Daily Journal Continued November 23,1998, William Thomas Thompson We are in Florence,Italy in the historic La Pace Hotel Monday. With art on the bed dominating the room,this is a lovely room and old hotel but smaller than the Amadeus in Venice and much differ-ent in style. The breakfast is really considered full but listed as continental. They have ham and cheese although the ham looked uncooked and I have been passing it up. We had pizza pie ordered in last night but it was cold by the time we got it. We had walk-ed blocks to a recommended restaurant that was closed. Having the right change is a problem,having small bills so as to not overpay for these quick little deals. We are walking toward the city squ-are near the church of King David's Statue which is closed every Monday but some say the statue is in the yard outside the church. We arrived to find it enclosed and $8.00 charge to see. We purch-ased a book across the street in color that gave us all of famous artist,art and history of Florence. Since the discovery of color about 500 years ago,the masters painted plenty of art mostly rel- igous art. Most of their work still exist today and in its homeb-ase. The chisel has made its mark also since the beginning oftime in creation. The CatholicChurch has left its mark on the artworld in all I see and not the otherway around. We wandered into an art school of many students and one young lady had 4 painting she had in oil on stretched canvas.she let us take a picture and then the school mom ran us out,she was a nun. We want to see the mainriver that built the town so many years ago but after shopping the big book store for art prints and artbooks,we had lunch and continued the view of the city where the seed of art seems to have been pl-anted in the middle ages. This is like a seat of the finest where it all seems to have begun. The book I bought"The Art of Florence in its great Museums",Becocci and Scala(AnnaMazzanti)provides one with a tour of the greatest museums in Florence seeing so many of western art masterpeices and architecture beyond imagination with Galleria Degli Uffizi as the worlds oldest collection of art. The massive walls of Palazzo Vecchio encapsulates the city's history. Museo Del Bargello built in mid thirteenth century as a commune. Museo Dell,Opera De Duomo with its facinating history and service of overseeing great construction and has great sculptures today. The Galleria Dell Accademia created in 1784 when Grand Duke Piet-ro Leopoldo of Lorraine decided to endow the School of Fine Arts with a collection of high quality works of art,this houses David, the famous statue commissioned in 1501 by the Vestry Board of Fl-orence and carved by Michelangelo. Museo Di San Marco with its 16 th and 17th century devotional art paintings in the days of"perf-ect machine for living,studying and praying,a'city of God',set in the tumultuous city of men". The Medici Chapels of the church of Lan Lorenzo,chapel of the princes. Michelangelo worked as archi- tect and sculptor. The floor tiling is the greatest work of art. Pallazzo Pitti inspired by Eleonora of Toledo that became a resi- dent of the Medici family. About300artist are listed in this book and I am blessed to see their work in this 175 page 10 lb book of this most wonderful art. We take a taxi now for the bags and the train station where we just happen again to be 9minutes from lea-ving for Roma(Rome)on the EuroStar nonstop through the hills due South to Rome in less than two hours for our final train ride.