Florence: A Medici Dystopia
40 images Created 27 Oct 2010
In the home city of the de' Medicis - that banking and political family dynasty that ruled Tuscany from the late-14th to the mid-16th centuries - the Renaissance is a thing of the past.
Within the Uffizi galleries the Renaissance era seems a sugary coating in the city's heritage when outside, amid the bitterness of an Italian street, we see what a dystopia modern Florence really is.
Where any souvenir kiosk graces a street corner, the most featured genitalia in history - more than the brothels of Pompei - the modest uncircumcised genitalia from David's 17 feet tall marble statue shaped between 1501 and 1504 by Michelangelo is now printed on to boxer shorts exactly where the opening slot conveniently lets a bloke wee away his Peroni in the via Corti.
The face of a young Francesco I de' Medici adorns a construction screen, sporting a single marker penned tear while blue cable piping sprouts like an industrial Triffid from the underground concrete society. It is as if the spirits of the dynasty are posthumously mourning the slow death of their great city that once led every aspect of European thinking.
By the death of Cosimo III in 1723, Tuscany was arguably both morally and fiscally bankrupt and today, without tour group gratuities, hotel surcharges and the covert ristorante coperto, Florence would decline all over again.
This is an excerpt of a blog post at England's Pleasant Pastures:
http://wp.me/p3fbj-be
Within the Uffizi galleries the Renaissance era seems a sugary coating in the city's heritage when outside, amid the bitterness of an Italian street, we see what a dystopia modern Florence really is.
Where any souvenir kiosk graces a street corner, the most featured genitalia in history - more than the brothels of Pompei - the modest uncircumcised genitalia from David's 17 feet tall marble statue shaped between 1501 and 1504 by Michelangelo is now printed on to boxer shorts exactly where the opening slot conveniently lets a bloke wee away his Peroni in the via Corti.
The face of a young Francesco I de' Medici adorns a construction screen, sporting a single marker penned tear while blue cable piping sprouts like an industrial Triffid from the underground concrete society. It is as if the spirits of the dynasty are posthumously mourning the slow death of their great city that once led every aspect of European thinking.
By the death of Cosimo III in 1723, Tuscany was arguably both morally and fiscally bankrupt and today, without tour group gratuities, hotel surcharges and the covert ristorante coperto, Florence would decline all over again.
This is an excerpt of a blog post at England's Pleasant Pastures:
http://wp.me/p3fbj-be
