Florence – The David (and more…)

In all my gallivanting around town with the peeps from L’Abri, I’d forgotten to make a reservation to see the David the following morning. Thus, if I stood any chance of seeing him without standing in line all day, I was going to have to head there first thing in the morning. So at 8:30, when the doors opened, I was in line outside the Accedemia. This plan actually worked out exceedingly well, as I only had to wait 10 minutes and I saved myself the 3 EU reservation fee – score!

After blazing through the metal detector (and maneuvering around several tour groups) I was just starting to wonder where the heck they were hiding him, when I turned the corner and There. He. Was. I’m sure there was art lining the hall toward the David, but I didn’t see one bit of it. I was completely transfixed. My eyes widened, my jaw dropped and I walked in a straight line directly toward him. (This is much like how I figure seeing my husband for the first time will be – ha ha.)

Since I had obviously seen pictures of the David before, my first feeling was one of recognition: oooh, I know him! But like so many of the most beautiful things in this world, a camera is simply incapable of capturing the true beauty of what you are seeing with your own eyes. And this was no exception. He was simply, so much more.

I stood and stared at the David for nearly 30 minutes. I took in every point of view possible and just stared. I simply could not get enough of it. Something about it was so remarkable. SO much better than all the other sculpture (hell, all the art) I had seen. For one, it’s enormous. Apparently when it was commissioned, it was going to stand on top of a building, so Michelangelo made it large for that purpose (he also made the hands and head slightly oversized for the same reason). But when it was finished, it was deemed so fantastically good, that it was put in the center of Florence’s main piazza instead (where it stayed for over 400 years).

But its size is not what really makes it remarkable. The only word I can think of to describe it is…intense. When you look at David, you can see the readiness in his face, you can sense the tenseness of his body, and you can feel the intensity of that stare. He is studying his opponent in the distance and his adrenaline is building. He is vulnerable in his nakedness, yet simultaneously….completely confident. He is just an ordinary man, but he believes in an extraordinary God. He is the dark horse opponent, but he will fight, and he will win. And he stands calm and ready with that perfect knowledge coiled within him.

I felt sure that if I watched him long enough, I would see the slow rise and fall of his chest as his breath passed through it, or that at any moment he would suddenly take off from that platform, sprinting full bore toward the giant. It may sound a little silly, but I kid you not. I’m telling you: intense.

(Now as a side note, my new friend Philip talked me into taking a picture of the David. As it turned out, he had almost exactly the same camera as me (one version earlier) and by turning off the flash, the volume, and the display – you can be quite sneaky and take pictures in places where technically it’s not allowed. I don’t know how he did it, but he got me thinking this was a good idea. So before I entered the museum, I prepped my camera, turning off all the dead give-away signs that it was on, and most importantly, the flash.)

After about 30 minutes, I was ready to try and sneak a photo. Philip had already scouted out the most discreet spots, but unfortunately his recommendation was occupied by a gaggle of museum security – that’s not going to work. However, a similar spot on the opposite side of the room was open – I was going to give it a try.

As soon as I get over there, I hear the shutter click as someone else is taking a sneaky photo and I think – this is gonna be perfect. So I get my camera out, but a gentleman with a hippie beard and 1970s glasses (Kristen, he looked just like Pete at work) at the back end of a tour group sees my plan and starts swinging his bag in front of me in an effort to ruin my picture. I ignore him and let ‘er rip anyway. As I press the button, the flash goes off. Oh no!! (Since I had turned my camera off after changing the settings while outside, it had reset itself.) Crap!

Now one of the guards was definitely onto me and sternly warned me “NO PHOTO!” I had already shoved my camera back in my bag, so I put on my best doe-eyed look and nod obediently, trying to give him an innocent “Who? Me?” look. The hippie man stood right in front of me, staring directly at me until I made eye-contact with him. I finally look and he doesn’t say a word: he just slowly and solemnly shakes his head no.

So that didn’t exactly go well. I should really kill Philip for talking me into that. What was I thinking?? I’m a rule follower, not a rule breaker! I actually felt really bad about the whole thing, but there wasn’t much I could do about it now, so I tried to just let it go.

From there I loitered a bit more (so as to not give away that I was a knowing rule-breaker), then blitzed the rest of the museum. Nothing else can really compare after David, I mean really, why do they even try? Besides, I had a 10:15 date with the Uffizi Museum.

On the whole, Uffizi was only o-kay. I had already seen quite a bit of art and there was so much in the museum…it was overwhelming. I simply couldn’t absorb anymore. It was also during this experience that I decided I hate tour groups. They’re big and in the way and since they have a live guide, they seem to think they have exclusive rights to view whatever it is they’re standing in front of (and consequently, they don’t let you near it). It’s terribly frustrating. On top of that, I probably should’ve gotten the audio guide, so I didn’t feel quite so clueless and overwhelmed, but to be honest, I was just spent.

After that, I headed back to the hostel for a night in and some serious blog update time. I met a few interesting people in the hostel common room (this place was like a friggin’ gold mine!), including a guy from Argentina who had been touring through Italy with a band that (apparently) is quite famous in Europe. They had just finished the tour and the other members had gone home already, but he stayed behind to check out Italy. We shared a bottle of wine as we both wrote home until the wee hours of the night.

All in all it was a good day, and with the prospect of Cinque Terre Round Two ahead of me, I slept well that night.