FALL 2024 TRIP:
OCTOBER IN FLORENCE
OCTOBER 15 - 20, 2024

October, when most tourists have left the city defined geographically by the Tuscan hills and the Arno river, when the trees in the hills change color, when the grapes for Chianti are harvested, and when the truffles are ripe for hunting, is a magical time to visit the home of the Renaissance of the fifteenth century. Florence is the locus for the beginning of humanistic studies, the rise of banking, finance and oligarchical families (Medici, Strozzi, etc) who not only control politics but become the new patrons of artistic ventures and artists who earlier had been commissioned by the church or royalty. Through the retrieval of ancient Greek texts saved by the Byzantine empire, and the opening of universities in the 13th century, humanities and man's place in the world rather than just religion became academic studies.

Artists who were anonymous in the middle ages became famous and a new way of representing the observed world became important. Painters such as Masaccio (The Brancacci Chapel), Fra Angelico, Botticelli, Fra Lippi, Uccello developed the surface of the wall, wooden panel, or canvas as a three dimensional view through a window, sculptors such as Donatello Verrocchio developed the first free standing human figures since antiquity, and architects such as Brunelleschi and Alberti conceived and built new types of buildings with domes (churches) and antique detail (palazzi) as well as writing treatises on the arts.

During the five day and six night stay in Florence (October 15-20) at the Rocco Forte Savoy Hotel near the Duomo and Baptistery we shall visit the Bargallo, the Accademia the Uffizi and Pitti Palaces, the churches of San Lorenzo, Santa Croce, Santa Maria Novella, and Orsanmichele, to see the frescoes, paintings, sculpture, and architecture of the "rebirth" as well as visit the Tuscan hill towns. And of course eat and shop and enjoy.

Six nights beginning October 15 and five days ending October 20, 2024
Hotel Savoy, Piazza della Repubblica 7, Firenze 50123, deluxe room including breakfast and VAT

The total cost for the trip per person including hotel stay, entrance fees to museums and other cultural venues (some advanced reservations like the Uffizi), a van for a day trip out of Florence, an accompanying licensed Florentine guide (necessary to allow us to lecture to you), should be around $10,000, mainly because of the high cost of hotel rooms in Europe.

 

Space is limited; please email Cynthia to inquire about availability.