This entire city is a work of art. Everywhere you turn there is art outside. The buildings are art forms themselves & the Museums hold the history & culture of the Western World through art. I started this day at the Museo Opificio Pietre Dure. It’s located on the other side of the Arno River, beyond the Duomo, just a few blocks from the Accademia. Pietra dura, meaning "hard stone" in Italian, refers to a Florentine mosaic technique where finely cut, colored stones are inlaid into a surface to create intricate designs, essentially "painting with stone". This art form flourished in Florence, particularly in the 16th and 17th centuries, and is closely associated with the Medici family.
I’ll describe the exquisite contents of this small museum & the art of Pietre Dure in a separate blog entry. Be sure to watch for it when I get it posted. Here’s an example of a Pietre Dure Tabletop housed in the Museum. 
Down the street, back to Via Ricasoli is the Accademia.
“The Accademia, or Gallery of the Academy of Florence, originally founded upon the will of Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo as didactic collection for the students of the Academy of Fine Arts, is one of the most famous museums in the world, with a public that exceeded one million six hundred thousand visitors in 2017. The Gallery preserves and displays extraordinary collections of paintings dating back from the 13th to the 16th century.Without a doubt the Accademia is mainly famous for the unparalleled series of sculptures by Michelangelo. Star of the museum is Michelangelo’s David, an icon recognised by western society as a universal symbol of artistic beauty. Created by the artist for a location high up on the Duomo of Florence in 1501-4, the original was displayed in front of Palazzo della Signoria (Palazzo Vecchio) until being moved for conservation reasons to a purpose-built “tribune” at the Accademia in 1873. In the gallery leading up to the David, visitors can take in the unfinished Prisoners, originally intended for the tomb of Pope Julius II. Among the artists represented in the collections, there are Giotto di Bondone, the Maestro della Maddalena, Pacino di Buonaguida, Ghirlandaio, Sandro Botticelli, Filippino Lippi, Pietro Perugino, Pontormo, Agnolo Bronzino, Alessandro Allori or Santi di Tito.Unique in its kind, it is the large model in raw earth of The Rape of the Sabine Women by Giambologna, which execution in marble is visible under the Loggia dei Lanzi in Piazza della Signoria. Moreover, the section of musical instruments is of primary historic importance, with a precious set of objects coming from the Medici family.”
Description Credit: The FirenzeCard App.
The Accademia is by reserved entry. Take your time as you approach Michelangelo’s David and marvel at his large marble blocks: The Unfinished Prisoners. Many people walk right by them without noticing how powerful those sculptures are.
I next went to the Museo at the Firenze Synagogue. Remember that I said that even the buildings are art?!
The Synagogue of Florence is a monumental building of great beauty that stands out on the skyline of Florence with its green dome. It is the centre of the Jewish life in Florence, place of cult and integral part of the city’s history. The Jewish Temple was opened in 1882 after the Emancipation of Italian Jews, located away from the area of the old Jewish ghetto that was demolished in the last decade of the 19th century. As a symbol of acquired freedom, the building welcomes us inside with a rich atmosphere. The revival of the Moorish style that characterises the wall decoration, the polychrome windows, the marble inlays of the floors, the furniture and all the decorations are in the typical eastern taste of the monumental synagogues in Europe during late 19th century. The Jewish museum, set up on two floors inside the Synagogue, completes and enriches the visit to the monumental Temple. It conserves and exhibits an extraordinary collection of ancient objects of Jewish ceremonial art, testimony to the high artistic level reached by the Italian-Jewish community in applied arts. The museum path tells the history of Florentine Jewish from the first settlements to post-war reconstruction with the aid of photographic panels, films, documentary sources.
Next I walked to Piazza Santa Croce. I have memories of this square & the nearby Vivoli’s gelato, from 1974!
Here’s what’s in the Sante Croce Cathedral. It’s pretty special!
“The Franciscan church of Santa Croce is one of the most appreciated places in Florence for its great artistic heritage, the civil value of its funerary monuments and above all, because this large structure symbolises the relation between Christian faith, art and culture in Florence and Italy. Its construction began in 1295, paid for by the population and the Florentine Republic and, since that moment, its story has been deeply interlaced with the history of the city. Indeed, over the centuries, spiritual, artistic and civil testimonies trace its complex identity; in the 19th century it became a monument representing the unity of the new nation. The large church, cloisters and museum complex features feature an array of important works by artists over the centuries. Certainly a don’t miss area of the church are the two chapels decorated by Giotto, the proto-Renaissance painter. The Bardi Chapel is the better preserved of the two, telling stories of the life of Sant Francis in a clear narrative style that would change the way painters told stories in the next century. The exceptional frescoes that surround the high altar, by Agnolo Gaddi, illustrate the Legend of the True Cross, a topic dictated by the dedication of the church. Numerous works by Donatello can be found in Santa Croce, from the delicate pietra serena Annunciation of the Virginto the Saint Louis of Toulouse bronze located in the museum. The Pazzi Chapel by Brunelleschi, accessed by the first cloister, is an architectural wonder in and of itself and a brilliant comparison to the the artist’s earlier Old Sacristy at San Lorenzo. The vast complex and layers of history of Santa Croce are like an art historical textbook presenting centuries of works next to each other, ready for comparison. Due to 19th-century interventions, Santa Croce was defined “the Pantheon of the Italian glories” with the erection of tombs of and monuments to famous figures like Michelangelo Buonarroti, Galileo Galilei, Niccolò Machiavelli, Gioachino Rossini, Lorenzo Ghiberti, Vittorio Alfieri, Ugo Foscolo.”
