With Andy at Santa Felicita

On Friday, October 3, I went with Sarah and her seven fellow grad students to the Piazza Signoria to meet with Andy. Andy Weislogel is the Associate Curator of the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University. He also taught their mannerism class while they were still in New York at Syracuse. By all accounts he seemed to be one of their favorite professors. So everyone was pretty excited.

Tom arrived with a selection from the famous autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini to read for the occassion. Aren't art history grads nerds? - says the history major/fantasy fiction loving/librarian.

Best of all, he proceeded to read it with a suspiciously Scottish sounding accent for the Renaissance Italian author. It while quite impressive and humorous. I think I was the only one there who wasn't very familiar with Cellini's autobiography. Above, from right to left, are Andy, half of Clark, the back of Sarah's head, Dan, Tom, Lara, half of Kellin, half of Mary, and Stephanie. My apologies the halves.

Our second stop, after the requisite cafe, the church of Santa Felicita on the south side of the Arno. The main reason we were going there was to see Pontormo's Transportation of Christ, which can be seen above behind bars.

We were going to have to look at it from afar (like commoners) until Kellin asked the caretaker for a closer view. He was really nice. He opened the cage for us and turned on the light so that we didn't have to keep paying the light machine every few minutes.

So here it is closer up and well lit. This is another Pontormo painting that I knew nothing about except that it has been on display on our kitchen table all semester.

Andy's class gazes in wonder.

And still gazing...

I've noticed that I tend to have a shorter art attention span than art history grad students.

Sarah stands below Pontormo's Angel Gabriel. There is a very famous work of art circulation of Sarah's head on this Gabriel's body. I believe that the artist's name was Kellin.

Then the nice older gentlemen took us behind the ropes and showed us some locked rooms that are not open to the public. This fell in with their belief that art historians should get special benefits.

The first room was the sacristy. There were more paintings and beautiful old altar pieces in here. The second room may have been the chapter house.

And there it is! Sarah found her gesture on the ceiling.

And captures the image for further research.

Here it is. Alas, it did not make it into the paper.

On our way out I looked up and noticed that the Vasari Corridor runs through the facade of the church. The corridor led from the Palazzo Vecchio to the Pitti Palace. The opening allowed the Medici Grand Dukes to listen to the mass without being seen or having to mingle with the people.


Here we are on our way to our next location. Again that's Mary, Andy, Clark, Stephanie, Kellin, less than half of Lara, Sarah, mystery woman, Tom, and Dan.
And we were off to find another church.