everything with bows, ribbon and lace: Lifestyle of the Rich and the Famous... The Medici Family!

Sunday afternoon my roommate Kim and I had originally planned to go wine tasting in Tuscany but realized that the vineyards were closed so I had the bright idea to visit the Pitti Palace and the Boboli Gardens. The Pitti Palace was the second palace of the Medici family in Florence and is located across the Ponte Vecchio. Something really interesting that I learned about the Ponte Vecchio was that in the time of the Medici family, they had a corridor built in the Ponte Vecchio for them to travel from the first palace, Palazzo Vecchio (the town hall and now also a museum), to the Pitti Palace. This corridor was so that they could travel across the river without having to walk through the public streets. Pretty fancy huh!

The front of the Pitti Palace

Statue out front of the Pitti Palace. Controversial with Florentines because its a contemporary piece in front of the classical beauty of the palace.

As you can imagine, the Medici's weren't short on dough by any means so the palace was one of the most extravagant things I have ever seen. The walls were adorned with silk brocade (very expensive fabric) and the floors generally made of marble. Each room had many paintings and frescos covering the ceilings, so the entire palace was covered in art. As I learned in my Art History class here, art was considered to be another symbol of wealth because only if you had enough money could you commission an artist to make a piece. The Medici's palaces were both covered with paintings, fresco ceilings and statues. Beauutifullll!

Beautiful chandelier and fresco inside the palace

Some art inside the palace

After walking through the palace for a while, we came across the costume gallery, which was my personal favorite! :) I have always loved fashion whether its something that is in style now or has some interesting historical value so I loved this portion of the museum. Learning the history of costume in my classes at WSU made understanding and navigating the exhibit quite easy and very enjoyable for me. In the museum, you could see the designs of Roberto Cavalli, Emilio Pucci, Roberto Capucci, and Gianfranco Ferré among others. The designs of Roberto Capucci and Gianfranco Ferré were some of my favorites, and Cavalli and Pucci are always good classics of course!

Blue geometric patterned dress is by Emilio Pucci next to the green one which is Roberto Cavalli. Photo in the center is of dresses from the 1920's. I LOVED the green flapper styled one! :) Dusty rose dress on the far right is also by Roberto Cavalli circa 1976. It had beautiful floral appliqué on the shoulders.

Designs from the 1980's. I loved the pink and purple feathers :)... the dress was made of velvet and had a giant bow on the small of the back.

The dress on the left had such an unusual, beautiful design. The dress in the center was a ball gown of the 1800's. Dress on the right is a design of Roberto Capucci, one of my new favorite designers. He had beautiful designs and I had never heard of him before this exhibit.

Once we were done going through the palace, we exited to go see the Boboli gardens. Unfortunately the flowers weren't in bloom but the landscape was just as breathtaking. The amount of land belonging to the Medici family is seriously out of this world. To be born into that family, would have been a real shot of luck! Kim and I enjoyed the gardens for a few hours on a sheet writing out postcards and reading our books. It was a perfect Sunday in Firenze!