Botticelli Blue Skies: An American in Florence

34. The Uffizi, the Spanish Chapel, and Madame Butterfly

The week has flown by, and there is only today for Becky to see the rest of Florence—impossible to accomplish, but we try. The three of us, to get an early start in the line for entrance to the Uffizi Gallery, arrive at the door at 8 A.M., only to learn that the museum is chiusa for a meeting . We and a hundred others are turned away, some having only this one day in Florence, some who will never come back here and will forever miss seeing The Birth of Venus and The Primavera, who will miss not only Sandro Botticelli but also Raphael, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Filippo Lippi, Giotto, Rembrandt, Rubens, il Bronzino, Rosso Fiorentino , Piero della Francesca, Paolo Uccello, Masaccio, Caravaggio, and El Greco—and heaven knows how many others. (I have been reading Joe’s guide to the Uffizi, so I know what’s to be missed.) We cross the Ponte Vecchio, go past the enormous span of the Pitti Palace and down the street to where Elizabeth and Robert Browning once lived. Their little house is open to the public . . . but only on Wednesdays and Fridays after 3 P.M., which this is not. We consider heading back toward the Boboli Gardens, but Joe checks his museum list and is certain the Spanish Chapel at Santa Maria Novella is open; in fact, he happens to have the Spanish Chapel guidebook in his backpack . He opens it to recommend to Becky the “ Allegory of the Sacred 161 34 The Uffizi, the Spanish Chapel, and Madame Butterfly Sciences and the Liberal Arts”—the giant mural that, as the book says, describes “the activity of human intelligence under the influence of the holy spirit.” We trudge along in the direction of the stazione till we reach the church that, miracle of miracles, is indeed open. We pay our money, walk through the cloisters in a biting wind, and enter the Spanish Chapel, which at this hour of the morning has no one in it but us and a lone museum guard in a blue uniform. He is sitting in the freezing room on a metal chair next to what seems to be a portable radiator. A little red electric light glows beside the switch, indicating the heat is on, but the room is truly tomb-like, the stone walls exhale waves of cold. Joe and Becky stand still in their tracks and gaze upon the walls (wall after wall after wall, in fact)—at a monumental miracle of art, wisdom, and sheer patience. If I am restless after being here for three minutes, how did the artist (I check the guidebook for his name), Andrea Buonaiuti, manage to work here for years? I read to myself the description in the guide book under the heading “Cappellone degli Spagnoli (Spanish Chapel)”: A beautiful stone portal, on whose architrave are sculpted the Martyrdom of St. Peter of Verona and the Guidalotti Coat of Arms, the walls inlaid with black and white marble, and the two magnificent mullioned windows with the twisted marble columns, announce the old chapter hall of the convent. It became known as the Cappellone Degli Spagnoli in 1566 when it was granted to Eleonora of Toledo, wife of the Grand Duke of Cosimo I, to be used by the Spanish colony in Florence as a place of worship. This is exactly the kind of commentary I cannot read standing up, while at the same time looking up, in a freezing cold room when I am also beginning to get hungry. This is one of the many moments when I know I am not suited to tourism. However, I do not wish to let my daughter know how juvenile my attitudes are, so I read further. “Upon entering we render homage to the patron. His body still rests under the old monumental slab, in front of the altar.” I look around, wondering where exactly underfoot this corpse might be. But then I do look up, I really look up, and there above me is Merrill Joan Gerber 162 Christ bearing the great burden of his heavy cross on his thin shoulders , and then Christ crucified (in agony), and then Christ’s descent to limbo (horned devils and evil winged monsters with cloven hoofs are threatening him), followed by (of course) his resurrection, in which he floats aloft in a hallowed circle of sun, whose fiery sunspots...