Ringling Museum!

Today we woke up to gray skies and buckets of rain! But no matter, it's Florida!--it will blow over :)

In the meantime, to enjoy ourselves while the rain dumped its heart into the streets, we ventured to the Ringling Museum of Art. It wasn't at all what I expected. I suppose I envisioned a "circus-shrine" complete with elephants and glittery outfits... but what we found was an amazing cultural journey!

Unbeknownst to me, but logical by all laws of common sense, the Ringling family was filthy rich (mostly by real estate, oil drilling, and investing--but I suppose the circus didn't hurt). This particular compound houses both the Ringling mansion as well as an art museum which was John Ringling's personal collection of art. You would expect this to be a little room of semi-crappy paintings, but no, he has THOUSANDS of exquisite oil paintings, frescos, sculptures that echoes the grandeur of Florence’s Uffizi Gallery. There were works by Rubens, van Dyck, Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese, and Gainsborough. And much to my happiness... Velázquez and El Greco! AHHHH! THERE WAS A WHOLE SPANISH ROOM!

Here I am with El Greco! I think I was the only on there this obsessed.

We toured the complex which included outdoor gardens and a broze cast of the original David! It brought back such fond memories of Rome.

We even got a guided tour of the "Venice in the Age of Canaletto" exhibition that had come to visit the gallery, and learned of famous works by renound Italian painters Canaletto, Tiepolo, Guardi, and Ricci. It was amazing to learn, that even in the 1600 and 1700s, tourists came to Venice seeking souvenir art. Many times, art of Venice glorified today was in fact created for tourists. This made me laugh.

Some pictures taken along the way... The goofy....

And the beautiful...

The harbor where the Ringling yachts parked.

The secret garden on the property...which somehow had a great view of the neighbors' yard...hmmm. ;)

The Ringling mansion! I loved the Moorish/Spanish arquitecture. Amazing.