David

Wednesdays are going to be cake days.

We began this morning with Italian (if you haven't figured it out, Italian is my only daily class), where nothing interesting happened other than Gloria drawing stereotypical smiley faces. Hans di Berlin was drinking out of a beer stein, Robert and Kurt di Amsterdam were smoking pot, Yoko and Kyoko di Tokyo had what Gloria called "Asian eyes." Yeah. I love Gloria, but her classes are goofier than anything I've ever sat through. I did, however, greatly appreciate the fact that Yoko and Kyoko led to some sort of Italian rant of which I only caught key terms like "John Lennon," "New York Citta" and "Apple." Oh, Gloria.

After class, Erika, Lauren and I went home with Lydia to plan our spring break trip. We ended up not going to Lydia's for this last night because we were cold and tired and the walk to Lydia's is SO FAR and up about fifteen flights of stairs. So we did it today and got our trip almost entirely mapped out and down to the point where we have begun booking hostels, flights and trains.

A quick lunch at a cafe next to Cerchi (this place had no tax for sitting, so Erika and I got cappuccinos too) and it was time for the only class I hadn't been to yet: The Genius of Florence.

This class is part history of Firenze and part field trips every week. I'm more excited about the latter part, but today our professor Fabrizio taught us about the founding of Firenze in 59 A.D. by a soldier named Fiorino. Firenze was a military camp until 1138 A.C. when someone came up with the idea to build a wall around the now functioning citta and call it a Republic. Firenze saw the collapse of the Roman Empire in 476 A.C. and joined the Kingdom of Italy (renamed "Italy" in 1948 when it lost its royal title) in 1861: five years before Venice and nine years before Rome.

The cool part of this lesson was learning about the famous commoners Dante Alighieri and Michelangelo, both of whom came from pauper beginnings to become two of the most celebrated visionaries in European history. Fabrizio told us that in his day, Michelangelo would have been more well-known and wealthy than Steve Jobs was at the height of his career. Very impressive for a guy with no internet.

All this talk of Michelangelo inspired us Via Ventisette Aprile residents to head over to the Galleria dell'Accademia to see the real Michelangelo's David. (Eat some gelato, visit some priceless works of art, repeat.)

Glenn and Kevin had already been there earlier in the afternoon while Erika and I were at Lydia's, but they were so eager to see the David again that they raved about it the whole way from school to the Galleria.

They couldn't quite put how incredible this statue is into words ("smooth" was thrown around a lot...) and after seeing it for myself, I can fully understand the guys' dilemma.

We toured a good portion of the Galleria, but we spent a long time circling David. It's mind-numbing to think that something so incredible was created by one single man. I was awed by the fake David in Piazza della Signoria, but the real thing makes the copy look like a Playdough project.

I could see what Glenn meant when he said the statue was "smooth." There is not a single out of place bump, line, scratch, chip, dent, stroke, anything on the David. The overall perfection of the whole thing is overwhelming, but David's hands and arms are the most impressive part. The lines of his fingers and the veins in his hands and biceps are incredibly detailed. You can see the bones in his feet and the muscles in his neck.

The whole thing is so perfectly detailed, I could swear I saw David breath as we stood there admiring this centuries old masterpiece, hooked up to sensors in the ground monitoring any and all pressure or stress on the David 24/7/365. I wouldn't have been the least bit surprised if he had pulled loose from these sensors and stepped down from his pedestal while we watched, walking right out into the streets of Firenze.

The rest of the museum was impressive, too, with other sculptures and paintings, but I'm pretty sure all five of us kept sneaking peaks back at the most trafficked statue in the building as we wandered around.

It's unbelievable to me that I am blessed enough to live for the time being in a city so full of the world's most admired treasures. I can't count the number of times I've looked at the Duomo, or another ancient building, or now the David and asked myself how it could be humanly possible. There's no way in my mind that one man could create something like the David from a single solid rock. There's no way human hands could design and actually create a work of architecture as daunting and inspiring as the Duomo. I know the pyramids are often thought of as some of the most impossible human creations, but I'm certain even those responsible for the pyramids would stand in disbelief before some of the works I've seen in Firenze.

La bella citta, indeed.