The Epic Eurotrip--Chapter 16: The Assassin (Italy--Florence)

Florence has been one of my favorite cities in Italy largely thanks to Assassin's Creed (AC). Out of all 5 games (AC 1, AC 2, AC Brotherhood, AC Revelation, AC 3) Ezio's trilogy is by far the best (AC 3 is horrible, by the way.) Because Florence is the birth place of the main protagonist, Ezio Auditore, it became a very important destination for my trip this time (of course, Leonardo de Vinci helped, too.)

In this post, you're going to see many references from AC series because that was the first thing in my mind when I saw certain places. For those who haven't played the game and don't about spoiler, watch this. Although this is done before AC 3 came out, it gives a good idea what the (best part of) story is like. AC 3 really sucks. Period.

Too bad, I didn't find Ezio's house (I don't even remember what it looks like since the last time I played AC 2 was like when I was a junior in college. Holy crap! That was 5 years ago!) i did managed to find other places that are well known in AC world, even in real world. Some of them I remembered clearly, while the others I only remembered after seeing them in person. Very often, I told myself "hey! I climbed this!!" In AC, climbing is a big part of the game play. You climb everywhere to get everything. Whether it's a flag, a feather, a trinket, or a flying piece of shit. You even have to climb to solve the puzzles. After playing all those AC games, the fans will see a building in real life and then unintentionally start thinking about how to climb it (it's true.) Besides "I climbed this," the most common lines I said were:

"There was a feather on top of that dome."

"I killed _____ here!"

"Oh this place......I dropped so many times here......"

"Oh this guy! He aided me during that fight (specifically referring to Medici family.)"

"There's a view point on top of that tower."

This continued on until the end of Rome trip, sadly. (call me a geek all you want. I'm proud of it.)

Okay, enough of this. We actually started the trip on a hill near Florence. It's usually the first stop for all tours in Florence since we could see the entire Florence on this hill.

View of Florence. The duomo of Santa Maria del Flore is on the right.

Another.

And another. This bridge at the middle
is the oldest bridge, Ponte Vecchio, here.
There are shops and houses on the bridge.

In real life, Ezio Auditore doesn't exist, of course, but many other famous people were born here in Florence. Florence is said to be the birth place of Renaissance. Leonardo de Vinci, Dante, Galileo, and many others who contributed in art, music, architecture, literature, science, and even laws and politics were born here. This place has its magic (or good Feng Shui, as Chinese would call it) to nurture so many great people.

Statue of Dante

Statue of Cosimo Medici.

Let's start with this guy. Cosimo de'medici is the grant duke of Tuscany. He came to power and took over the Tuscan area. He was very powerful back then since he seized control of this place and had all the military support. The tour guide told us a story about this guy that doesn't really relate to his throne or power.

Palazzo Vecchio, or "old palace,"
located in the Piazza della Signoria. 

He had a wife who was very beautiful. She has all the characteristics that Italians look for. According to the tour guide (who's Italian,) she was so beautiful that Cosimo did everything to please her (what a bitch.) However, she was always having headache. One day, Cosimo asked her why her headache would not go away. She told him that this house (picture above) was too small, and she had problem breathing (are you fucking serious!? This place is fucking HUGE!!) "Alright, no problem! I'll just build a newer, bigger house for you." Said Cosimo. And BANG! Bigger palace was built outside of the town (too far so I didn't go.) This is why this place is called the "old" palace. There's a bigger, newer one out there. After they moved into the new palace. Guess what? The headache was gone!

EDIT: Okay, I'm not sure if this is Cosimo, or his grandson, Lorenzo (Lord of Florence) here. By the way, Lorenzo is the one aided Ezio for his revenge!

Later on we saw a statue of a man chopping of a woman's head (these are not Cosimo and his wife,) the tor guide joked about it by saying "She wouldn't have headache for sure."

Piazza della Signoria. A rendezvous point for local people.

Not too far from the plaza, there is a church called Basilica Santa Croce. It is known for the tombs of Dante (only clothes), Galileo, and some others.

Basilica Santa Croce.

I managed to get in (tour guide told us we had to pay, but I somehow got in for free.) and saw the statues and tombs. I didn't take any picture of the tombs just because, well, I wouldn't want people taking pictures in front of my dead body when I'm dead. Just showing some respect. The only one I took was Dante's as his body isn't really in there. Still, I'm not gonna post it. Go find it online somewhere.

All these churches, plazas, and statues/buildings are really close, and because everything is in Italian, I got confused very often. Later on I actually got lost and barely managed to get back. I'll get there later.

There's another plaza where Santa Maria del Fiore (St. Mary of Flowers) is located. This one, equally famous, is actually much bigger than Signoria Plaza. The basilica is very big and pretty. The first thing I thought of when I saw the church? Yes, "I climbed this thing!" For those AC fans, you should recognize this.

Santa Maria del Fiore.

