Photo Safari-Florence

Brunelleschi's revolutionary dome

     I am going to Florence! In case you don't know, Florence was the birthplace of the Renaissance. It all started when Brunelleschi built this magnificent, hardy dome using revolutionary methods never before seen! This dome has become the legacy of Florence and the Medici family. I gotta admit, it's pretty big!

     The grand Medici palace was purchased by Catherine de Medici because, being a French princess and Florentine duchess, she needed lots of room "for her family" and for her own amusement. It would be AWESOME to live in THAT huge thing!! But anyway, the duchess was married to Cosimo II, who ruled middle Italy and "reawakened" or "rescued" the Renaissance. Cosimo was a savior to the Florentines and one of the best Medici rulers, better than the bankrupt Lorenzo and the disastrous Pope Leo X and Pope Clement VII. Second only to Cosimo I, who started it all and began the climb of the Medici family to power. Pretty heavy stuff.....

     The despot Pope Julius forced Michelangelo to paint the great fresco "The Last Judgement" even though he was a sculptor. The image shows what the end of the world would be like, with the wicked suffering the apocalypse and the righteous ascending to heaven. The outlook of the fresco actually had to do with Michelangelo's bad mood when he painted it. Then, I guess I would do the same thing only less bigger and with big black plasma holes instead of paint. Unfortunately, the true look of the Fresco was lost long ago when the Catholic Church, horrified that there were nudes in the fresco, dispatched a painter that covered up the...uhhhhh...areas. This painter was laughingly called "Braghettone", literally meaning "large underpants"! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!

These two ugly mugs are (left to right) Pope Leo X and Pope Clement VII, the two disastrous Medici popes. Unlike the other Medici family members, these cousins didn't patronize lowly peoples. They held huge, elaborate banquets that even I would have gone to! When Pope Leo X was declared pope, there was a huge banquet and they even painted a little boy gold! Of course, as a bad omen, the boy was poisoned by the paint and died. Nobody cared though. To bad for him.....