June 26th, 2019
All signs point to us going out with a bang this week! It’s difficult to believe we only have two or three more days of work left to do in Florence - the trip really has flown by. This last weekend was a long one, capped by the festival for the city’s patron saint, San Giovanni - Alice and I were lucky enough to get perfect seats along the walls lining the Arno to watch the fireworks display above San Miniato.
Of course, Tuesday meant getting back to work, and Alice and I were whisked away by our friend Gail to Siena’s Palazzo Pubblico to improve our models of some of those frescoes. Siena is a fascinating city, and much of its architecture remains unchanged compared to Florence’s city center; they were also preparing for their own festival, the Palio di Siena, featuring a horse race held twice a year. It’s a shame we won’t be around long enough to see it!
We returned to the Innocenti today, whose staff were kind enough to permit us to photograph and scan their archives: a large, complicated room that will certainly be difficult to model, but we’ll try regardless! Our final photographic project for tomorrow will be one of the Innocenti’s inner cloisters, one that I believe was designed by Brunelleschi! I also want to model the two terracotta medallions that are not on the façade, but instead within the museum - it could be really rewarding to see what the building would look like with all fourteen medallions returned. Our time here is almost up!