Blog postponed until oz

Paris city

I am about a week and two cities behind in my blog. I have a blog thing that seems to be corrupt, some dodgy connections, and I am having a really good time! However to Paris.

On our arrival in the Marais district, seeing the old scarred and bashed in walls and worn out steps leading to our apartment brought on a surge of all my Parisian fantasies and images in one intense immediate surge: climbing the stairs to be a conspirator in the French Revolution by storming The Bastille, (in reality just down the road), being the starving artistic genius whose works have become classics (I am neither starving or a genius) or an actual location of all the films I have seen where the S.S. round up members of the French resistance in the Second World War.

Open the door and you are outside into a typical Marais street scene. The streets are narrow with a typical Parisian skyline.

At night the dark, narrow, dimly lit streets look like a paperback book cover of an Amy Leduc detective story. Amy being one of my favourite fictional French detectives.

The streets during the day are lined with the little shops and cafes that Paris is famous for.

Photos.

At the end of the street in the Pompidou Centre. 

When it was built in the 1960s, it was a daring piece of architecture. Now, for me, it's just an eyesore, sticking out like a sore thumb. Maybe my intense dislike of the building is the result of my loathing of the way the man after whom the building was named treated immigrants into France when he was Immigration Minister, but that's another story.

So once we were unpacked, settled, and got our bearings, it was time to go out and about. First trip a look at this not very nice from the outside art gallery.

Medicis Part 4

So by now you will realise how important the Medicis were/are. I would recommend you look at Julie's Tripcast for Florence again. Basically anything you see will have a Medici connection.

But this family didn't just amass and possess things,they were patrons to scientists and artists who changed the world forever.

So that's it for beautiful Florence. Next stop, Paris

John: Gucci Museum. Little blog for a big name.

I thought we might do a short little blog, before looking at the Medicis, because you can't really understand Florence without knowing about this family. But to our Gucci outing.

We got off the bus at our usual stop and walked up the street to the main square. It's the street that has lots of designer label boutiques, and hand crafted leather goods. Julie bought another couple of bags from her favourite shop. The shop owners' status went from "shop owner" to her "little man" in Florence

A little further up the road we found some nice matching luggage to go with the yellow ensemble

But we didn't buy it.

Then a little FURTHER up the road we found the ultimate accessory.

We didn't buy that either.

Once into the Gucci museum it was time for lunch. I had a tasty bowl of pasta. It was very pleasant to look out over the main square whilst dining.

The museum was quite interesting even for me who is not particularly in designer stuff. I'll let the photos tell the story. As you look at them bear in mind that one Gucci bag was about the same price as the set of luggage shown above.

Of course there were the designer dresses made for the stars. Mortgage the house just to buy the label. I was surprised to see how slim Selma Hayak was/is

Of course it was exit through the gift shop. It wasn't very big, but it had a few baubles and trinkets to put a down payment on. 

It was a lovely little trip, and made a very pleasant change from all the classical stuff.

Medicis Part 3

So it's all done. All that's left to do is keep the company making profits over time. It seems the Medicis have been very successful at this. By diverting into merchandising they have kept the revenue stream coming in. 

There's books

Cooking schools

C.D.'s

The Florence soccer team are seen world wide via cable T.V. Note the team badge

And DVD's and Television.

The Medici family story started on Italian T.V. This week.

So perhaps now you can see why I said at the beginning those other families, compared to The Medicis, are mere begginers!

Medicis part2

So the company is thriving, and making super profits. The local market is sown up and the opposition disposed of. The only way to expand is to go national, then international. In the time of the Renaissance, in the fourteen hundreds, economic and political power was good, but just as important was religious power. So it was just as important for aspiring entrepreneurs to have someone inside the religion power structure. 

In renaissance times it was the Catholic religion. So it was good to have someone in Rome, better someone in the Papal palace. If that someone was the Pope it was the ultimate, for in those days, the Pope virtually ruled the world.

The Medicis had many Cardinals. One of them being Giovanni, shown below

The Medicis had TWO Popes. One of them, Leo X shown below was a real party boy. 

