Tieche European Vacation (Part 6)

A Door, a Dome, a David and some thoughts on art from a Dolt…

Note: This is a view of the Duomo in Firenze, Italy. And no, those aren’t black specs caused by a dirty iPhone camera. Those are swifts, coursing through the morning light. The is building is a marvel.

THE BEGINNING OF THE RENAISSANCE

It’s 1401 in Firenze. Firenze is what native Italians call the city we Americans call Florence, but man, Firenze is so, so much cooler sounding, so if it’s okay with you, I’m going to go with that from here on out.

At any rate, it’s 1401, and the city fathers of Firenze decided to hold a competition. The city had just come out of a 50-year-long pandemic, and wanted to memorialize this moment, largely in thanks to God. The Black Plague had invaded Firenze’s rival city Pisa in late 1347 and made its way up the Arno River to Firenze the following year. City records show that by April 1348, nearly 60 to 80 deaths occurred each day due to the plague.

At that time, in April of 1348, the city leaders tried to do everything they could to slow the spread of illness, which was tough in a pre-germ-theory society. They ordered that the clothes of all sick people and those who had died to be destroyed rather than sold or bequeathed to family members or friends. Again, in modern times, this is just germ-theory precaution, but at a time when everything was made by hand—and often of luxury fabrics—many thought this was government over-step. These items were simply too valuable to simply be burned. I suppose government is always going to have to balance public safety with individual freedom, and it never ceases to be less controversial.

The city fathers also ordered all prostitutes out of the city. Was this because of careful hygiene, or because the city fathers were afraid the sinful behavior might evoke God’s displeasure? It’s unclear. Maybe both?

They also enacted travel restrictions, forbidding anyone from (hated) Pisa or (less hated, but still hated) Genoa to enter Firenze, showing they knew the (rudimentary) origins of the plague. Also, at some point along this, as a middle finger back, the town of Pisa stopped allowing its coastal ships to come to Firenze, which meant the end to access to salt water for Firenze, which meant the end to salt. So the entire city – partially in protest to Pisa and partially out of necessity – stopped making its bread with salt, which is why, even today, Tuscan bread sucks. You gotta add chopped tomatoes and basil and olive oil to make it edible, honestly. Which they do. Again, partially to say “Screw you” to Pisa.

You get the sense that Boston/NY has nothing on the Pisa/Firenze rivalry.

Back to 1401.

The city fathers had a contest to design giant doors for the largest building in the city, the Baptistry of St. John. The east doors has already been formed and forged by Pisano, the famous artist, and depicted scenes from the life of John the Baptist, along with beautiful, but basic panels depicting the four cardinal virtues and the three theological virtues of faith, hope and love.

There were seven finalists, the one clear winner - 21-year old Lorenzo Ghiberti. Ghiberti made bronze-relief panels showing 28 panels, 20 of the stories told in the Gospels about the life and ministry of Jesus Christ, four of the four Gospel writers (John, Mark, Luke, Ringo….wait…) and four showing famous Christian saints (Augustine, Jerome, Gregory, Ambrose).

These panels took 21 years to make. 21. Years.

21 years.

Which means it took Ghiberti as long to make those panels AS HE HAD BEEN ALIVE ON EARTH.

But these doors were as monstrously important as they were…uh…monstrous. Like the music of Hendrix or Bob Dylan or the Beatles, or the movies of Hitchcock or Kurosawa, this massive work inspired all of Firenze, causing an avalanche of creativity. A whole bunch of Spielbergs and Stevie Wonders and Princes were inspired to take their art to the next level (I think Pixar calls this “creative envy” but I can’t find that reference).

One art historian (Antonio Paolucci) called these doors “the the most important event in the history of Florentine art in the first quarter of the 15th century." And the inscription in the Duomo Museum, where the doors are housed today, said they basically kick-started the Renaissance.

Pretty soon, the city fathers and a group of its most prominent citizens – including its wealthy benefactor family, the powerful and wealthy Medici Family – started investing in art. And artists.

THE DOME (1420-1436)

Next up, in 1420, the construction of one of the most significant and impressive buildings in Europe, and arguably the most important building of the Renaissance, was the Duomo in Florence.

You guys. This building is a marvel.

And like the Renaissance itself, it’s an glorious infusion of both precise science (math, architecture, and physics that still don’t make sense to me and I have seen this thing) combined with stunning beauty (art). Its ambitious design, by Filippo Brunelleschi, was deemed impossible by the city fathers until he showed them how it would work.

Basically – and you’ll have to forgive me folks because I understand physics about as much as I understand the popularity of Pauly Shore – the biggest dome is built around another, slightly smaller dome, which operated like an interior scaffold.

Also - and you’ll have to forgive me folks because I understand physics about as much as I understand the plot of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - this outer dome held everything tight and together, like the rings of a barrel. This technique also saved a FORTUNE on wood scaffolding - which was also a giant logistical problem with all the other designs (there wasn’t enough timber in Italy, it was said).

He also arranged the bricks in a herringbone pattern, which – and you’ll have to forgive me folks because I understand physics about as much as I understand the lyrics of songs by the Dave Matthew Band – was self-locking and self-supporting. He also invented a number of intricate ox-driven pulley systems and primitive cranes (some of which are on display in the Duomo Museum, and seem to be influenced by Da Vinci’s drawings of machines). He’s also, I am told, the first human to hold a “patent” for his crane-device.

