A private Renaissance in the world’s cradle of Art

“What is the fatal charm of Italy? What do we find here that can be found nowhere else? I believe it is a certain permission to be human, which other places lost long ago.” –Erica Jong

FLORENCE, Italy – In the city of Florence, art is not just something you do to pass the time, it is a way of life.

Creativity is everywhere. It is in the streets, in the churches, in the blood. Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Botticelli, Dante, Machiavelli and other great intellects once roamed the city’s narrow streets, lost in thought, adrift in a sea of ideas.

Florence is a creator’s city and I was living in the center of it all as part of Southwestern College’s Fall 2015 Study Abroad Program. For two and a half glorious months, 25 students lived and breathed Italian cultura.

We were welcomed on arrival by a warm and hearty late-summer breeze that seemed to have brought with it millions of incessantly buzzing mosquitos that hover above the polluted emerald waters of the Arno River. It was going to take a lot more than some pesky insects to keep me from enjoying my short time in one of the greatest and most revered cities in the world.

Known as Firenze to natives, Florence is the capital of the Tuscany region in Central Italy. It is a relatively small city where most choose to travel by foot instead of by macchina. Virtually everything is within a 30-minute walk.

Florence grew up alongside the Arno River, which splits it in two. On the north side is a majority of Florence’s well-known monuments and landmarks, while the south, l’oltrarno (which literally means everything on “the other side of the Arno”), is more picturesque and relaxed.

Tourism is concentrated in the north for obvious reasons. This is where all the action is and the streets become suffocated with loud, rude, fanny pack-wearing tourists who ruin the experience for the rest of us. After three weeks of living in Florence, I had had just about enough of them impolitely jostling me at every turn. If Dante were to write his “Divine Comedy” today, there would most definitely be a special circle in Inferno made specifically for the inventor and users of the dreaded selfie stick.

I frequently strolled the dark streets at night listening to classical music on my iPod and contemplating the universe, life and everything in between. Florence is a great place for imagination and my thoughts would go wild with ideas for stories and poems. I would always end my walks at the Ponte Vecchio bridge looking into the depths of the Arno, wondering what an insignificant person like me was doing in a magical place like this.

When I was not in school, I spent every waking hour visiting everything I could in the city.

What I found myself most amazed by were the sculptures that decorated the city. I had never really given much thought to sculpture as an art form, but in Florence I found myself studying each one, wondering how the artists could turn a monolith of smooth stone into such works of intricate beauty.

The Galleria dell’Accademia di Firenze (Gallery of the Academy of Florence), located on the North side of the Arno, is home to the most famous sculpture in the world. Here resides the Michelangelo masterpiece “David.” This 17-foot tall nude marble statue depicting the biblical hero who slew Goliath stood outside the entrance to the Palazzo Vecchio in the Piazza della Signoria Square for 369 years until it was moved inside the Accamedmia in 1873 (a replica was later erected outside the Palazzo in 1910). Nothing compares to the awe of staring into “David’s” white eyes and stern, hypnotic face. To be in the presence of such a beautifully chiseled masterpiece is enough to cause Stendhal Syndrome (also known as Florence Syndrome, caused by exposure to great art of natural beauty).

Il Accademia also houses some of Michelangelo’s unfinished sculptures. Located in what is known as the “Hall of Prisoners” corridor leading up to the “David,” these four abandoned sculptures depict “prisoners” (alternately known as “slaves” and “captives”) meant to represent the imprisonment of the soul to the flesh, showing that humans are nothing more than slaves to their own follies. These figures are truly unsettling, looking as if they are struggling to break free from the marble that has taken hold of them.

Michelangelo believed that a sculptor was a tool of God and that it was his job to merely reveal the figure already lying beneath the rock, to breathe life into God’s very own artwork. And in this respect, he nearly succeeded. Many believe that Michelangelo left these statues unfinished on purpose, to show humans attempting to break free of their trappings and to reach a semblance of heavenly freedom.

