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!

John: Hello Florence.

Yet again I am writing this while I am actually somewhere else. I am stretched out on the bed in our little apartment in Paris.

 I tried writing this blog on the plane, but thanks to Air France's dodgy technology (I'm going to blame them anyway) it disappeared. But I can more or less remember what I wrote word for word, so here it is/was.

Thanks to the media, everyone has some image of Florence in their mind.

 They are always elegant and beautiful and having spent some time there, these images appear to be correct. We were fortunate to stay in a very cozy little boutique hotel in a tree lined leafy suburb. Even the taxi driver was impressed.

After the sprawl and chaos of Naples, our hotel in Florence was a: clean, green, tranquil heaven. But not quite! Neither Julie or I could get the toilet to flush. After the trials and tribulations with our room in Naples the first thoughts were OMG not again! but all was not lost. The plumber whilst repairing it was giving me a running lecture on the principles of: water pressure, forces of gravity, and pounds per square inch, or something like. All the while I was thinking that I really SHOULD have paid more attention to the tour guide when she was talking about lead piping and plumbing B.C. in Pompeii. 

However back in our hotel room in present day Florence, the problem was fixed and would not re-occur, (it didn't) if the following course of action was followed. 

"Sir this is Italy. If you want something to work the first thing you do is pray! When youa done this you push the (flush) button in hard, and let go quick. You try" 

I did ... it worked. So with that problem solved we could look forward to or first day out in Florence the next day, The Uffizi gallery.

Couple of extra Graffiti theme in hotel

Here are a couple of shots that I missed which how the hotel architect had carried the graffiti theme into the hotel. Linda I thought you would really like the real chair with the painted walls.

Lots of Neopolitan stuff here: pizza, washing, spaghetti, and the little man with the bowler hat and vest is Toto, a famous comedian from Naples.

John: Goodbye Naples.

As I am writing this the train has just pulled into Rome's main station on the way to Florence. I really like these fast trains. Because of the pouring rain on the way up the train had to slow down to a crawl at a mere 220km per hour!

So Naples has come and gone. Originally I wasn't to sure about visiting the place,

       "The place is piled high with rubbish" Most of the time it was. 

       "The place is covered by graffiti" It is.

       "As soon as you go into the street you'll have your pockets picked or be mugged." We weren't. 

       "The city's run by The Mafia,"

Maybe, I don't know for sure. I had read somewhere that The Mafia had the contract for the (non) collection of rubbish. Also the only time I felt some presence of the above mentioned organisation was when a gentleman with silver hair dressed smart casual gave me the death ray stare (which was a bit scary) when I took a photo the view from the restaurant. 

I had failed to notice the partly obscured African man sitting behind him who was built like a couple of mountains put together. But probably my interpretation of the scene came from watching too many Italian movies.

It's the people that make Naples. They are quick to smile, and as you have seen from the photos they are not backward in coming forward. They are also generous and warm hearted.

I was told by someone from Southern Italy that the place is a little crazy. I was told not to worry if I thought I was going a liitle crazy because the next step was the last one. It's when you know that you  are going crazy but you don't care ... That's when you fit right in!

Would I go back? Although I wrote this in Rome's station, I am typing it in our hotel room in the clean, green, quiet, more refined, more restrained atmosphere of Florence. Literally just round the corner is the Arno river, the Uffizi gallery, and the Ponte Vecchio. So would I go back? Perhaps it's too soon to tell. But I'm certainly glad that I went the first time.