Wretched Excess

It's good to research a place before you get there, to get ideas of what you'd like to see & do. On the other hand, stark, raving surprise can just about knock you over if you haven't done your homework. In Florence, there is a religious compound called the Cattedrale Santa Maria del Fiore in Piazza Duomo. Somehow I had never seen a photograph of this. In my wanderings around Florence today, I came to the end of a narrow alleyway, not knowing there was a piazza or anything special around the corner. Then I came upon a sight that caused me to actually say out loud: "What. The. Fuck?" 

Staring at this cemented the certitude that in the entire history of European life between the 10th &18th centuries, nothing known to man nor beast equaled the obsession with religion. 

It's impossible to capture the size & scope of this place without a different camera lens & a drone. You can see, though, how tiny the people are. This Gothic Revival buildings are made from pastel marble blocks -- various shades of pink & pale green -- which create a frivolous, painted-scenery effect. It takes a lot of hubris to use exterior pastels on buildings that are of utmost religiosity in intention & meant to inspire awe. 

Building after building...they look gawdy & ostentatious 

The churches I've seen all over Europe are so tall, with such extravagant detail inside & out, to the highest reaches. Who did they think would see all that? You can't even tell what the sculptures & paintings are at the top.

  Inside, the dome ceiling is so high up, it's hard to discern that there are human figures up there 

    Yet there are very complex & specific religious scenarios painted with tremendous care

It's not like the artist's left a scaffold for viewing pleasure. Clearly, churchgoers were not the intended audience. Did they believe that God was up there, checking out these extravagances in the clouds?

There are so many sculptures in Palazzo Vecchio...it seems by their random arrangements that no one knew what to do with them all.

This King Neptune fountain, alas not flowing in winter, also has statues of drunks & satyrs & sea horses

Naturally, though he is king of the sea, he rides his set of wild horses

  All the favorite lurid themes of human behavior are represented... beheading

                 Rape is always popular

              Let's not forget to club a centaur

Wretched excess is not solely the provenance of religious sites...this is a Florence Gucci store, in which every square inch is covered with the same wallpaper. It's so arresting that whatever they are selling is irrelevant.