A 13-minute walk from the Accamedmia is one of the most impressive collections of statues I have ever seen, the Loggia dei Lanzi, a majestic building with wide arches open to the street. Located inside the Piazza della Signoria square, next to the the Uffizi Gallery and the Palazzo Vecchio (the town hall of Florence), the Loggia dei Lanzi is grand and mesmerizing. Full of everything from snarling lions to Greek Gods to centaurs to human representations of the four cardinal virtues (Prudence, Fortitude, Temperance and Justice), the Loggia is a feast for the eyes.

In here one can find “Perseus with the Head of Medusa,” a rather grisly bronze sculpture depicting the Greek hero standing erect, triumphantly holding the severed head of the Gorgon, the bloody gristle dripping from the fresh wound. My favorite statue was “The Rape of the Sabine Women,” which shows an incident in Roman mythology where the first men of Rome acquired their wives by abducting the neighboring women of the Sabine people. I found myself coming to this statue again and again. I was transfixed by the intricate, snake-like design, how the three figures intertwined and seemed to flow into one another. I have never seen anything like it and it truly shows the brilliance of great sculpting.

While the North side of the Arno has all the famous landmarks such as the Accademia, Duomo, Uffizi and others, it was l’oltrarno, everything that is on the other side of the river, where I felt more at home. It is a quaint and relaxed respite from the hustle and bustle of its sister side. Here lie the secret passages of Florence, the hidden treasures that are there for those who bother to look.

One of the many gems on this side of the river is Il Museo di Storia Naturale (The Museum of Natural History), otherwise known as “La Specola,” one of the most interesting and oddest museums ever built. It opened its doors in 1775 and until the early 19^th century was the only scientific cabinet of curiosities open to the public. Here one can find a menagerie of taxidermy animals. Lions, tigers, apes, squirrels, lizards and even a hippo are among some of the animals on display in all manner of creative poses. Much care is given to the presentation of these animals and they look as if they are ready to come alive at any moment.

This museum is not without a sense of humor either. In the ape room, right next to the Chimpanzees, there is an empty case with the label “Homo Sapien” on the bottom. The visitor is invited to get into the case and strike a pose. It is almost as if the curators are saying, “Just wait. We’ll all end up here one day, too.”

“La Specola’s” real claim to fame, however, is its large collection of anatomical wax models, one of the largest in the world. Visceral and disturbing, the 10 rooms dedicated to the models are strewn with eyeballs, penises, uteruses, brains and other assortments of body parts along the walls. In the middle of each room lie full bodies, each depicting a different system in the human body. Veins, muscles, skin, bone, everything is on display. A look of pain flits across each specimen’s face and many times I almost forgot that these were wax and not actual dissected humans.

Despite my affinity for all things morbid, my favorite spots in all of Florence were the Bardini and Boboli Gardens, two lush estates located in l’oltrarno. I found the Boboli to be too crowded and hectic for my tastes and I preferred the much more intimate Bardini. Located adjacent to the Boboli, the Bardini is smaller and more easily navigable. There were fewer tourists and no one really seemed to be in a hurry.

Time slowed and I was content to sit on the grass and have a picnic or write in my notebook. Whenever I looked up from my book, the lush green trees seemed to swallow me up and cradle me in their arms. I suffer from severe depression and anxiety that can be triggered quite easily. Whenever I was in the Bardini I felt at peace, as if nothing in the world mattered except me, my pen, my notebook and the green, green grass. Everything else just melted away.

From the dirty water of the Arno to the grotesque bodies in “La Specola” to Michelangelo’s “David,” Florence is full of intrigue. Two months was not enough to see everything. Words fail to describe the immense beauty of the city and its people, some of the kindest I have ever met, unafraid to be themselves. It is as if the city grants them permission to be as weird or as creative or as loud as they need. Florence will always be my second home and lives in my heart. “Veni, vidi, amavi” (I came, I saw, I loved).