Florence Day 15!

Today we went to visit Chiesa di Santa Margherita, aka Chiesa di Dante, a small little church nestled between two buildings. It is across the street from his home. Within the church, Beatrice, the love of Dante's life, is entombed. We then spent an interesting afternoon at Dante Alighieri's house. Dante Alighieri was the famous poet of the "Divine Comedy." Not only were we able to learn about the poet, we were also able to learn a little bit of history about Medieval Florence during Dante's time. Many would not know that he was part of the Guild of Physicians and Apohecaries and that he later became a Prior before penning his famous works of literature. Dante even fought with the Florentine calvary in a battle against the Aretines (the people of Arezzo, Italy)! We learned so many facts about the poet, including that he was eventually exhiled from Florence and never returned until after his death. It is sad to think that a man who devoted his life to his city would be driven out because of feuds between Florentine citizens. There were also some very cool illustrations of Dante's Inferno, Purgutory, and Paradise--including one by Boticelli (famous for his Birth of Venus) himself!

An uplifting part of the tour (on an inspirational point) was learning more about his love for Beatrice, who was the inspiration for his poetry. Dante fell in love with Beatrice as a child but was never able to marry her. He was a victim of an arranged marriage from childhood. Nonetheless, he was still able to express his love for Beatrice in his writing and even made her the angelic figure that leads the soul to Paradise in his Divine Comedy.

After leaving Casa di Dante, we had lunch at Tutti Frutti. We had delicious mozzarella, basil, and tomato paninis with patatine (french fries). We then walked off our lunch by strolling through local shops, including the Disney Store (yes, the Disney Store) and a leather store. We window shopped at the pricier shops like Hermès (we are up the street from Louis Vuitton, Cavalli, Ferragamo, and Prada). We discovered a Church that has been sandwiched between high-end stores, Chiesa dei Santi Michele e Gaetano. We went inside after deciding not to bypass this little gem. Then, we lost track of time by shopping at Oviesse, an Old Navy equivilent, and walked away with a few good finds.

We ended our day by going grocery shopping which we could not do yesterday because Cindy had to wait for her face to heal. A spider, mosquito, or something else bit her on the lip yesterday and made the left side of her face swell. Oh well! We did need the day off to rest after our Roman Holiday...