Trip to Europe - Part 6: Michelangelo and Vasari

The Laurentian Library is open today, though from its web schedule, it seems to open only once or twice a month. This is Michelangelo's late masterpiece: the flowing stair with elliptical treads, over-sized brackets holdings the columns above, inverted pilasters in the windows, and all sorts of other inventions. The entry vestibule is bigger than I thought, and the Library itself is much bigger than I thought.

Fascinating details abound in the ceiling and floors, as well as the clerestory panels, but the whole thing taken together is harmonious and solid. For an old architecture student, for anyone, it's a real treat.

Next, we head over to the Palazzo Vecchio for a different kind of tour. The interiors decorated, in large part, by Michelangelo's friend and biographer Vasari; but our tour starts with a climb up the tower (about half as many steps as the cupola of the Duomo, but the same type of winding stairs are used.

The view at the top is fabulous, if also because you can see the cathedral and Brunelleschi's dome, as opposed to being on top of it. And this is turning out to be the best day weather-wise we've seen so far: deep blue skies and puffy white clouds.

We look down on the peasants and laugh like Medici's, the old Palazzo is full of odd nooks, big iron doors going into teensy rooms, and unexpected lookouts everywhere.

From our descent, we enter the Palazzo tour from the wrong end, but this turns out to be a blessing. The  Second Floor rooms are tall and generous, with amazingly ornate ceilings. We especially enjoy the Hall of Geographical Maps, with it's old, person-sized globe in the center. The maps are large, rendered and illustrated.

We stop off on the Mezzanine, where the rooms are smaller and more plain, but still decored by Donatello and Botticelli. Down on the First Floor each room seems bigger and more ornate. We end our tour where most folks start, in the Salone dei Cinquecento. What a finale. Longer than half a football field, every inch seems decorated with something. They are setting upfor some event, so it's hard to get good light in an iPhone "Pano".

We end our day with some shopping, first at the Mercato Centrale, which wraps around San Lorenzo - that's the dome for Michelangelo's Sacristy down the aisle there.

We walk down to the Mercato Nuovo, with it's classical loggia. At night the hawkers clear the stalls, and the loggia is left completely empty, right down to the floor. Another spectacular day.

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