Fiesole - part 1

After a long, long break I might be ready to start posting again. I have many, many pictures from a number of new cities that Sarah and I have visited. It's been a while though, so bear with me. I'll start off with an easy post. Not too much information.
Fiesole is a very old town that sits high on a hill above Florence. It is most famous now for its spectacular views of Florence from the northeast. But for a long time the view was only of an empty river valley beneath some beautiful hills. The Etruscan hill-town of Fiesole was probably built around 800 years before Julius Caesar established Florence (then Florentia) as a settlement for his veteran soldiers in 59 BC. The Romans had conquered Fiesole in 283 BC, and the town was the sight of the half Roman, half Vandal general Flavius Stilicho's victory over the German barbarians in 405 AD. After more attacks during the Gothic Wars and by the Eastern Emperor Justinian, Fiesole became an independent city during the early middle ages. Florence and Fiesole, who were about equal in power at the time, fought many times unitl 1125, when Florence finally conquered Fiesole for good. It eventually became a place for rich, Renaissance-era Florentines to build their country villas.
Did I say there wouldn't be too much information? Okay, enough history. On with some pictures.


The view from Fiesole is great, and will be documented in the next posting, but the town itself is pretty nice. The good ole' number 7 bus will take you up from Florence to Fiesole's main piazza, which may or may not be called Piazza Mino.


This statue represents the meeting of Giuseppe Garibaldi and Vittorio Emanuel II in 1860. These two were instrumental in the unification of Italy, called the Risorgimento. Vittorio Emanuel II became the first king of a unified Italy.


The Fiesole Cathedral is a Romanesque church that is dedicated to Saint Romulus of Fiesole.


The altarpiece. There it is.


The church has a shrine to the martyr St. Romulus, who might have been the first Bishop of Fiesole, and his martyr friends. There's also a shrine to St. Donatus of Fiesole. He was another Bishop of Fiesole and came from Ireland.


These guys disapproved of my picture taking.


We went to a little museum that has a lot of Etruscan remains, two cats, and one humorous curator. Outside the museum are a lot of Roman ruins. See. They're ruined.


Well, not all are ruined. The amphitheater still looks good. It has a nice view to the hills and valleys to the northeast (complete opposite to the view of Florence).


Sarah had a performance on the ancient stage.


She played to a packed house.


And one rude jerk of a heckler.


Actually, they still have concerts in the amphitheater. That would be a pretty nice venue.


I did not open this door. It apparently contains the danger of death.


I had been keeping a file on the old computer of images of tiny vehicles in Italy. It may have been lost with the old computer. If not I might eventually have a posting dedicated to small cars. Anyway, here is one example.
Part two will continue with the views from Fiesole.

Temporary Halt

So. We don't have a working computer at home (now that we have reliable Internet access). I also can't get the pictures off of Sarah's camera right now. So the postings will eventually resume. Hopefully before we move back to the States.
But there's good stuff to come. We went to Milan, Parma, Urbino, Budapest, Vienna, Bratislava, and other places. We are also going to Naples, Pompeii, Herculaneum, Sorrento, Capri, and who knows where else.
Stay tuned...

Padua - part 2 (The Arena Chapel)

The reason we made this trip to Padua was so that Sarah and Kellin could see the Scrovegni Chapel, aka the Arena Chapel. The fresco cycle by Giotto inside the chapel is one of the most important masterpieces of Western art. How do I know? Because the two highest art authorities I know (Sarah and wikipedia) told me so.


Lara, Sarah, Prof. Hatfield, and Kellin make their way to the chapel. In order to get in you have to make reservations for fifteen minute time slots. Sarah, Kellin, and Prof. Hatfield had a total of 45 minutes each, while Lara and I were only given one half hour each. This was because Sarah and Kellin were going over the presentation of Prof. Hatfield's lecture on the fresco with him.


Before you can enter the chapel, you have to sit in a chamber and watch a little movie for fifteen minutes. All the while the air and temperature are being stabilized or something. Then a sliding glass door lets you into a hallway, then another door lets you into the chapel. I think that this is because, aside from its importance, it was also bombed during WWII, so there was a lot of damage.


It is known as the Arena Chapel because the land that Enrico Scrovegni purchased for it was adjacent to the remains of a Roman arena.


