Florence and Around (20 miles)

The Birth of Venus

Okay, so I have given myself a day off cycling heaven and what better way to spend it than a visit to the Ulfizzi – the home of Renaissance art.

Here it is – the Age of Enlightenment – right here, where our penance finished and man decided that the world was beautiful again.

It takes a while to acclimatise. Being here, surrounded by such works, is like waking up next to the most beautiful person you have ever slept with - for a while you cannot believe they are there, that they look like they do, then they open their eyes and speak to you and you, and you still thinks its a dream, until finally they kiss you and you realise it is real.

This is what is like coming face to face with a Botticelli or a Raphael or a Di Francesco. You look, then blink and look again, and try and take in what you are seeing. Then you look back, closer this time and open your mind and your soul, and then it becomes real and powerful and intensely beautiful, more than you could veer have imagined.

These painting have this magnitude, not because how they look but because of how they make us feel. They are reflecting what it means to be human. That is why them true art and that is what makes them so important. To appreciate this is to remember that the artist was just a man, made of the same flesh, with the same mental faculties as you, but who dare to look at the skies

What we have to remember when we look at The Birth of Venus in particular, is that it is the foundation of how we see beauty today. The female form was never represented in this way before. We viewed the human form through through the dark sack of the middle ages and only at the start of the Renaissance did not the body become flesh.

I know my creed on this trip may seem ridiculous but look – it is not different. Through this one incredible painting Botticelli put beauty into the consciousness of a nation and look what happened there.

She blows in on a seashell.

Let her in.

Let bellisimo in your world.

I think now I understand now why the Italians are like they are. In Florence or in Garda – celebrate the flesh of the earth! Don’t be embarrassed like the British. Let go and be beautiful. Dress well. Look at the opposite sex. Kiss and make love.

I am still too up tight to fully embrace this even though in principle I completely agree. Heaven is a place of beautiful things and should be shown in all its glory, not hidden under a repressed quilt.

Ethic so far

So if you decide that an experience of beauty is way to be as a person then how should you decide to live? You cannot stay in the Ulfizzi all the time or lie in bed beside a Titian Princess. You must do something – but what?

Botticelli painted what he did because he was commissioned by humanists. His work was derived from a moral principle and he crafted something new because of this. Yes his talent was exceptional and he painted many works before and after, but this work, his most famous and by far most influential, was what it was because of the ethic it represented. You must begin with this otherwise it, and you, mean nothing.

Okay, so here's my attempt:

Our world – quick, information-filled, vacuous, tolerant, multi-cultural, egotistical, contrived, civilized, social, fun, democratic, amoral, pointless.

My world – movement, contemplation, beauty, ideas, expression, evolution, understanding, happiness, reproduction (sort of in order).

Of course this is highly simplified but if you look between the words you can an ethic – a way to live. Do you see?

Bellisimo:

It is about trying to live in a way to make something happen. To look for new experience, to gain new understanding and express this in an artistic way, to make the world a more beautiful place, for you and for everyone.

It is about being able to move, to understand the land and the cities that we live in.

It about studying so you can understand what others thought, how they made art, writing, thought, how they expressed, like you want to do.

Meet people. Understand what they think.

Write. Write about what you think and then craft. Botticelli didn't become the greatest artist of his age just because he had a good idea.

Enjoy people.

Feel.

It is important to feel the world and others. Open yourself. Only then can you understand and be a part of the world. The world isn’t just lakes and mountains, it is us – humankind – as well, and we can be beautiful too.

I guess this is what I have found from being here in Italy – humans expressing feeling. I only realise when I sit in an Irish Bar and watch the FA Cup final. There is no divine here, no love, no purity. Take me back to the Ulfizzi.