish Kapoor exhibition at the Palazzo Strozzi, before the first of our two lunches at the Mercato Centrale. Here, decision paralysis set in as we were confronted with so many different lunch options from across Italy to choose from.
The Uffizi Gallery occupied the majority of our second afternoon, before we hiked up to the Romanesque church of San Miniato al Monte for more fabulous views of the city – although we were perhaps more entranced by the family of intrepid kittens we found there. Our second dinner was a pasta feast in the buzzy square of Santo Spirito, before we headed back to the Piazza della Signoria for a night-time look at the sculptures in the Loggia dei Lanzi – art history never stops!
On our last morning, we compared the Medici chapels of Brunelleschi and Michelangelo, stocked up on olive oil and other Italian store cupboard essentials at Eataly, before our final two bookings: the awesome David by Michelangelo at the Accademia Gallery; and the quieter and more contemplative frescoes of Fra Angelico at the convent of San Marco. A second trip to the Mercato Centrale preceded our flight home – on which we collapsed, exhausted but fulfilled by the excitements of the trip. Keep an eye on the ‘Artwork of the Week’ page of the History of Art area on the school website for a more detailed run-through of the trip.
Ms Faircliff, Head of Year 11, Head of History of Art, Teacher of English
