Botticelli

Primavera - Sandro Botticelli ~1480

We just finished watching season 2 of Medici - The Magnificent this evening. Sandro Botticelli was an intimate of the Medici brothers Lorenzo and Giuliano. The season ends with Sandro starting on this painting.

The Vasari Corridor

The Vasari Corridor: The World's Least Secret Secret Passageway

What do you do if you're the 16th-Century Duke of Florence and you need a way of getting between your two palaces without being seen by anyone? You build a 1km passageway 3 floors up in the air, of course... - YouTube blurb

I just came across Tim, The Tim(e) Traveler, and he's pretty entertaining. His specialty seems to be going to strange, obscure places and giving us a bit of history.

The Duke was a Medici and we already know they were a big deal in Florence. Also enemies of the Borgia.

Map of the Vasari Corridor

Tim's route starts at the Palazzo Vecchio on the left and follows the corridor along to the Palazzo Pitti on the right.

You can sort of see the corridor on Google Maps, but all the roofs on all the buildings in Florence are red tile, so it can be a little difficult to pick out.

Medici, Brunelleschi and the Cathedral in Florence

Il Duomo di Firenze

We've been watching the Medici: Masters of Florence series on Netflix. It's not the greatest show, the portrayal of the characters is a little heavy handed, but given the amount of story they are trying to cram into the allotted time, understandable. You could stuff all the information into a dry, tedious documentary, but we want an entertaining story, so we take some shortcuts. The history portrayed is compelling.


How an Amateur Built the World's Biggest Dome
All this happens in the 1400's, which seems to be lost in time, but when Cosimo visits Rome, he is entranced by the Pantheon, which was built over a thousand years before that. At this time, the Florence Cathedral is unfinished, it lacks its dome. Cosimo commissions Brunelleschi to finish it. The techniques used to finish the dome are amazing, especially since the math that modern engineers would use to guide them in their design did not yet exist. James Gillick has an interesting story On the Economics of a Cathedral.

Some things are a little unsettling, like riding horses on the polished interior marble floors of buildings, but why not? Marble floors are easy to clean, the doors are big enough, and why should I have to walk outside to get my horse?

We also have all the standard elements of a good drama: love, hate, intrigue, betrayal, conflict, disaster and successes. We also have some words of wisdom that are truly at odds with our modern, secular, the individual-is-king philosophy. Reminds me of the old saw about how the poor save for Saturday night, the rich save for four generations.

Pax Vobiscum

We've started watching Season 2 of Borgia: Faith and Fear on Netflix, not to be confused with The Borgias on Showtime. In the last couple of episodes there has been a priest making trouble in Florence, and we recognized the actor as the advisor to the dragon lady from Game of Thrones. I'm trying to track this guy down and I'm looking for a summary and I'm not finding one. How can this be? Is this show really that far out on the fringe? I finally locate one in French. Google translates, and then I edited it. All I really needed were the names.

Borgia, Season 2, Episode 4 - Pax Vobiscum 

Cesare arrests Savonarola and has him tortured until he "confesses". Pope Alexander VI sentences him to death by hanging, and Cesare carries out the sentence. Savonarola uses his last breath to curse Cesare Borgia and his whole family. Cesare attends Midnight Mass and lights the traditional fireworks Florentine. Alessandro, his lifelong friend, wishes him "peace of God", but the peace of God no longer interests Cesare.

Iain Glen plays Savonarola, who was the instigator of the most infamous Bonfire of the Vanities. And here I thought it was just a clever name for a book.