Lucca

We took a day trip to the town of Lucca.   While Lucca doesn't have the same overload of artistic treasures as Florence, it is a town which has its relatively intact medieval walls and something resembling its original streetscapes.  We enjoyed wandering around the town, and there were three wonderful old churches, all dating back to the 13th century.  One of the churches was even partially constructed with stones from a Roman amphitheater (Lucca was a Roman town, as well, and still features the original Roman street layout.)
Here is one church, with a peculiarly asymmetric facade:

Inside, a very decorative ceiling

And a tomb which spoke to me:

Another church:

And one with a mosaic facade:

We also wandered into the garden of a palazzo, where I got entranced by some bamboo.

Finally, on our return, I was able to admire the beautiful 1930's architecture of the train station, one of the few (only?) modern things in Florence.

Florence Part 3

We visited the Brancacci Chapel and the Uffizi museum.   The Brancacci Chapel, about 100 meters from our apartment, features frescoes done by Masaccio and others in the early 15th century.  It is truly amazing to see these frescoes in the place where the have been for the last 600 years or so!   The most famous part of the frescoes is the expulsion of Adam and Eve.

And a general view of the chapel:

We also went to the Uffizi Gallery.   While we saw some wonderful paintings there, especially the medieval ones, the experience in general was a nightmare.  Hordes of tour groups filled some of the rooms, completely blocking access to some paintings.   The Botticelli room was totally filled with selfie-stick wielding mobs; we didn't even venture in.    Given that more and more people in the world want to see these very famous images, you have to ask how can a museum deal with this trend.  (Call it the Mona Lisa syndrome.)  I have no good answers, but I do find it a very strange phenomenon.   The Uffizi is in the process of renovation and reorganization, so perhaps some of these problems can be alleviated.  And I suppose if you time your visit well, you can avoid some of the crowds.  

There was this angelic keyboard player:

And  I really love the color of the robes:

In general, I found the most satisfying experiences in Florence were in churches, where you see both the architecture and the paintings and frescoes as they were conceived.

Speaking of which, we visited the Duomo and the Baptistry, two of the other famous churches in Florence.  I love the gothic colored stones of the exterior, so different from the Northern Gothic.

and Giotto's campanile:

The interior is less decorated:

The Baptistry, next door, has an amazing ceiling of mosaics:

With some Bosch-like details:

I start to understand what the Stendhal Syndrome is all about...

From Wikipedia:

When he visited the Basilica of Santa Croce, where Niccolò Machiavelli, Michelangelo and Galileo Galilei are buried, he saw Giotto's frescoes for the first time and was overcome with emotion. He wrote:

I was in a sort of ecstasy, from the idea of being in Florence, close to the great men whose tombs I had seen. Absorbed in the contemplation of sublime beauty... I reached the point where one encounters celestial sensations... Everything spoke so vividly to my soul. Ah, if I could only forget. I had palpitations of the heart, what in Berlin they call 'nerves.' Life was drained from me. I walked with the fear of falling.^[2]

Although psychiatrists have long debated whether it really exists, its effects on some sufferers are serious enough for them to require treatment in hospital and even antidepressants.^[3] The staff at Florence's Santa Maria Nuova hospital are accustomed to dealing with tourists suffering from dizzy spells and disorientation after admiring the statue of David, the masterpieces of the Uffizi Gallery and other treasures of the Tuscan city.^[4]

Even though there are many descriptions of people becoming dizzy and fainting while taking in Florentine art, especially at the aforementioned Uffizi in Florence, dating from the early 19th century on, the syndrome was only named in 1979, when it was described by Italian psychiatrist Graziella Magherini, who observed and described more than 100 similar cases among tourists and visitors in Florence. There is no scientific evidence to define the Stendhal syndrome as a specific psychiatric disorder; on the other hand there is evidence that the same cerebral areas involved in emotional reactions are activated during the exposure to artworks.^[5]