  The facade is very mighty and colorful. Unlike the Cologne Cathedral, it's not as sharp and the colors are not as cold. If Cologne cathedral gives a cold and harsh feeling, this one gives out a warm and lively feeling, much reflects the Renaissance style.

I managed to get a footage of AC 2 where Ezio climbs around this place. You can try to find the similarities (check walls, floor, etc.) with this picture below.

Inside of Santa Maria del Fiore. Can you site similarities?

Paintings under the dome. Can you find The Last Judgment?

In Italy, you will find this word "duomo" pretty often. Maybe it's a common word for most of you, but I've never learned about this word until this trip. What is a duomo? Duomo actually means "house" and consists of the main building (cathedral, forming a cross,) a baptistery  (at the west side facing east, as they believed that going from west to east is the direction of reborn,) and the dome at the center of the "cross." In this case, Santa Maria del Fiore's baptistery is also very famous, thanks to the "Gates of Paradise."

Gates of Paradise.

Gates of Paradise is made by Lorenzo Ghiberti and his son describing the Book of Genesis. There are total of 10 panels, each with different scenes and characters. To be honest, it's a pretty cool door, but I don't find this as amazing as the other buildings I've seen. I think the value of this door here is the teaching of Bible, or knowledge they needed to know back in the days. Since many of them could not read, painting, carving, or anything with visual effects are the best things to teach. That's why many churches have these paintings on walls. They are not just for decoration. They actually serve as textbooks. Oh, there's a sculpture of Lorenzo Ghiberti on the middle of the gate. I think it's at the right bottom corner of the third panel. If you can't see, he looks like this. Is it just me or he looks like this guy?

Oh, one more thing about this church. Look at this picture:

AC fans, how do you climb this?

Now check the distance between windows. You can see the distance increases as it moves away from the tower, and the design became simpler. The reason is that this church wasn't supposed to be this big. The original design was a smaller version, and they only prepared enough materials to build certain amount of windows. Half way through the construction, Sienna, the mountain city, started building the Sienna Cathedral. Notice that Florence and Sienna had this weird rivalry relationship, and it's still on going. Florence people think Sienna people are uneducated, while Sienna people think Florence people think too highly of themselves. Anyway, so Sienna Cathedral was bigger than the original design of Santa Maria. People in Florence were like "fuck! can't let those uneducated Sienna people build a bigger church! MUST MAKE IT LARGER!!!" But there wasn't enough material to build a bigger church. Well, easy! Make the distance between windows bigger and build fewer windows. Make the design easier too so less material will be used! Thus this uneven design......

When I was in the line waiting to get into the church, there was this family from Michigan standing in front of me. The son was going to study in Florence in this coming year. I was so jealous. A whole year in this place!

Like I said earlier, there were so many plazas and churches and whatever, so I got lost (again.) I think I even walked to their financial district as everyone was holding some kind of suitcase, and I was the only one with a camera...... I think I got to this place, somehow.

Ponte Vecchio

Eventually I managed to get back towards Santa Maria. On the way, I saw the bridge. The oldest bridge where there are buildings on it. I got there and realized that Ezio had a fight here at the very beginning of AC 2. Woohoo! So exciting! Anyway, this bridge is called Ponte Vecchio. These buildings are mostly shops. Many tourists are around (so I could ask for direction, thank god.) There is a statue of Benvenuto Cellini, an Italian who contributed to Florence greatly. 

On the bridge.

Okay, when I was finding my way back to the rendezvous point, it started raining. Rain here comes quickly and goes quickly. Still, I was soaked. I think this is why I got sick later......

That's it for Florence!! Just some more pictures.

The Medici Symbol.

There were artists drawing on ground everywhere.

And one more.

They sell overpriced stuff here. Oh by the way, AC fans,
you probably climbed this place as well.

EDIT 2: I was going to save Leonardo da Vinci for the next post but realized most of him still best relates to this post.

Leonardo da Vinci, artist, sculptor, architect, scientist, lover, whatever you call him, is one of the greatest person OF ALL TIME (using Kanye voice)

He was also public about being homosexual. He held his boyfriend's hand walking into the palace to see the French king.

He wasn't born in Florence, but close enough. He lived here for the longest time. Also he completed Mona Lisa here. More about Mona Lisa in the next post.

For AC fans, he also designed Ezio's hidden blade, the parachute, the hand gun, and helped to decipher the painting for the secret hidden in it (the piece of Eden? I forgot.)

Leonardo's house. He lived here for majority of his teen life.

Oh by the way, Florence had a huge flood before. There are placards everywhere indicating where the water level was during the flood. It's where the red arrow indicated. We went to Europe at a good time. After we came back, they had floods again everywhere. We really lucked out there.

Leonardo painted Mona Lisa here, but no one knows which room it was.

Majority of Mona Lisa story will come when we visit Louvre. Stay tuned!

Next stop: Rome + Vatican!!!!