This video is an excerpt from a much longer Italy travel talk. To view other
topics or to watch my Italy talk in its entirety, visit ricksteves.com or
check out my Rick Steves YouTube channel. Enjoy.
Thank you for joining us. I'm gonna talk about Florence
and Florence is really the art capital of Europe.
Florence of course is famous as the host of the Renaissance; the epicenter of that
cultural explosion that happened about 600 years ago bringing Europe
out of the Middle Ages and into the modern age. And it happened in Florence
for good reason. Florence was the most urban part of Europe, Florence had a
banking business going on, Florence had lots of trade happening, Florence was the
most literate and educated part of Europe, and Florence was sitting on the
rubble of ancient Rome. They were painfully aware that they were in a
middle time and it was greater in the ancient times and when they get their
act together
Florence can kindle that Renaissance, or the rebirth, of the greatness of
ancient Rome. Also, in Florence you've got this amazing situation where you got all these
geniuses all going to almost like the same high school.
Imagine, Florence the class of 1500. When you go to Florence, because of all that,
you've got a lot of great sightseeing. Florence is built on the Arno River.
You got the main part of the city and you got the wrong side of the tracks, or the
Oltrarno, the wrong side of the river. And I do want to remind you in the
United States we think of the wrong side of the tracks but that's 'cause trains
brought in the business and the whole economic vitality. In Europe the
equivalent of the trains was towns that were born not in the age of rail but in
the age... the Middle Ages, when the safe and logical and efficient way to get
your goods to town was on a river. So towns grew upon rivers, rivers provided the
power of the day and on the other side of the river would be where the
rough-and-tumble community would be -- outside of the controlled and safe trade
area where you could have minorities and Jews
and and people that didn't fit in with the mainstream, and that morphed overtime
to be the creative zone and in Florence you've got the Oltrarno, in Rome
you've got Trastevere, in Paris you've got the Latin Quarter, in Sevilla you've
got Triana. All over Europe you'll find that river in the wrong side of the
tracks. Don't miss Oltrarno when you're in Florence. When you look at
these towns, it's important to remember that in the Middle Ages they were
contained within a wall. Today it can be way too sprawling and overwhelming but
in your mind, take some scissors and cut around and just focus on what's within
that fortification -- 'cause that's where ninety percent of your sightseeing is --
and then it becomes very accessible on foot. Here you got your wall,
going out from the river on the other side of the wall would be Oltrarno,
and then within the wall would be the core of the city, and in the center of
that you would have a great cathedral. In modern times when the city's expanded
beyond the protection of their wall and when you have centralized nation states
where you've got stability and you don't have people, you know,
threatening your town, the walls were just a waste of important space, they
were ingrown, you had a lot of traffic congestion. What do you do? Tear down the
wall and you got yourself a circular boulevard. When you look at the map in
Florence today you can see a circular boulevard going out from the wall that
used-- going out from the river that used to be the wall, and then the old gates that
would herald, you know, the exit of the city in the direction of this or that
town, those gates today decorate little traffic circles and small parks that
would decorate the circular road that goes around the city. That helps you get
your brain around a city, it becomes less overwhelming and easier to tackle.
So, here we see a schematic of Florence and you can arrive at the train station the
upper left hand corner, and within about a 15 minute walk you can get yourself
down to the cathedral, called the Duomo in Italian, and then right down the main
drag in the city to the Piazza Della Signoria, that would be the City Hall
Square, the main square which faces the river. Everything here is within, twenty
thirty minute walk of each other, and the city is delightful on foot, and, recently
the city government
has made the center of town very car unfriendly, meaning very pedestrian
friendly. Consequently, we cannot get our tour buses to our hotel anymore. I love
it. We have to park at the edge of the old town, and walk in with our bags.