He was so busy spending the Vatican's money that he had to work out a way of getting some money back. So as any good innovative business man would do, he introduced a low quality high turn over line that would appeal to the mass market. Leo introduced the product of mass produced Papal dispensation. For a small fee (probably a large one) Leo would write you a document that would forgive you all your sins. No need for all that effort of prayer, confession, all that stuff. With one of Leo's products, you would get an instant, to quote Led Zeppelin, "Stairway To Heaven"

While all this was going on, marriages were arranged that would be advantageous to the family's fortunes. As that other pop singer used to sing "What's Love Got To Do With It? One of them was Princess Anna from Austria. The last photo is of Catherine Medici, who married a French prince. Catherine later became queen. 

Photos Anna and Catherine. 

So that's it. All the markets have been conquered. The power plays had played off, all that was left to do now, was to keep the company going to keep the cash rolling in. The last part of the story will tell you how the Medicis have done just that, for hundreds of years. 

John: The Medicis Part One Coming To Power

Without understanding the Medicis you don't understand Florence. The more we stayed and looked around Florence the bigger this family got both in size an

influence, and the harder it became to pin them down. They were/are just too BIG!!

Again (just like when I was trying to explain flamenco) how am I going to get across to the people just how big this family is. Then it became obvious ... just tell the people about what the Medicis are ....  a very successful multinational corporation. So forget those mega American families, and even the successful Italian ones such as the Corleones and the Sopranos. 

Prepare to be amazed by the Medicis. Perhaps the best way to see why they became so powerful is to compare them to a multinational corporation, seeing the similarities in  the qualities of key people and business strategies that make a corporation a success. 

1. An innovative and ambitious CEO who seems to be a natural business man and politician. Colisimo Medici, the founder of the dynasty had these qualities in spades

1. Have a sound business philosophy and stick to it. Below is one of the family crests The motto which was below the shield translated into English said "Hasten slowly." The other image is of a sailing galleon sailing at top speed sitting on top of a turtle. Which was a symbol of how the Medicis made crucial decisions. Consider the options slowly. Then decide fast.

1. Amass a very large working capital. This family did this is by having interests in medicine (the name Medici means doctor) textiles, other industries, and most of all banking and finance. In this enterprise they made lots and lots and LOTS of money

1. Hire a CFO who is an exceptional money manager. The photo below shows the Friar that the Medicis hired. He seems to have been a natural financial genius. So much so that he is regarded as the inventor of double entry book keeping. Just the kind of guy to keep on eye on the finances and "follow da money.

Now the company is in a very solid position

1. By various means ensure you have people in government who are sympathetic to your corporate goals, until you ARE the government. The statue of Cosimo Medici shows him as Governor of Florence.

"Eliminate" the opposition. In those days, Italy was not a unified country. Each city: Florence, Rome, Naples, etc were their own city state. A little "country on its  own. Also there were no laws regarding corporate behaviour. So the best way to eliminate the opposition was to literally defeat it in battle, then subjugate it under your rule. The photo below shows this is just what happened to the city state of nearby Sienna

Once you have successfully completed the take over build offices to show those who had been taken over who is the new boss and use your company's trade marks as visual reminders of the new order. Below is a map of the villas (office blocks) the Medicis built in their newly acquired lands to keep an eye on things. Under that are the two symbols that the Medicis used as visual reminders. You can still see in Florence and other cities today. The first one is usually called The Medici Balls. Some people say the six "balls" represent pills, some say they are coins because of the family's financial interests.

The second symbol, that looks like the French Fleur De Lys, is really showing the long stemmed lilies of Florence. I think it would be reasonable to say that even today when anything to do with Florence is represented in any context, this flower symbol is attached. 

So that ends part one. The Medicis have all the power locally. Now it's time for the family to go national then international. So stay tuned for part two.

John: The Leonardo Machines and The Galileo Gallery

Although we visited these galleries on different days, I thought they would go well together in one blog. I was thinking about how I would write the blog as I was looking at the exhibits. Both the exhibitions are kind of "boys toys" stuff, and unless you are into astronomy, applied maths, quantum physics and the like, just reading about the stuff can quickly become eye glazing material. So I thought I would just take a few examples from each exhibition. What did strike me as I looked at them, was that considering the few resources each man had, to work and experiment with, Steve Jobs, and Bill Gates with all their technical wizardry were just "beginners" in terms of intellectual prowess. First Da Vinci

Recently on T.V. there has been a show called "Da Vinci's Demons." The creators of the show drew on the actual models and drawings of Da Vinci that were shown in the museum. For example, in the show there were Da Vinci's inventions relating to flight, cannon, and a diver's suit.

