Life & Work

Renaissance richness of Italian art and culture

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The Leaning Tower of Pisa next to Pisa’s majestic Catholic church. PHOTO | MARGARETTA WA GACHERU

It’s impossible to see all the historic highlights of Italy in a single week. Yet there’s no harm in trying as we did over the holidays when a group of family and friends rendezvoused outside Venice in the little town of Vicenza on the northern side of the Italian ‘shoe’ and headed south.

Italians, who are notable for driving small cars (given that most of their roads are quite narrow), also tend to be aggressive behind the wheel and prone to honking needlessly. So even though our driver was law-abiding and drove with the flow of traffic, we were incessantly honked at along the way.

Nonetheless, the landscape between Vicenza and Pisa was lovely although initially covered in a heavy mist. Once we hit the mountains, however the mist disappeared and we encountered a slew of magnificent tunnels before finally reaching Pisa, notable of course for its ‘leaning tower.’

Italian ‘Shoe’

Pisa is on the west side of the Italian ‘shoe’ on the Adriatic Sea, but apart from the leaning tower, its adjoining cathedral and baptistery, we were quickly inclined to get back on the road and head for my number one most desirable destination, Florence.

For me this was the high point of my week-long travels around Italy as I had read about this ‘heart’ and ‘cradle of the [High] Renaissance’ for as long as I’d been studying art history. So I wanted to get there as quickly as I could, skip out on socialising and simply hit as many galleries, museums and ‘accademia’ as possible.

My brother Tom had bought the group Steve James’ tourist guide book to Italy from the US so we all had a chance to take a quick crash course in the car on important sights to see even if we only had a day and a half to see this amazing ‘birth place’ of modern Western civilization.

Uffizi Gallery

Comprehensive pre-planning is the only way to take such a trip which is what our host and hostess, Mike and (especially) Lisa did. They’d even made a previous trip to Florence with another set of family and friends who’d come visiting a few months before.

Knowing that my priority first was to see the famous Uffizi Gallery, the largest home of most of the early and high Renaissance paintings, they had even staked that gallery beforehand.

Original works

The incredibly beautiful apartment that Lisa found for us to spend the night in was right across the Arno River from the Uffizi so that was my initial thrill.

However, folks in our crew adored Italian pasta so we had to have lunch prior to making our trek across the river. I’ll be honest and say that it was excruciating for me to watch family eat pizza and pasta and take their time while I was counting the seconds before getting inside the gallery.

The others were of two minds, whether to go see Michelangelo’s famous sculpture David at the Accademia across town or to accompany me to the Uffizi.

I was singular in my stance. I would go alone if necessary, but if anyone wanted to accompany me to the Uffizi, they were welcome. This was an opportunity of a lifetime for me and I wished not to waste another minute procrastinating. I bid the group good-bye as Mike and his daughter Faith chose to walk to see the David and the others finally followed me into the Renaissance gallery.

For four and a half hours, I was in heaven. Not everyone would feel as I did, just to see original works by artists like Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Bottecelli, Titian, Raphael, Fra Lippi and even Rembrandt. But I was delighted to find that my brother and sister-in-law as well as my daughter-in-law (and her three-year-old) all made it around the same set of gallery rooms as I did.

That would not be the end of our week-long travels in the land I’ve been told (by one Italian Ambassador to Kenya, Roberto di Leo) is ‘the most beautiful country in the world.’ But the rest of our journeys will have to be for another story.