That's a beautiful thing. Now, when you walk down the streets in Florence, you
have to dodge bicycles and you can hear birds tweeting. In the old days, you were
crushed against a big stone wall and a tiny sidewalk, with trucks and traffic
ruling the city. A huge change and a great improvement for that wonderful city. The
core of Florence is the Duomo, and the Duomo is--it is the inspiration of the
architectural Renaissance. When Michelangelo built his dome in Rome, he
said, "I can build a dome bigger, but not more beautiful than the dome in my home town
of Florence," the dome designed by Brunelleschi, again, that kicked off the
architectural Renaissance back in the 15th century. Now you can go to the top
of that dome, you can go inside of that church, or you can climb to the bell
tower next to the dome. This shot is taken from the bell tower, you can see in the
top of that dome, a bunch of tourists. It's quite a tight squeeze to get to the top
of the dome, you can certainly do it, but it is claustrophobic, and I find it's
just overwhelming with crowds. It's long line to get up, and invariably there's
some crude, big Italian in a t-shirt that just loves to rub on people as they
squeeze by him, alright, so halfway up you don't have any choice. If you want not
the romance and excitement of climbing the dome, but just a practical climb, go
to the bell tower instead of the dome. Either offer a great view. Looking down
from the bell tower, you see the baptistery is a free-standing structure,
outside of the cathedral. I'll remind you that in the Middle Ages, you could not go into
the cathedral until you were baptized, so you had to have the baptistery outside. Baptisteries are
very important and historic buildings in towns like this, and in this baptistery
you've got the famous Gates of Paradise, the wonderful gates designed by Ghiberti
that inspired so much of the Renaissance. Remember, when we're looking at these
kind of art masterpieces, these were opportunities for local artists to
really contribute to their city. There was a lot of local pride.
Florence was competing with all of its neighboring city states, and here they
would say, "we got to have new gates on our baptistery, let's have a competition, and
the greatest artists of our generation will design these, and it'll be the glory of our
of the city," you know. And we have now, artists that are combining math and
science in order to give you a believable three-dimensional scene on a
two-dimensional surface. Radical break. Now they really want to show realism
instead of simple 2D symbolism like in the Middle Ages; and Florence, in a lot of
ways, was the birthplace of that, and that's where we find the Renaissance.
Of course, the most famous piece from the Florentine Renaissance would be
Michelangelo's David. And when you're looking into the eyes of David, you're
really looking into the eyes of Renaissance man. Now, when we look into the eyes of
David, we see this is a civilized, thinking, faithful, individual, sizing up
the bully, the giant, the darkness of the Middle Ages, the crudeness of the
neighboring cities states. And he's going to overcome that challenge with his
sling. If you look at David, the hand of David is too big and too developed,
intentional by Michelangelo. This is the hand of God. It wasn't the boy that
slayed the giant, it was the boy with his faith in god that was able to overcome
his adversary, and that was symbolic of Florence rising above its crude bully
neighboring city states as well, and apt mascot for the city.
Understand the context of the art: why it was, made who made it, what was going on,
what was the agenda, and your art comes to life. This is the kind of stuff we
love to teach in our tours, this is sort of the joy of being a tour guide.
After 25 years of leading groups around Europe, I've learned what people need to
know, and what they don't need to know, and I've written a book called Europe 101
which a is fun and practical sweep through the story of Europe, from the pyramids to
Picasso, designed for your sight seeing in mind. This was written for
smart people who were sleeping in their history and art classes, before they knew
they were going to Europe. Now you got a trip coming up, and you wish you remembered what came, Gothic or
Romanesque. Just a little background on that, and you can step into a Gothic
cathedral, excitedly nudge your partner, and say, "isn't this a marvelous
improvement over Romanesque?" Imagine, being excited about Romanesque.
You can do it with a little information. You don't need to be a
scholar, you don't need to be a sophisticate, you just need to be
curious, and able to read a book. That's what I'm so excited about this, for the
value of your travels, in fact, I have made a five hour series of lectures which is
the same topic of this book, it's available right on our website at ricksteves.com
in the Travel Talk section. You can go there, and it's a
little lengthy, but it is an art history for travelers course that takes you from
the Middle Ages right up until the last century. Also I want to remind you, the
app. Rick Steves Audio Europe is full of guided tours that cover everything
you need in Italy, really, Venice, Florence, Rome, and Pompeii. Really heavy on
Florence, because Florence is so full of great art. When you think of the Piazza,
that so Italian symbol of community, the Piazza goes all the way back to Ancient
Roman times, it is unique in a lot of ways to Italy. Italy embraces that whole Piazza hub
of the community idea. And in Florence you've got a wonderful Piazza Della
Signoria right on the main square, in front of the city hall, and when you're
there, you're looking up at the fortified city hall, and next to that, just to the
right, is the Uffizi Gallery. The Uffizi Gallery, that two tone
building in the background there. "Uffizi" is literally "the offices." This was the
offices of the Medici, who ruled from that big city hall. There's a sky bridge
that connects, you know, the Medici's office with the offices of the
city. Today, the Uffizi is the-- it hosts the greatest collection of
Italian paintings anywhere. This is the must-see museum in Florence for
Italian art. Here's the courtyard of the Uffizi Gallery in the evening, and
that's the courtyard in the day. It's a reminder you should be out at night
enjoying Florence, without the insanity. Every two-bit tourist wants to go to
the Uffizi, and every two-bit tourist wants to see David. You're in
there with the whole world, and it's not designed for those kinds of crowds, and
it's overwhelming. You gotta do it.