Credit: Firenze Card App. 
After marveling at Santa Croce’s treasures, I exited to the Piazza for some sweet treats. I had stumbled upon a pre-Easter Chocolate Festival. It was a gigantic market just for chocolatiers, and there were more types of artisan chocolate than I’ve ever seen anywhere. I’ll share a few photos, but I was too busy tasting to take many. 
Exploring Firenze on foot pays off!
Next, using Apple Maps, I walked to the river and crossed a bridge, heading to the Bardini Gardens.
I had read about a wisteria tunnel that only blooms in April. The wisteria on the road to my hotel were blooming, and the Boboli Gardens while very green, did not have many flowers so I wanted to be sure to get to the Bardini Gardens. 
“The Garden of Villa Bardini was already significant before Bardini’s acquisition, consisting of an important Baroque stairway and terraces, and an incredible loggia with a view over the city (where now one can sit and have a drink at the bar). This was one of three main parts of the garden, the others being the English garden with exotic plants, representing a rare example of Anglo-Chinese garden and the agricultural park, with the orchard and marvellous wisteria pergola.This wisteria is a veritable tourist destination when it flowers in April every year.”
Credit: Firenze Card App. 
The gardens were exquisite. There was quite a lot of walking uphill, but I was rewarded at the top with the Wisteria, a 3-D world of site and smell, and a wonderful view of Florence that was amazing. It was already after 5 o’clock, and I had eaten chocolate for lunch. I ordered a drink & an avocado toast and watched the young couples, moms with children, and folks of all ages who had come to experience the Wisteria. I enjoyed the changing light & stupendous views of this city of art. 
I next headed over to the villa. It took me a while because I went back to the garden entrance and then had to climb the garden road again to veer off to the Bardini Villa.
“The 17th-century Villa Bardini (not to be confused with the separate Museo Stefano Bardini) overlooks the city of Florence with an amazing view thanks to its high position on the Oltrarno hill. The most interesting historic period of the complex dates back to the ownership of the collector Stefano Bardini, who purchased it and its garden in 1913. Villa Bardini houses temporary exhibitions and cultural events, and a small museum dedicated to the artist Pietro Annigoni with a selection of works from various periods and of different techniques and subjects that belonged to the artist’s collection testimony his extensive and successful career in the last century. Exhibitions in recent years have celebrated photographers through monographic shows, including a series on female photographers, 20th-century artists like Galileo Chini, as well as themes such as the beloved Pinocchio.”
Credit: FirenzeCard App
“The current exhibit, Caravaggio e il Novecenti. Roberto Longhi & Anna Banti, had made my priority list.
“The exhibition is a charming journey to rediscover the couple Roberto Longhi (art historian) and Anna Banti (writer and translator), who gathered artists and intellectuals who shaped the Italian twentieth century”The exhibition is composed of twelve sections: from Longhi the collector, a great discoverer of Caravaggio, to those on the relationship between Longhi and cinema and between Longhi and his teaching activity. One room is dedicated to Anna Banti as an art historian, writer and translator, who has the merit of having rediscovered the story of Artemisia, accompanied by a selection of the many drawings that Roberto Longhi himself dedicated to her and a series of photographs that portray her in the rooms of the villa Il Tasso.” Credit: FirenzeCard App.
I thoroughly enjoyed the exhibit, & it did not take too long to wander through. I had walked everywhere all day. I did not think I could make it back to the hotel even though it wasn’t very far. It was quite a walk back down to a road where I could get a taxi with a few extra steps thrown in for wrong turns always with a new beautiful sight.
I was happy to find an available taxi driver named Lorenzo. All of the drivers know where the Hotel Horto Convento is. And on the way there, I asked Lorenzo if he would like to work on Sunday as I needed a ride to Monsumanno Terme to my next destination. Lorenzo doesn’t work on Sunday, but he called a friend and by the time I walked back into my hotel, I had a WhatsApp number for a pastry chef turned taxi driver, Constantino at an agreed non-meter price & pickup time for a private transfer on Sunday afternoon. . Sometimes things just work!
Actually, it was a good thing that I had that snack at the Bardini Café, as I was too tired to go out to dinner! What a full and wonderful day!
This featured blog entry was written by Nsevers from the blog On the Road Again.
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