2010 Travel Advent-ures of Brammers, part 7

Palazzo Strozzi is one of the places in Florence that you should have on your list if you plan to visit the city. Located near the centre of town, it is a late-Renaissance great house built around a beautiful open courtyard, with benches all around its perimeter. On the ground level are several shops and offices, including a very good book/gift shop and cafe. There is genuinely free wireless internet in the courtyard, and students and young people checking their Facebook and email on most benches. But the most exciting thing is that upstairs is a huge temporary gallery space.

You would think that in an art-focussed city like Firenze there would be a lot of spaces where you can mount exhibitions, but in fact, there are very few. So the Strozzi is where all the best temporary exhibitions are mounted, and this time was no exception. A massive Bronzino retrospective is showing there at the moment, until January 23. And if you have any way to get there that does not involve penury or illegal kidney sale, DO IT!

Wall after wall of Medici portraits were the main feature, most of which are only ever seen in the dim darkness of the Uffizi, where you trot into a twilit room, are pushed past by the queue behind you, and trot out again in short order. This time they were clear and bright and you could, if patient, spend as much time in front of each one as you like. Most of the major portraits were here, and many of his early religious works, too. My old mate Cosimo, who I regularly visit in the Art Gallery of NSW was making a guest appearance. We caught up, he was looking well -- a great deal of very good cleaning and restoration has been done on the works, some of which I felt as though I was seeing for the very first time without their patina of grime.

But this was not my very best art moment, oh no ...

( Travel is a much better use of my funds than drink! )

And very quickly, THANK YOU to cinnatart  and absynthedrinker  for such lovely early Chrissy presents! You're so kind! 
Also a HAPPY LATE BIRTHDAY to the brilliant red_rahl  and HAPPY EARLY BIRTHDAYS to lisztful  and drgaellon , may the present fairy be generous, your friends fabulous and your faces perfectly untroubled by the passage of time. Or at least so busy smiling that no one notices the character lines ;-)

2010 Travel Advent-ures of Brammers, part 7

Palazzo Strozzi is one of the places in Florence that you should have on your list if you plan to visit the city. Located near the centre of town, it is a late-Renaissance great house built around a beautiful open courtyard, with benches all around its perimeter. On the ground level are several shops and offices, including a very good book/gift shop and cafe. There is genuinely free wireless internet in the courtyard, and students and young people checking their Facebook and email on most benches. But the most exciting thing is that upstairs is a huge temporary gallery space.

You would think that in an art-focussed city like Firenze there would be a lot of spaces where you can mount exhibitions, but in fact, there are very few. So the Strozzi is where all the best temporary exhibitions are mounted, and this time was no exception. A massive Bronzino retrospective is showing there at the moment, until January 23. And if you have any way to get there that does not involve penury or illegal kidney sale, DO IT!

Wall after wall of Medici portraits were the main feature, most of which are only ever seen in the dim darkness of the Uffizi, where you trot into a twilit room, are pushed past by the queue behind you, and trot out again in short order. This time they were clear and bright and you could, if patient, spend as much time in front of each one as you like. Most of the major portraits were here, and many of his early religious works, too. My old mate Cosimo, who I regularly visit in the Art Gallery of NSW was making a guest appearance. We caught up, he was looking well -- a great deal of very good cleaning and restoration has been done on the works, some of which I felt as though I was seeing for the very first time without their patina of grime.

But this was not my very best art moment, oh no ...

( Travel is a much better use of my funds than drink! )

And very quickly, THANK YOU to cinnatart  and absynthedrinker  for such lovely early Chrissy presents! You're so kind! 
Also a HAPPY LATE BIRTHDAY to the brilliant red_rahl  and HAPPY EARLY BIRTHDAYS to lisztful  and drgaellon , may the present fairy be generous, your friends fabulous and your faces perfectly untroubled by the passage of time. Or at least so busy smiling that no one notices the character lines ;-)