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first Academy of Art (known as the
Accademia del Disegno), where artists
studied, among other things,
Michelangelo's techniques. A gallery
there is devoted to his followers and
the grand-ducal workshops.
Michelangelo was known as The
divine" by his contemporaries, and
when he died in 1564 at age 88, his
body was brought to Florence by
Cosimo I. There, he was given an elab-
orate state funeral in the Medici
Church of San Lorenzo, decorated by
artists. from the Accademia del Disegno.

Feasts For The Eyes

An entire gallery of the DIA exhibit
houses stunning pietre dure, which
became increasingly sophisticated and
intricate. Patterns of stones are inlaid
so precisely they fool the eye; the gra-
dation in a piece of malachite, for
example, is inlaid so that the subtle

Daniele (Ricchiarelli) da Volterra:
"Michelangelo Buonarroti," ca. 1564-66,
bronze with dark brown patina. Oxford
Ashmolean Museum.

coloration appears to be dappled-look-
ing leaves. Another gallery contains
garden sculpture, and is designed as an
Italian loggia with benches.
Among the many spectacular pieces
on display is a DIA-owned, cobalt
blue-and-white porcelain ewer (vessel)
from the Medici manufactory, one of
some 59 surviving complete pieces of
Medici porcelain produced in
Florence, beginning about 1575.
Agnolo Bronzino's painting Young
Man with a Lute graces the exhibition
catalogue's cover. It is a striking example
of Michelangelo's influence (the angle of

the body), while alluding to a Jewish
heroine from the Apocrypha (texts not
included as part of the Hebrew Bible
but considered part of the Old
Testament by the Roman Catholic
Church) — a statuette of Susannah cov-
ering herself from the view of the Elders
appears in the background.
Another notable character from
the Apocrypha appears in a work
that achieved great popularity in its
day: the violent, dramatic and wide-
ly reproduced Judith and Holofernes
by Cristofano Allori.
In this painting, the Jewess Judith
holds the enemy general's chopped-
off head by his hair (Allori painted
Holofernes in his own image and
Judith in the image of his mistress).
'Although the Medici were very
intolerant of political insurrection, they
were extremely tolerant intellectually
— tolerant of ideas," says Feinberg of
the Art Institute of Chicago.
"They sought the best and the
brightest of various nationalities and
ethnicities; they protected philoso-
phers, such as Pico della Mirandola,
who studied and taught the Medici
family about Jewish ideas, including
Kabbalah; and they protected
Galileo from the. [Catholic] Church.
"In the Renaissance, one of the
largest Jewish communities thrived
and remains to this day in Livorno,
the port city that the Medici devel-
oped." ❑

"Magnificenza! The Medici,
Michelangelo and the Art of Late
Renaissance Florence" runs
March 16-June 8, 2003, at the
Detroit Institute of Arts.
Museum hours are 10 a.m.- 4
p.m. Wednesdays-Thursdays, 10
a.m.-9 p.m. Fridays, 10 a.m.-5
p.m. Saturdays and Sundays.
Timed tickets are required and
include an audio tour and muse-
urn admission: $12 adults/$6
youth ages 6-17/$10 adult
groups/free for DIA members.
Tickets can be reserved in several
ways. By phone: individual tick-
ets, (866) 334-2784; group tick-
ets, (313) 833-1292 (a $3.50 per
ticket handling charge applies to.
all phone orders); at the DIA box
office; and online at
www.dia.org. The show is free
on Wednesday with paid muse-
urn admission, although there are
no advance reservations, and
admission is on a first-come,
first-served basis only, subject to
availability.

The synagogue in Florence reflects
a Moorish style.

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A

ccording to Ben Frank,
author of A Travel Guide to
Jewish Europe (Third
Edition, Pelican Publishing
Company), of all the cities in the
world, the synagogue in Florence
(called Haknesset Firenze) is one of
the most outstanding.
"You can see the cupola from far
away — the guides really point it
out," he writes.
The synagogue in Florence has
suffered two catastrophes -- the war
(World War II) and the [1966]
flood. The Germans' bayonet marks
are still around the doors to the Holy
Ark. The Germans repaired trucks in
the temple, using it as a garage"
Florence's synagogue has its own
Jewish museum attached to it. Its not
as extensive as the Jewish museums in
Berlin, Paris or Amsterdam, but its rich
with artifacts and well worth a visit if
you're stopping to see the synagogue.
With a Jewish population of 1,000-
1,200, Florence also has a Chabad
House, which is very active, and a
hospitality center for kosher food.
Travel agent Shirley Mopper, of
Gateway Travel in Farmington Hills,
has been to Italy numerous times.
"Many of the merchants are Jews,
and they're the pillars of the com-
munity," says Mopper, who just
made arrangements for clients to
attend a seder in Florence.
"The sinagoga in Florence was built
between 1874 and 1882. They have
two seders, so there's room for people
traveling during the holiday season.'
Both Frank and Mopper also
mention Ruth's, a kosher restaurant
adjacent to the synagogue, which
serves vegetarian cuisine.
— Cindy Frenkel

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