Day 36: Friday
I woke up at 5am to go watch the sunrise to make up for the time I missed out. Elli and I walked back to Piazzale Michelangelo, and made it just in time to see the sun rising through the clouds. Since it was cloudy it wasn’t the best sunrise, but it was still an amazing view of the city and mountains, and much better with no people around. We were tired, however, and decided to go back home where I got to sleep for two hours before we got up to go watch the parade for the celebration of San Giovanni, a local holiday, which is why we didn’t have class. We went over to the boys’ to wait for Petrie, and then him, us, Mike, David, Andrew, and Alex set out to see if we could find the parade. Accent had told us it was by Santa Maria Novella, but Joe, Brandon, and Dylan were over there and said nothing was going on, so we decided to look near the Duomo. It was busy, but there definitely was no parade. We finally gave up, and went with Mike and David and Alex to get their tickets for the death match later in the day. I was still tired, so after lunch (spiral mac and cheese again yaaay) I took another nap. Then I woke up and was excited because it was our tour with Rocky at the academia! It took a while to get inside, but when we did, we spent an hour standing in front of David while Rocky poured his endless knowledge on us. We learned that the marble used to make David was 17 feet tall and quarried from nearby Carrarra mountains, although how they got a several ton block of marble back from there in those days is beyond my comprehension. We also learned that the commission for the statue was passed before Michelangelo was born, and that it was used by two other sculptors before he even got his hands on it. We also learned that David was struck by lightning long ago when he lived in front of Palazzo Vecchio, and now his ankle is weak so they had to wrap tape around it to make sure he doesn’t fall over. I also didn’t know that at some point his arm had fallen off, and Vasari claims he helped reattach it. We also analyzed the political implications of Michelanglo’s David, him being obviously much older than 14, and also discussed the debate of whether it captures the moment of before or after David fought Goliath. Rocky may have some influence on my opinion, but I think even without him giving us his opinion I still would’ve thought that it was before. Then we moved to look at the slaves, which are unfinished sculptures that were supposed to be for Pope Julius’s tomb, but Michelangelo never finished because he was constantly being called away for other projects and the political powers were constantly shifting. We spent a little while longer wandering through the rest of the museum, but there was nothing else worth noting, since the museum was built to house David anyway. Elli and I went out to eat at a place between my apartment and my parent’s hotel, and then we went back and got ready for the fireworks. It was already super crowded by the river, and we couldn’t really see, but Mike and I found a spot where we could see at least a little bit, so we were satisfied. The display was impressively long, about 45 minutes, but all fireworks displays are always pretty much the same. I’m sure it would’ve been much better up close. It felt sort of like our 4th of July, it being so close, and seeing those fireworks far and away more than made up for missing out on the 4th. No one else really wanted to go out except for me, Elli, Kari, and Mike, so we decided to go over to the Old Stove by the Palazzo Vecchio instead of the one by the Duomo we always go to. David promised to meet us later, but he was too sick. We had a good time sitting in the basement and hanging out, then went home.
