On our last two visits to Florence, Mom and I tried to find a specific place: a piazza where my brother and I each sat for a pastel portrait. We even described it to the private guide who led us around the city in 2019, and she wasn’t sure where we could find it. We figured we would never be able to find it again, given so much time had passed, and our memories of the place were fuzzy, so we didn’t even think about it this trip.
We left our hotel (you can read about where we stayed HERE) early to give ourselves plenty of time to walk through the crowded streets to the Uffizi for our 3:00 scheduled entrance time. It wasn’t a far walk, but we used Google Maps to guide us, since we hadn’t been there before.
When we turned the corner into the courtyard of the Uffizi museum, my mom exclaimed, “This is it!” I knew just what she meant. This was the piazza we had been looking for, the one we had visited 40 years earlier, where I sat to have my portrait painted. The courtyard was still lined with artists selling their paintings.
As the story goes, the heavens had opened, and it was pouring rain, so we took shelter under the arches along with a host of tourists and artists. Since we were all stuck there until the rain passed, we were a captive audience. My mom said several artists asked about painting our portraits, but she was hesitant. Finally, an artist made a pitch she couldn’t refuse. He would paint our portraits and, if she didn’t like them, she didn’t have to buy them.
He was actually an American from Florida who was studying art in Florence. I remember sitting for the portrait, feeling a little bored, but also enjoying the feeling of being observed. Pastels are a pretty quick medium, so it didn’t take very long for him to complete the portrait. My brother then sat for his portrait. Of course, my mom bought them. She thinks they were $25 each, which wasn’t as cheap as it sounds today, but it was still a good bargain for such a personal souvenir from Florence.
My mom still has the portraits hanging in her office…
From an artistic perspective, I can see the proportions and mouth are a little off, but he definitely captured my eyes, nose, and the overall essence of little 6-year-old Marian. I do look a little intense, though! I wish I could find the artist today. I wonder if he pursued art as a career.
My dad also sent along some pictures from around Florence. They were dicolored, but I was able to restore them using Gemini AI. It took a few tries because it kept trying to reinvent faces or add details that didn’t make sense, but it did an amazing job restoring the colors once I told it to leave everything else alone!
Here I am at the Boboli Gardens looking over the fountain of Neptune.
And at the Palazzo Vecchio Dolphin fountain…
I loved this photo of my mom, my grandma, and me under these arches…
My older brother must’ve been the one with the camera, because he’s not in any of the pictures.
As an example of how AI isn’t perfect, I asked it to restore this photo…
…and it decided to restore the photo AND give me a pink lunchbox that is held by a tiny hand from nowhere.
I was finally able to get it to a point where it wasn’t changing the photo’s details, like shirt colors, what people were holding, etc.
I don’t have a lot of memories of Florence, but I do remember being distraught about the state of the bathrooms, and I called it the “dirty city.” I should insert that we lived in Germany, where both paid toilets and city streets were neat as a pin. I was also a persnickety six-year-old. The beach was too dirty for me, so Florence was probably fine, and I was just being picky.
I remember my grandparents gave us $10 worth of Italian Lire. At the time, the Italian Lira conversion rate was about 1,700-1,900 Lire to one US Dollar, so my brother and I felt like we were rich with 19,000 “dollars” in our pockets. John haggled for a chess set, and I bought a little pink purse with a parasol. You can see the purse in my hand in the picture under the arches.
I wish we had looked at these photos before our trip, so we could’ve recreated a couple of them. I realized as I was writing this post that these photos were taken in the same place but from a different vantage point. See the Papini awning on the right in the first photo and on the left in the second? We’re just standing in the arches in the old photo and on the street in the second.
Next time, I’ll share some of my favorites from the Uffizi museum.
You can find my previous posts about our time in Italy here…
our hotel in Florence
the last day in Sovicelle
marbled paper & bookbinding workshop
Best view in Siena
Walking Through Siena, Italy
Shopping at the Siena Market
Plein Air Painting in Italy & Podere Tour
Dinner in a Castle | Tuscany Creative Retreat
Travel Journal Workshop
Arezzo Antique Market