This was another unconventional Christmas for us, but not as much a non-event as we had in
Israel or Australia. There are some
lights strung along the Via Cavour and a large tree stands near the Duomo but otherwise Florence was surprisingly quiet. No Santas, carols or shoppers scrambling for
last minute gifts. For a country where nine out of ten Italians consider themselves catholic, few regularly attend church.
Yet I felt an enormous contact with season. Christmas in Florence isn't commercialized like in the US. With a church on every block and a cathedral on every
piazza, religion is in the air.
And on the walls.
Paintings, some famous, some not so, adorn the walls, ceilings and
chapels of both museums and cathedrals, Renaissance paintings that tell the story of Christianity from the Annunciation, the
Nativity and the Adoration of the Magi to the Crucifixion. And it is great art. The colors are vivid and subjects are real people with emotion filled faces, the models actual Renaissance Florentines. And there isn't a fat Santa or Frosty in the bunch. Even a heathen like me can catch the spirit.