The great man also had ideas and inventions relating to other things, all of them original inventions of their time.

And after inventing and creating all these amazing theories and machines, he still had the time and the genius to "dash off" the Mona Lisa" and "The Last Supper."

Similarly when looking around the Galileo museum, much of his work and those of his contemporaries was ground breaking stuff at the time. Remember he was so far ahead of his time, that Galileo was charged with heresy for suggesting that the earth went round the sun.

I enjoyed the map room where not only were men trying to draw maps of the known world, (Naturally Australia was not shown) they were trying to work out how to navigate the globe and work out their position on the globe for navigational purposes. 

However, what I enjoyed most was the fact that this museum was filled with the most extraordinary machines and contraptions I had ever seen! They were all proper pieces of scientific equipment to measure real phenomena, air, cylinder rotation and the like. But it was the look of them that got my imagination racing.

 I could imagine that terribly British scientist who makes James Bond's gadgets demonstrating and expounding in his best John Cleese type voice to no one in particular the scientific principles on which each machine was based. Or perhaps Sherlock Holmes running three of these machines at once flat out at an ear deafening level to prove or disprove some theory.

"Holmes, you astound me!"

"Elementary my dear Jonathon!"

 Like any little boy I was totally entranced and fascinated just by the look of some of these contraptions. To see all those fly and cog wheels spinning around with pistons pumping and glass flasks steaming away would have been kid heaven, and just like any little boy I had the same enthusiastic response.

"I want one!"

John: The Uffizi Gallery

Probably one of the most famous art galleries in the world and probably one of the most filmed. For example in the photo below Maggie Smith is taking her students to the gallery in the film The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie.

Getting to the gallery was quite easy for us. All we had to do was get on a bus, about the size of a little shuttle bus and then get off at the Ponte Vecchio. ... I'll just drop that name and let it resonate around the room for a while!

Then after you have walked up a short street of designer label stores you get to one of Florence's main squares. It is then you KNOW you are in Florence. In the square proper are two big statues one of Neptune and one of Cosimo Medici who you will hear more about later.

To one side of the square is the open air museum of huge classical sculptures. The one front right with the three figures, is The Rape Of The Sabine Women. Behind that is Hercules performing one of his twelve labours, and the rest I have forgetten but all just as impressive nonetheless. 

Once inside the big courtyard there are more huge status of Florence's great men. Michelangelo, Boccacio the writer, Machiavelli the diplomat and political schemer, and Donatello, the sculpture not the Ninja Turtle!

Because Uffizi is the Italian word for office, this massive building is set out like an old style office building. There are long corridors and rooms coming off of rooms. In fact the first thing you see when you enter the building is a long corridor of classical sculptures. 

The whole Uffizi gallery is basically a collection of religious paintings and classical sculptures. So if looking at hundreds and hundreds of Maddonas, crucifixions, assorted saints doing good deeds, paetas, and perfectly formed naked Greek classical bodies isn't your thing, you would be better off going somewhere else if you are not concerned about the 'been there done that" factor. But like all galleries with an international reputation, the Uffizi gets very crowded very quickly, and you end up tripping over, and/or pushing and shoving hundreds of other tourists to get to see what our favourite art historian calls "The Blockbusters!' paintings that are known the whole world over. One of this gallery's is Boticelli's "The Birth Of Venus."

We even have our own Aussie version.

After a while all this artistic splendour became a bit too much and there was a need for a coffee break. How about this for a view whilst having coffee!

Did you notice that my gorgeous Oz/Parisian/Roman wife could easily be mistaken for a Florentine in such surroundings?

After the break it was time to go back to the collection. After all this sanctity, piety, and divine retribution I was really in need of wanting to see something else. The photo below is called The Fortune Teller. As our art critic observed, how could anyone not believe all that rubbish, with such an attractive young lady spinning the spell.

Also below  is a photo of one of the rare female painters of the day and one of her works. The true story is that the painter was raped by another artists and what was even rarer still in those days, she complained to the authorities. Of course, nothing was done. Consequently it is believed that the terrible violence and shock she suffered is shown in her paintings. 

A timely reminder that there is often more to a painting than meets the eye.

Yet despite all these artistic splendours there was one thing that really appealed to the crowd, me included, just look at the view from the gallery windows!