Jun 17, 2018

Paying our respects to the Italian Greats

The Franciscan church of Santa Croce began in 1295 and contains over seven centuries of Florentine and Italian history.  This is where we spent our last day in Florence, May, 30th.

Dubbed “The Temple of the Italian Glories”, Santa Croce contains more skeletons of Renaissance masters than any other church in Italy.

We were honored to be standing at the tomb of Leonardo DaVinci.

Another Italian great…..

In case you can’t make it out, this is the tomb of Galileo who died in 1642.

So very many special people who shaped our world lay here in this church.

We were truly humbled to stand here.

Yes, Michelangelo who died in Rome in 1564 miles away from his beloved Florence.  The people of Florence were so determined to return Michelangelo’s remains to his home that they smuggled his body back to Florence.

The numbers here correspond with the words in the photo above and explain how each section honors Michelangelo.

The tomb was designed by Giorgio Vasari in 1570.

Here lies the tomb of the most popular opera composer in history, Rossini who died in 1868.  Rossini penned 39 operas including the famous Il Barbiere di Siviglia/The Barber of Seville.

Truly a remarkable end to our time in Florence.

We walked for a bit cleaning our minds of what we had just experienced.  So many campers all over the place.  Good for them for having the courage to drive through all the city centers.  Perhaps we will attempt it one time.

We crossed the River Arno and yes that is The Ponte Vecchio.

It is a medieval stone closed-spandrel segmental arch bridge, noted for still having shops built along it, as was once common long ago.

The Galleria Uffizi where I had my third fall two days prior.

We actually had dinner right on The Ponte Vecchio.  Colin had a ravioli with pine nuts and this was an eggplant parmesan.  A wonderful light dinner with more great wine.

So many small but interesting cars in Europe.

This is how garbage is dealt with.  Every few blocks there are stations to drop your garbage, glass only, plastic only, cardboard only, a mix of a few things and the last brown one is for miscellaneous garbage.  You carry your garbage out to the bins and they are emptied at least every two days.

Apparently sunsets taken from the Ponte Vecchio are the thing to do but this is the best I managed in Florence as were almost back to our VRBO.

 

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4 responses so far

4 Responses to “Paying our respects to the Italian Greats”

  1. AZGAL says:

    BEAUTIFUL PHOTOGRAPHY WITH VERY INFORMATIVE INFORMATION ON EACH TOMB. THANK YOU. HOPE YOU WILL SOON WILL BE FEELING MUCH BETTER.

  2. Dolores says:

    OMG… Those are truly beautiful!! What a trip!

  3. Great photos, I like pics with explanations.

  4. Kelly says:

    What a magnificent church to use for their burial.
    The enclosed spandrel with the little shops looked interesting.
    The food, the little car, the RV (I’ve heard they really know how to build them in Europe),
    all the pictures are so fun to look at.
    The one of you with the pretty black and white top is really so nice.

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