Florence

Today we went to Florence. During the Renaissance, Florence was a very rich city that had very good artists. The most powerful family was the Medici. The most powerful and famous of the Medici was Lorenzo the Magnificent who is called a prince of the Renaissance even though he is not a prince since Florence was a republic. In the times of Lorenzo, Florence had the best artists, like Michelangelo Buonarotti, Benvenuto Cellini, Leonardo da Vinci, and Botticelli.

In the main square, called the Piazza de la Signoria, there were many famous statues there. There was a replica of the David by Michelangelo (we also saw the real one in a museum in Florence), there was the Perseus by Benvenuto Cellini, a big Poseidon, and many other statues including antique roman statues.

We also saw the so-called Gates of Hell by Ghiberti. They are in front of the Duomo (the cathedral of Florence), they were very famous in the Renaissance, and it took 20 years to make them. They had very good ice cream by the Duomo. Then we walked around the city, then we went to a very good museum called the Uffizi that had lots of Renaissance paintings and also roman statues. There was also a room called the Botticelli room with paintings of the Birth of Venus and Spring, and my father said the room must be worth over a billion dollars!!!