Day 5.2 - Ciao, Firenze

The first thing we noticed about Florence was the weather. We had left the bright blue skies and temperate days of Rome to land in a grey and bitterly cold city.

We settled into our accommodation, the Machiavelli Palace hotel, and soon set out into the city of Florence.

The birthplace of the Renaissance, and still a world centre of art and culture today, Florence is a city brimming with history not only in its museums and cathedrals, but also in the most surprising of places. Our first stop was one such place, the church of Santa Maria Novella. A large yet unassuming church, this late Gothic contains some treasures of the early Renaissance. In the church we find a large floating crucifix by Giotto, and a wooden carving of the crucifixion by Brunelleschi. The Holy Trinity fresco by Masaccio is the first known use of perspective in the history of art, and was a painting that in its day drew artists from all around the world trying to puzzle out how the illusion of depth and three dimensions. Added to this are frescoes by some Renaissance masters including Lippi, Pisano, Ghirlandio and an early nativity scene from a very young Botticelli. So many influential pieces in one almost anonymous church.

From Santa Maria Novella we continued on our walking tour towards the old city, invariably finding the dome of the Cathedral of Florence, Santa Maria del Fiore, or the Duomo, looming above every other building in every street. We couldn't help but eventually come across it.

The Duomo is an engineering marvel, for a long time the largest freestanding dome in the world, and still the largest brick dome in the word. The culmination of around 130 years of building, the dome of the Duomo is its crowning achievement. For a long time the cathedral sat without a dome, the translation from plan to reality impeding its development. Enter Fillipo Bruneleschi, architect and sculptor. Brunelleschi's solutions to the dome were ingenious and led to the construction of the largest dome since Roman times. We visited within the Duomo and found an enormous space with a lot of history. We heard about the conspiracy to assassinate Lorenzo de' Medici (Lorenzo the Magnificent) and his brother Giuliano in Easter 1478, and the fallout of that incident. The nearby bell tower designed by Giotto, and the Baptistry with its bronze doors crated by Ghiberti and recently reopened by Pope Francis as part of the Jubilee Year of Mercy, were also sources of admiration and wonder over

Our walking tour took in the old merchants' church of the Orsanmichele where guilds competed to install the most impressive sculptures. Among the artists' work there are a piece by Ghiberti and another two by Donatello.

Striking towards the river, we arrived at the Piazza Della Signoria, the centre of political power in Florcnce and heard some stories of the way politics worked during the Renaissance, especially under the ruling Medici family. Among the powerful works on display in this place of power are Michelangelo's David, Cellini's Perseus with the Head of Medusa and Donatello's Judith.

With the day getting darker and colder, we decided it was time for dinner. After a short sojourn in the hotel we headed to the Trattoria Guelfa, a small family run restaurant serving traditional Florentine fair for a delicious three course meal. Our first day in Florence had come to an end.