Well, I'm not sure when it was built but the fresco was completed by Giotto around 1305.


Enrico's father Reginaldo degli Scrovegni was the usurer encountered by Dante in the Seventh Circle of Hell. But Enrico probably built the chapel to amend for his own sins.


In a place like this there was obviously no photography allowed. So here are some images from the web. Here is one end. I think this is where Enrico's tomb is located.


Here is the opposite end. The frescoes depict the lives of Christ and of Mary. On this end is the Last Judgement.


And here is a close-up of the Last Judgement.


And finally, here is the famous Kiss of Judas. Judas betrayed Jesus when he told the authorities that he would identify Jesus by means of a kiss.

Padua - part 1

Once upon a time Sarah, Kellin, Lara, Professor Hatfield, and I took a train to Padua. The reason we were going was because Prof. Hatfield wanted Sarah and Kellin (his two TAs) to see the Scrovegni Chapel, aka the Arena Chapel due to the fact that it was built next to the site of a Roman arena. More on that in the next posting. We had a scheduled time to be in the chapel so we went other places in the mean time.


One of those places, I think it was a cafe, had the delightful bathroom seen above. While not uncommon in Italy, this type of bathroom always scares me when I come across one. The reason is that it brings back memories of an uncomfortable experience in a Vatican Museum bathroom which I will not go into. Suffice it to say that I don't care for these holes in the floor. But I used it and it was fine. Moving on...


The first church we went into was the Chiesa dei Santissima Filippo e Giacomo agli Eremitani. I don't know what that means (something about two most holy hermits named Phil and Jack, I think) or anything else about it because I didn't look it up. Sorry, but these postings are going to have to be a little streamlined due to our broken computer.
I like the ceiling. I think it looks like an upside-down really old wooden ship, named Diversity.


The church, like the Arena Chapel, was hit by bombs during WWII.


So you can see that a lot of the art work that survives only survives in fragments that are being painstakingly restored.


Here is an image of the church after the bombs hit.
On a side note, there is a very interesting documentary about art during WWII (and talks about the consideration of art during the bombing of Italy's towns) called The Rape of Europa. My brother-in-law Charles bought it for Sarah for Christmas. Maybe he'll buy it for you too.


This isn't a great picture but it talks about the Mantegna Project, which is amazing. Imagine taking the rubble from a bombed building and trying to re-create the works of art that it once held.


I just like this picture because there is a man on the right holding a giant leg. You can see some of the jigsaw puzzle of pieces that are left for restorers above.


Later we walked to the Basilica of Saint Anthony of Padua. On the way, Prof. Hatfield, Sarah, Lara, and Kellin did a terrible job re-creating the Abbey Road album cover.


The good news is that I thought this was one of the most amazing and beautiful churches I've seen in Italy. The bad news is that, not only do they not allow pictures inside, but I couldn't find any good images on the web either. It may be for the best. I don't think that random images would relay the total package. You have to see the whole thing. So I guess you should just come on over and see it for yourself.
Though not the cathedral in town, it is Padua's largest church. It is known locally as "il Santo" and was begun not long after the death of Saint Anthony (good ole' San Antonio died in 1231, like you didn't already know that). The building is an odd assortment of Romanesque, Gothic, Baroque, and Byzantine styles. Outside, the domes are reminiscent of San Marco in Venice.
I can't properly describe the inside. It's huge and beautiful and amazing. That's the best I can do. Sorry.


In front of the basilica is a statue of Gattamelata. No, not Schuyler (the name means honeyed cat) but the famous condotierri, or mercenary, Erasmo of Narni. He fought for quite a few different Italian cities during the Renaissance era, including Venice and Florence, and the Pope. This statue was made by Donatello in 1453, was modeled after the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius on the Capitoline Hill in Rome, and was the first full-size equestrian bronze cast since antiquity. So I hear.


I have no idea who this Martian is.


So here's a statue of St. Anthony throwing a baby. Okay, it's actually St. Anthony acting as intercessor to Jesus.


I meet my intercessor.


I'm not sure what he said, but it must have been profound. Sarah is thrown off balance by the words of Prof. Hatfield.


This image is from inside the baptistery of the Cathedral of Padua.


