Thursday 7.05.07

We took our final trip to Florence to visit the Bargello and the Museo Dell Opera - Duomo. The Bargello has the "other David" the bronze version by Donatello. This version came before Michelangelo's David and is believed to be the inspiration for Michelangelo's David. When we arrived they had David up on cinder blocks. There was a lady doing restoration work on David. It looked like she was cleaning him with a Q-tip.

Besides seeing the David, there were a lot of sculptures in the Bargello. Each of the sculptures was more intricate than any of the other sculptures we had seen at any other museum. There was also a wood carved model of the Palazzo Strozzi (Giulianio da Sangallo).

After the Bargello, we went to the Museo dell'Opera near the Duomo. This museum has a ton of sculptures, but the highlight was seeing the Gates of Paradise. There were individual panels (originals) on display and it was so interesting to see the detail on each panel. Each panel contained a scene from a biblical story. The other panels are on the Baptistry across the street from the Duomo in Florence. When we went the baptistry, there was a huge crowd around the Gates. Each person seemed to be trying to identify what each panel represented.

The last thing that was really interesting was seeing the Deposition. This sculpture is a variation of Michelangelo's Pieta which depicts Christ being carried away from the torture stake by Mary (his mom) and Mary Magdalene after his death. There are two interesting things to note about the Deposition:

1. - The man in the sculpture is Nicodemus or possibly Joseph of Arimathea. However, the face is widely considered to be a self-portrait of Michelangelo himself.
   
2. - The female figure on the left was not completed by Michelangelo. After working on the sculpture for eight years, Michelangelo became frustrated at the impurity of the marble and tried to destroy the sculpture. After his death, Tiberio Calcagni was assigned the task of completing the sculpture.