Today we did a walking tour of Florence. We had a very obnoxious guide that I seemed to ignore the whole 2 hours. All I heard from her was Blah..Blah..Blah..Blah. I kept wondering off to take some pictures and she would get mad at me and say if I didn’t stop taking so many pictures that we would never finish the tour. We walked through the old parts of Florence,( I guess Florence is all old) but I really could not tell you the names of the sites we saw. We went to a couple of old churches, but once again I have no idea what church, I do have pictures so if you know what I took pictures of then, please let me know and I will clarify what I saw. I did see some great statues. I am very interested in the old statues, more so then the paintings. I know there are wonderful paintings by many incredible painters, but there is something about a statue that I  am enthralled with and no it is not all the penises….many of them are broken off to my dismay. I love being able to walk around the statue and see it from different views and perspectives. The statues here in Italy are incredible. Michael Angelo loved sculpture more then painting. He loved the art of taking away to reveal a master piece, rather then adding to to create something. Michelangelo believed that in every block of marble there was a hidden piece of art.

After lunch it was finally time to go see the "David". I had really been looking forward to seeing this sculpture. I had heard so much about how magnificent and incredible the statue is from Stacey and Ryan as they had been here on their honeymoon trip earlier this spring. I wandered around the museum and looked and some of the other paintings and sculptures. Michelangelo has a few statues on display in the museum. There are some of his unfinished sculptures that I found very intriguing. It was interesting to see the art pieces that are half chiseled out huge blocks of marble. Four of these unfinished statues were commissioned by the Pope at that time for his burial tomb. The Pope decided that it was bad karma to build your burial tomb so he decommissioned Michael Angelo from sculpting his burial tomb and decided he wanted the Sistine Chapel painted instead.

The David is breathtaking. The immense size of the sculpture is overwhelming. I had no idea that the "David" was so big. It was sculpted out of one solid piece of marble. The hands and feet are so very detailed. The bones, veins, the muscles and tendons are visible through the the marble in incredible detail. Michael Angelo was an incredible master of the human body. His talent was really incredible. I sat and walked around the statue and admired it from many different views for quite awhile. Taking pictures of "David" is prohibited, but I am a rebel and I took out my camera and took a few pictures.  I wanted proof that I was there and I saw the "David" and I mean ALL of him. Talk about the perfect specimen of a man! I now have an inferiority complex. I have body appearance issues to begin with, but this has only augmented those issues. Now I want to look like David, I think I am entitled to look like him due to the fact that my name is Matthew DAVID Peterson. I think it is a lost cause. Maybe I could just strive to look like one of the chunks of marble that Michelangelo never finished. That way we can all use our imagination to create the image we want to.