And this is from inside the Palazzo della Ragione, which was the town hall building. This is the great hall on the upper floor (the lower floor has shops) which is covered in allegorical frescoes. This building supposedly had the largest roof unsupported by columns in Europe. I guess they mean when it was finished in 1219, not now. There is also a large wooden horse inside. Why not?

Uffizi Gallery

So, I finally did it. After six or seven months of living in Florence I finally visited one of its top attractions. Not only is the Uffizi one of the world's oldest and most important art galleries, but it also sat there about a block away from our apartment for the entire time I've been here. Probably even longer. So I went. Sarah Dotson and I went one Sunday while Sarah was grading school assignments. We entered together but then went our separate ways. Me to explore for the first time and Sarah to practice a lecture she was to give there.


As I've mentioned many times in previous postings, the Vasari Corridor runs from the Palazzo Vecchio in town to the Palazzo Pitti just across the river. It was a raised and covered walkway that the Medici would use to go from one palace to the other and to their offices (the present Uffizi gallery) without having to mingle with the common folk. Here you can see where the corridor leaves the Palazzo Vecchio on the right and enters the Uffizi.


Here is the Uffizi from the south. It is U-shaped, and this picture was taken from the bottom of the U. The Palazzo Vecchio is in the distance with its tower. I guess the Vasari Corridor runs through the right (east) side of the Uffizi, though I didn't see it when I was inside. The galleries are above. Below you can see the statues of many famous Florentine artists, architects, scientists, writers, and thinkers.


Here's the Uffizi from the north, from around the southeast corner of the Piazza Signoria. The Uffizi Gallery is housed in the Palazzo degli Uffizi, which was begun by Giorgio Vasari in 1560 for Grand Duke Cosimo d'Medici (aka Cosimo Primo). The building provided offices for the Florentine magistrates.


Here is the Vasari Corridor leaving the south side of the Uffizi, going west along the Arno, then crossing the river along the Ponte Vecchio. This shot was taken from inside the gallery. They let you take pictures out the windows, but not of the art inside.


Here is a shot of the river to the east from the same spot in the museum. If you open the picture up to its full size you can see the Porta San Niccolo on the left and San Miniato al Monte on top of the hill to the right.


Well, here's the corridor as far as it can be seen from the Uffizi. It goes on to the south and west, through Santa Felicita (a church south of the bridge that we went to with Andy, one of Sarah's teachers from Syracuse, NY), and up to the Palazzo Pitti.


Here is a picture of one of the two hallways. The halls run along the inside of the U and have portraits of hundreds of military and religious leaders, nobility, artists, etc. along the ceiling and then the galleries are through the doors to the outside of the U. The Medici also stored their vast collection of art here. The gallery was opened to the public in 1765 but had been open to visitors by request since the 16th century. The collection was so huge that some of it was sent to other museums around Florence.


The two biggest groups of people when I was there were surrounding Sandro Botticelli's Primavera and his Birth of Venus.


Here are two of Sarah's favorites: Raphael's Madonna of the Goldfinch (which Sarah saw in person while it was being restored by one of her instructors. This picture is pre-restoration) and Michelangelo's Doni Tondo.
The museum has Roman copies of Greek original sculpture, then moves on chronologically through the ages. There are works by Cimabue, Duccio, Giotto, Simone Martini, Piero della Francesca, Filippo Lippi, Sandro Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Albrecht Durer, Michelangelo, Raphael, Titian, Parmigianino, Caravaggio, Pontormo, Andrea del Sarto, Rembrandt, and many many more.


At the end of the museum is a cafe that faces the Piazza Signoria. Here is the Palazzo Vecchio from the cafe.


More scenes from the cafe. Duomo on the left, Palazzo on the right. Towers of the Bargello and the Badia Fiorentino in the middle.


And the Duomo again, this time with its campanile. The road that you see is the road I take every morning from home to the bus stop.


Finally, here is a view from the Piazza Signoria. The Palazzo Vecchio is on the left, you can see a bit of the Uffizi in the middle, and the Loggia di Lanzi on the right. The loggia (porch) houses some incredibly famous statues like Cellini's Perseus and Giambologna's Rape of the Sabine Women. The cafe of the Uffizi is above the Loggia di Lanzi but you can't really see it from below. You could usually see (the copy of) Michelangelo's David and (stupid, according to Sarah) Bandinelli's Hercules and Cacus, but they are being restored in their little white and yellow huts.