Florence 2010 (Around The Duomo)

I forgot to state in my previous post that the stops in Pienza and San Gimignano were the first day of the fourth of final trip of the school year. This last trip takes us those two stops in Tuscany and then finishes with two and a half days in Florence. We come to Florence last as this is about the time Art History is studying the Renaissance. I had how much there was to see in Florence and it's all packed into such a compact small area. There was no way to try and see everything in this one trip so I'll surely be going back on my own as well as coming back with the school next Spring.

The Chiesa Degli Innocenti (1419-1434) was built by the great Florentine architect Brunelleschi. This church was part of a hospital and its significance was that it might be the worlds first orphanage.

Babies could be "dropped off" at this turnstile and the child would be taken care of by the church.

The Duomo of Florence, Brunelleschi's architectural masterpiece. The Museo dell' Duomo has an exhibit about how Brunelleschi solved the architectural problems of constructing what is still the world's largest brick dome. Alas, I never had the chance to go into either the Duomo itself of its Museo. Next time.

The Florence Baptistry is just to the West of the Duomo and is known for its North, South and East doors.

Here are the north doors. In a competition sponsored by the wool merchants guild, 21 year old Ghiberti beat out the other finalist Brunelleschi to win the commission.

There are 28 quadrafoil panels each depicting a scenes from the New Testament. What is of note here is the return to classicism.

Ghiberti, after finishing the north doors, was given the commission for the East doors. The east doors are particularly significant because they open up on the to Duomo. The idea being once you were baptized, you left through East doors and stepped both physically and metaphorically into the the world of the church.

Michelangelo dubbed these 10 panes the "Gates of Paradise" and the name has stuck. The artistic significance of these panels is Ghiberti's introduction and mastery of perspective. The arches show us that there is a world beyond and behind what we see. Because of this, Ghiberti was able to tell more than one story per panel.

Florence was a economically wealthy because of the Medici family (banking) but also because of the guilds (wool, fur, etc) who also used their money to commission art. The Orsanmichele (the tall building in the middle between all the modern stores) was originally a grain market and storage facility.

The niches on the side of the building were assigned to different guilds who commissioned artists to install statues within. Here is four martyrs (can't you just imagine them in conversation!) created by Nanni di Banco and commissioned by the wood and stone workers guild.

St. Mark by Donatello commissioned by the linen weavers)

The Duomo dominates the psyche of Florence. It seems like you can always see it and it always takes your breath away. More to come...

Pienza and San Gimignano

First stop, the hilltop town of Pienza. Here in the piazza, the town’s church.

Barrel vaults!

The piazza in Pienza is actually a trapezoid, which...

...opens up onto this beautiful view of the Tuscan countryside.

I saw an open door in the town municipal building. I went in, climbed a couple of stairs and found myself in the town council room and managed to open a window.

Stop 2 of the first day was the famous town of towers San Gimignano.

Here in one of the churches in town with both a classical greek façade and gothic basilica apse juxtaposed next to each other. The fact that I recognized this as strange is a testament to art history class!

I just thought this picture was cool. It’s springtime in Italy and that means time to prune the olive trees. However, because of the natural oils, the branches don’t decompose quickly, so burning is the popular option.

I’ll be coming back to San Gimignano with my parents in June, so more pictures to come at that point.

Hans and Teresa's Visit

Hans and Teresa of Oakland were my second visitors while living here in Viterbo. They had four fantastic days of sightseeing, food and fantastic weather. They were troopers in joining two "Chenventures" to Bomarzo and Orvieto. And because they flew across the pond, they make the blog. That should be INCENTIVE enough to come and see the sites of Italy. Most of these pictures are courtesy of Hans.

Hans, Teresa and myself lounging around at Parco di Mostri in Bomarzo.

Sticking my hand into a "Bocca della Verita" fortune telling machine.

I got 8/9 in Life, 6/9 in Love, 4/9 in Luck, 9/9 in Health and 4/9 in Sex.

Partially because I'm a geek and wanted to test to see if the machine was consistent, I tried again. But part of me wanted some higher scores in Love and Sex. The second time around, 7/9 in Life, 4/9 in Love (OUCH), 8/9 in Luck, 8/9 in Health and 4/9 in Sex (DOUBLE OUCH).

Here we are sitting and waiting for the bus after having missed the one we wanted to take (and having been kicked out of Parco di Mostri for climbing on the sculptures). So we killed time by playing "SOLO", the Italian version of "UNO" at a local cafe. The Italian version has one card that has everyone pass their hand to the person on their left. Another card allows you to switch hands with another player. BRILLIANT!