Find a way to minimize the stress, and the crowds, and the time-wasting, it's worth it.
There are ways to get around that, but this is the line for the Uffizi
Gallery. It's there
every day, it goes all the way around the block, and the typical tourist just
stumbles in, goes to the end of the line, and spend two hours trying to get through
the door. You can get around that line. It's very straightforward. In my guidebook,
I've got a guidebook on Florence that gives you all the details, just make a reservation and you walk
right by all those people, don't say anything too smart-aleck, and you go
straight to the door, you show em' your appointment, and they let you in. You've
enjoyed the Uffizi Gallery and they're out of there, before these poor people
who have one day in their life in Florence and spend a third of it
waiting to get in, before they get to the door. Please, make a reservation for David.
Make a reservation for the Uffizi, and then you can enjoy the great
Botticellis, and you can be surrounded by all those beautiful Michelangelo
Prisoners, and so on.
And with a little background, you can understand what was going on in those
heady days. Back when it was very tentative, you wanted to celebrate the
body, but at first, you had to do the body in biblical terms. On the left is the
Virgin Mary, and on the right is Venus, and when they were bold enough to have
the body that was quite something, and then when they were bold enough to have
the body away from a biblical context that was something else, and then
after that, they were bold enough to have a male nude standing in a rich person's
courtyard. Just fancy, beautiful, stuff for some rich guy, with no apologies
necessary. Humanism the triumph of the Renaissance, and you see that the whole
evolution when you travel in Florence.
Bargello is to statues what the Uffizi is the paintings. You really got to balance that.
If there's two museums to see, you gotta go to the Uffizi, and, many less crowds, go to the
Bargello where you see some incredible statues. The most under-rated museum in
Florence is the Museum of the Duomo, and that is the Museum of the Cathedral. It's
directly behind the cathedral, it's got incredible statues, and no crowds for some quirky
reason, including an amazing Michelangelo Pietà. Michelangelo did three or four
Pietàs, you can see most of his work in Rome, Florence, and Milan, and in Florence
you can see, of course, David, and the prisoners, but you also want to see his
Pietà at the Museum
of the Duomo. Florence has all sorts of historic churches. Inside the church's,
you've got a great chance to see Gothic--or not Gothic, Renaissance
architecture, beautiful symmetry, beautiful mathematically correct
rhythmic architectural lines, and in the churches, you can track the evolution of
great art from medieval pointed arches, gold leaf backgrounds, lots of halos,
until you get to the Renaissance, where you have mathematical perspective,
balance, symmetry, and that realism that we celebrate from the fifteenth
century onward. when you're in Florence it's great shopping town, and leather is
the big deal. There's plenty of opportunities to do some leather shopping
there. The big news for eating in Florence, I think, is the Mercato
Centrale. The old industrial age iron and steel-- or iron and glass market was getting
run down, and kinda depressed like they were all over Europe, and all over Europe what
I've seen is a revitalization of these great industrial age marketplaces, by
turning them into food courts. And this is really a foodie's paradise. When you're
in Florence, go to the Mercato Centrale for lunch, it's a great idea.
I mentioned Florence is becoming much more pedestrian-friendly. Streets that used to
be just completely the domain of trucks, and buses, and cars, are now motor bikes,
bicycles, and pedestrians. The Ponte Vecchio is the old bridge, literally. It
goes across the Arno River and, in good medieval style, it's lined with shops. So
you've got all these beautiful shops, and they are the jeweler's shops today, and
you can go across that night and enjoy some beautiful music. I find the evening
in Florence to be very charming and romantic. The city government has done a
great job of controlling the quality and the placement of the buskers, so you've
got concert quality musicians out in the streets at night, and I love to spend the
evening just with a good travel partner and some gelato, enjoying the street music.
When you cross the Arno River, crossing the Ponte Vecchio, within five minutes
you are in that Oltrarno district. Remember I was talking about the earthy,
crusty, alternative to the main center where all the power and the money was?
The Oltrarno is where you go today for trendy little foodie restaurants,
artisans doing their thing, and colorful little back lanes and beautiful squares.
Oltrarno. Be sure to factor that into your Florentine travels. Florence, boy, Florence is
a small town, with a great history, and the more you prepare for Florence, and it
deserves the preparation because of all the crowds, the more you'll enjoy it.
If you've enjoyed this video, you'll find lots more at ricksteves.com, and on my
Rick Steves YouTube channel. Happy travels, and thanks for joining us.