The City of Florence
The art and treasures in the City of Florence are beyond belief, and given our whirlwind tour of the city, we only caught the briefest of glimpses of its richness. Thanks to the speed-train from Rome, we made it to Florence in about 95 minutes .. and our first stop was the church of Santa Maria Novella.
Following a quick tour of Santa Maria Novella, Dr. Lev led us on a “brisk walk” (for everyone else, it was a ‘power walk’) across Florence to the Brancacci Chapel. We had timed tickets for the visit to the chapel, but rather than forcing us to enter the chapel as two distinct groups (each allowed 10 minutes in the chapel), they allowed us in as a single group and gave us the full 20 minutes in the chapel. To say that Dr. Lev was elated to go into greater detail about the artwork in the chapel was an understatement. She is a woman who deeply loves what she does, and causes her listeners to share her passion for Art History.
The mastery that went into the paintings in the Brancacci Chapel is deep. Upon entering the chapel, on the right pillar, Adam and Eve are depicted in the Garden of Eden before the fall … strong, robust, and shameless in the eyes of one another and God. The left pillar, however, depicts Adam and Eve after the fall … and their appearance is markedly different; Adam, who had a robust gym-bod – is now depicted as a man who works the earth … and whose body is showing the pains of that. Similarly, Eve has shame about her … and is not as beautiful and fit as she was before the fall. The various images within the chapel incorporate perspective (which was a new technique at the time these paintings were done). Refer to the PDF from Fr. Edward Linton for complete details on the intricacies of the Brancacci Chapel.
