I forgot to write that yesterday I went into Badia Fiorentina, a monastery across from the Bargello that has the slender tall belfry that can be seen in views of the Duomo.

In the chapel is a Fillipino Lippi painting.

After a busy week and especially yesterday’s “Fry-day” of sketching in the sun and heat, I took a slow morning and did not go out until 11 am.

This is my third Saturday in Florence and it seemed the busiest day I had seen.

I went to Casa Martelli, a palazzo which from the 1400s until the 1990s was owned and lived in by the Martelli family. It was purchased by the Italian state and in 2009 opened as a museum showing a noble family’s domestic environment.

The museum is only open two days a week, you have to book and go with a guide. But entry is free. However, the guide only spoke in Italian. (Good listening practice for me.)

Falling fortunes caused the family to sell its most valuable treasures. The painting of the family in a room that still has many of the paintings depicted, now no longer has Donatello’s marble David which can be seen on the right. The marble David is now in the Bargello.

They sold other significant sculptures that are in other museums. Some minor paintings by well-reputed painters remain, like Beccafumi:

The paintings are hung old-style from the ceiling down to below eye level and it is hard to photograph some without reflections from the ceiling spotlights.

Below is a Salvatore Rosa painting on the right which can be seen in the family portrait:

Brueghel:

Below is the Stanza Gialla (Yellow Room). The upholstery and the walls are all the same yellow silk material. The painting is by Piero di Cosimo. Note the arrangement of the chairs around a little table set up for conversation. I guess that is one way to entertain yourselves before television.

The ballroom:

This is the Stanza di Giardino d’inverno (winter garden room):

The room the guide called the “spa” is a large room with a bathtub surrounded by fake and trompe-l’oeil ruins. It’s hard to tell the real brick and stone from the painted ones.

I inspected how the trees were painted. Much better than my efforts.

It was another hot afternoon reaching a high of 34, so I returned to gelato research. This was from La Strega Nocciola (Witch hazel). The cioccolato was on par with other non-fondente cioccolato but the nocciola was a bit too sweet. Disappointing that it wasn’t the best since nocciola is part of the gelateria’s name. The research will have to continue.

Did some food and wine shopping. Another new Brunello label: