Laura Mart

When we were told to find a space in Florence to investigate, I wanted to find somewhere interesting, new, but off the beaten path. I cracked open my guidebook for the first time since I've been here. I found somewhere that sounded interesting - I was looking for something like a church, somewhere with a square, where there would be people. I have a thing for churches, which is sort of weird because I'm not religious at all. I love watching old ladies pray, and people come and ask the saints for help, light candles. I like hearing the echoes of people talking, confused but amplified by the accoustics of the space. I love listening to the eerie music of services, all the more than familiar after years of Catholic school and choir.
So I set out to find Sanctissima Annunziata. After walking a while (and being asked out on the street by aa 50-year-old Italian man named Luciano - I should have taken him up on his offer of pizza) I ended up at San Marco, which looked like a suitably impressive church, so I went in. They must be restoring it or something because the nave is punctuated with columns of scaffolding, and the ceiling is obscured by a platform of plywood and metal beams. The neoclassical beauty of the church and the harsh contemporary coldness of the scaffolding clashed in some strange tension. Some of the frescoes look incomplete: either halfway painted or halfway deteriorating.
But what I enjoyed the most was the chapel towards the left of the transept. There is a shrine to Mary with tons of sacred hearts dotting the back wall of the glass case, and beautiful frescoes above the altar, all very beautiful. But in a lighted glass case under the altar is the corpse of some saint. I think it's Saint Anthony. I know the chapel is to Saint Anthony. Maybe the corpse belonged to some bishop. Anyways, obviously someone important. Only important people get their bodies displayed in glass cases centuries after their deaths.
I went on to Sanctissima Annunziata, where I stayed for Vespers services. I was the only person under the age of 80 in the building. While it is beautiful, centuries-worth of dust and grime obscure the frescoes and besmirch the statues. The service was conducted facing the door, not the grand altar. I don't know what the point is of having a grand altar if you're not going to use it all the time. Maybe they only use it for important masses.
As I was leaving SS. Annuziata, two men approached me and inquired if I "would like some grass for ze smoke?" As I walked slightly petrified down the dark street ahead of me, I decided that maybe San Marco was a better choice for artistic inquiry.