Each morning, Hans and Teresa joined me for coffee at Bagolino's. This is picture with Massimo is proof that I got behind the counter for the first time EVER.

Here we are at the top of the "Torre del Moro" in Orvieto. That's the famous Duomo in the background.

I rarely have so many pictures of myself on the blog, but thanks to Hans, this is myself and Steve C. kissing a stuffed boar!

Hans was a BIG fan of the pizzas from "Il Monastero", so we had takeout on the night before they left. Thanks for a great visit, Hans and Teresa!

Ostia Antica

Ok, this post starts with an interpretation contest/quiz. Ran across this sign on a pizzeria in Rome. What do you think they are advertising? Post your thoughts in the comments section.

So, Ostia Antica, where is it and what's it's importance. Ostia was ancient Rome's port city on the sea at the mouth of the Tiber river. Unlike Pompeii and Herculaneum, which were resort towns and preserved in an instant by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79AD, Ostia was a working town that more represented real life in the Roman Republic/Empire. Founded in the 4th Century BCE, it reached around 75,000 inhabitants in the 2nd Century AD. It was hit with barbarian invasions and malaria in the 5th Century AD and abandoned. Over the course of time, the silt from the Tiber covered Ostia as the Tiber built up its delta. The mouth of the river now stands 2km from the remains of ancient Ostia. Because it was covered up for so many centuries, it remains remarkably well preserved.

You can see the locations of the ancient course of the Tiber and the location of the sea in relation to the present course of the Tiber.

As you enter into the modern day Ostia site, before you enter through the ancient walls, you walk through the necropoli of Ostia.

The Roman's were great urban planners. Most cities, based on military camp plans contained two intersecting roads, one of them the Decumanus. Here in Ostia, the Decumanus is the longer of the two and runs East-West.

This is a bath complex, which contains a cold room (frigidarium), pool room (tepidarium) and a hot room (caldarium). Notice, how the archeologists have prevented further erosion of the site by capping everything with cement.

Many of the beautiful mosaics remain.

The other main road, is called the Cardo.

Here at the intersection of the Cardo and Decumanus is the back side of the Capitolium, which fronts onto the town Forum.

Near the intersection of the two is also the Ostia Teatro. The difference between Greek theaters and Roman theaters is that the Romans built a backdrop, the remains of which you see as the low running wall at the rear of the stage. The Greeks left the natural scenery be the backdrop.

From atop a building along the Cardo, here's a view of the Tiber today.

As mentioned earlier, Ostia was a real functioning town with back streets, houses, apartments and markets.

Here we see a house with walls painted in what is called "First Style", which consists mostly of rectangular panels. Although many of the houses are fenced off.....

That didn't stop us from climbing in. It was so much fun to be inside these ruins and to walk in the footsteps of the "everyday" ancients.

In the neighborhoods, there are remnants like this millstone.

And, here's a bar on the ground floor of a home.

Here's the bar from the loft of the home. And yes, of course, we were not supposed to be inside.

Here's an oven that still has the marble facing, which is what probably covered most of the buildings here.

The mosaic in a palestra (gym). Must be motivation/ideal for all who worked out there.

Another mosaic in the palestra. Perhaps an early precursor to the Statue of Liberty?

If you had the chance to climb atop a Corinthian capital, wouldn't you do it too?

My First Art Auction

Foreground left, Roberto and bald head right front, Alessandro

So, my wood restoration teachers invited me to an art auction held in Rome. No reason for me not to go, so it was in the car and off to Rome on a Monday evening. Typically Italian, the auction started at 9PM. There were about 60 people and 200 items were auctioned off. Roberto and Alessandro, being furniture guys, were only interested in bureaus, side tables, etc. Things moved at a fast clip. The auctioneer would start bidding and the piece would be sold or returned to the store room in 30 seconds or less. The item that sold for the largest amount? Two small paintings for 5,500 Euro. It was a bidding war between a person in the room and a guy bidding by proxy through a guy on the phone. Very artsy!

I know that Roberto, the more "sane" of the two purchased one table for 650 Euro. But, I'm not sure how many pink purchase slips Alessandro had at the end of the night. I've been to Alessandro's house and asked him where he was going to put all the stuff. His typically Italian response? "I don't worry about that now, live in the moment!"