But you still have the problem of instability of the OUTER dome, so Brunelleschi designed three other smaller half domes to be built on the outside of the two domes to serve as buttresses. And the other side was kept in place by the long hall of the cathedral. You can see it more clearly with an aerial view here:

I think I have the structural physics right.

I *did* major in English.

And not to brag, but I also helped my daughter Jaelle with her 10th grade physics homework this year, so…

You can see more about this feat of engineering in this fun animated video from National Geographic here.

IT’S A BRICK. HOUSE.

The Duomo is the largest dome made of bricks in the entire world, with a little more than 4 million bricks which weighs 25,000 tons. And it took 16 years to make.

16.

Years.

But it was more than that. It was a cathedral.

And it was a functioning cathedral, a core part of civic and religious life in Firenze. Every single person in Firenze who was a professing Christian would have been entered into the Baptistry through Ghiberti’s gilded doorways, then left through those same doors.

They would have then crossed the piazza, and entered into the Cathedral into the community of living saints, who worshipped in a building built directly on top of a much older, Medieval Church which had been home to worshipping saints who’d passed centuries earlier.

The whole thing makes you feel small.

Really small.

But also swept up in the history of it all - the history of the Church. God’s church.

One of the most moving parts of the Duomo for me was going down a small stairway to a half room below the main floor. There, you could see the excavations of the church from 500 AD, which then slowly turned into a Medieval Church, which was fully operational for hundreds of years before the Duomo was built directly over it.

It was a simple church. But on the floor was marvelous tile work.

This stunning mosaic is believed to have been made in the fifth century (around 400AD) by North African craftsmen. There’s a peacock in the center of this part, but most of the tile work consists of intricate crosses, the symbol of Christ’s death for humanity, and His resurrection.

So what would tie peasants in Florence to North Africans?

• Not culture.

• Not (really) trade.

• Not shared history.

Just Jesus of Nazareth.

I learned on this trip that in early Christian history, the peacock was often used as a symbol of the Resurrection. Some ancient historians say it’s (partially) tied to a (weird) ancient pagan Roman belief that a peacock’s flesh never decayed when it died. Others think it’s more symbolic. You see, peacocks, in every day life, are pretty common-looking birds. Brown and plain. But there is a hidden splendor.

The same is true for the average, ordinary Christian, beleaguered by the pains and trouble of life. Ordinary. Brown. Common. But there’s a Resurrection, and a new reality hidden within me, too. Jesus will have His way. He will remake me, making all things new, including me.

This is what united those North African craftsmen with their brothers and sisters in Firenze. A shared, human desire to worship Jesus.

To these Roman Era Christians, the Empire of Rome wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be. Instead, they labored for months (years, probably, but what do I know) for the floor of their church to say something profound about Jesus.

THE DAVID (1501-1504)

Finally, I will end with the greatest thing I saw in Firenze.

Crafted for three years from 1501-1504 by Michelangelo, there’s a reason this statue is called THE DAVID and not “A DAVID.” Articles matter. There’s an inscription at the base of this 16-foot statue from Giorgio Vasari that reads:

“When all was finished, it cannot be denied that this work has carried off the palm from all other statues, modern or ancient, Greek or Latin; no other artwork is equal to it in any respect, with such just proportion, beauty and excellence did Michelangelo finish it”.

This might be the greatest work of art I’ve ever seen.

I mean. Look at the detail in this hand. This was all once a giant 16-foot block of solid MARBLE. If this were made of a pliable substance, say mozzarella cheese, it would be earth-shattering in its beauty. Also, delicious.

THE FACT THAT THIS IS MARBLE?????!!! How. How??

There’s much to say about The David. And yes, I am a little jealous that of all the Davids in the world, this thing gets the definitive article “the.” Not Letterman. Or Lee Roth. Or Schwimmer. Or Grohl. But whatever. This story captured the sense that native Firenze Citizens had about themselves as underdogs. It also said something about mankind (more on that in a later post).

And yet, as I close, I was again surprised at what captivated Michelangelo. In a private wing of the Duomo Museum, Michelangelo’s final work is displayed. Almost destroyed by the artist’s own hand because of imperfections in the marble made him think it irredeemable (!!), Michelangelo’s final sculpture was all about his personal faith and a reflection on his own life.

The ancient Biblical account says that Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea (John 19:38-42) took Jesus’ lifeless body and laid it in a tomb. In this sculpture, Michelangelo has made Nicodemus, the figure holding Jesus, as a self-portrait. It’s Michelangelo, telling us that he stared at Jesus. And he wants us to, too.

And yes, this was a time when Christian themes and ideas permeated everything, so it’s difficult to parse out what was “good civic religion” and what was actual, acute devotion.

But Michelangelo’s devotion to Jesus isn’t something I’m making up. This sonnet, which he wrote that same years, is inscribed in marble and gilded in gold in this room where the last piece of art from this great master is housed.

Here are Michelangelo’s final words to us:

The course of my life has brought me now

Through a stormy sea, in a frail ship

To the common port where, landing

We account for every deed, wretched or holy

So that I finally see

How wrong the fond illusion was

That made my art my idol and my king

Leading me to want what harmed me

My amorous fancies, once foolish and happy:

What sense have they, now that I approach two deaths -

The first of which I know is sure

The second threatening.

Let neither painting nor carving any longer calm

My soul turned to that Divine Love,

Who to embrace us

opened up his arms upon the Cross

Amen, Michelangelo.

Amen.

Somehow, I seem to have lost my appetite to watch Tik Tok videos….