Affogato and visit to the Bargello

(This is part of our series of posts from our six-week Road Scholar Independent Living and Learning in Florence trip to Italy in Spring 2025. We have an index to all the posts from that trip here.)

On Friday mornings, I have language class but Cheryl doesn’t, so she had time to plan our first real day of sightseeing in Florence during the afternoon. She met me after school and we plunged into the center of town for lunch and dessert. After that, we spent a few hours at the Bargello National Museum, then met up with some of the others in our Road Scholar group for a drink and nibbles.

This is a typical narrow street in Florence, near the Bargello. Yes, cars and motorcycles can drive through these!

We had lunch at Taverna Divina Commedia, near the Bargello.

Cheryl had a spinach flan for lunch. Even relatively casual food is beautiful in Italy!

After lunch, we went to the Vivoli Artisan Ice Cream Shop, which has been famous for 75 years for its gelato and more recently for its affogati. Affogato, which literally means “drowned”, is gelato covered with espresso. Vivoli almost always has a long line of people waiting to order. Our wait was 25 minutes, but it was worth it!

Crafting affogati. They make so many at Vivoli that they have a bar specifically for this purpose.

Their affogato is a work of art: creamy vanilla gelato in the bottom and frozen to the sides of the cup, then filled with espresso. It was a blissfully sweet treat!

Then it was on to the Museo Nazionale del Bargello (the Bargello National Museum), the first national Italian museum dedicated entirely to the decorative arts and sculpture of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

The courtyard of the Bargello, which is located in a stunning 13th-century palace that was later used as a government administration building and then a prison. It is the oldest public building in Florence.

Florentine Duke Cosimo I d’Medici, sculpted in the guise of Augustus Caesar by Vincenzo Danti (1572).

The stairs in the Bargello courtyard, leading to the first floor (which in Italy is always the level above the ground floor).

Cheryl on the ancient steps of the Bargello.

Jason, by Pietro Francavilla (1589). The mythological hero is portrayed with the Golden Fleece, captured from the dragon, shown slain at his feet.

Maiolica pieces that once adorned the palaces of the Medici (mid-1500s). “Maiolica” is highly decorated earthenware with a glaze of tin oxide.

Maiolica basin depicting triumph of Caesar, from the Medici Collection.

The old chapel of the Bargello is adorned with the remnants of Giotto’s last frescoes, which he painted in the 1330s.

The elaborately painted ceiling in one of the rooms of the Bargello.

Panels depicting the Sacrifice of Isaac, by Lorenzo Ghiberti (L) & Filippo Brunelleschi (R), submitted by the artists for the 1401 competition to design the North Door of the Baptistery in Florence’s Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore (the Duomo). Ghiberti won the competition, but Brunelleschi was commissioned to design the dome.

The most famous work by Italian Early Renaissance sculptor Donatello is his bronze David (c. 1440). It was a revolutionary work, the first life-size free-standing nude bronze statue made since classical antiquity. In Florence, David had long symbolized liberation from tyranny, and was a political rather than a purely religious icon. Donatello created an adolescent David, nude like the ancient bronzes but not heroic. He seems almost incredulous at his own victory over Goliath, the giant oppressor of his people. The sculpture is replete with classical references, always a feature of Donatello’s work: the ancient-style footwear, the hat and laurel wreath, and the tiny spiritelli and chariots on Goliath’s helmet. (text from a sign in the museum)

Another David, this one by Andrea del Verrocchio (1469). Verrocchio’s interpretation of the biblical hero is very different from Donatello’s bronze version: here David is a young man with a proud and spirited expression, satisfied with his victory, as elegant as a page boy. (text from sign in museum)

Bacchus by Michelangelo Buonarroti (1497), one of the first Roman works by the artist.

After our visit to the Bargello, we met up with some of the other members of our Road Scholar group for drinks and antipasti at a restaurant in the Piazza Santa Croce.

Brenda (at far right), who is a teacher at the language school, was our host on behalf of Road Scholar.

Brenda captured this beautiful photo of the Florence skyline at dusk.

Walking back to our apartment after sunset, the lights of the city reflected in the River Arno just demanded that I grab a photo.

Florence reflected in the Arno after sunset.