More Adventures in Italy

Tuesday, Nov. 09, 2004
7:24 PM

Well, Alejandro has asked for the boring travelogue so you all know who to blame. Nuthin' but love, A. ;-)

Kevin and I arrived in Italy on Friday Oct. 22. Anyone who has traveled overseas knows that the first day there you are useless, until you have gotten over the jet lag. So, the first thing we did upon checking into our hotel was take a nap. I'd forgotten that though the proximity of said hotel to the Duomo provides a fantastic view, it also means that you can clearly hear the bells of the campanile at various intervals... like 4:30 pm, or when you are trying to sleep. The bells actually became my alarm clock, because they ring enthusiastically at 7:00 every morning. Sigh.

We found a new place to eat that first night, a trattoria called Ganino, on Via Dante Alighieri. Tuscan food is fabulous, by the way, not that there was any question. I tried a "soup" called ribollita, which was yummy, and I'm not entirely sure why we never tried it on our last trip. Oh well... one or the other of us had it almost every night we were there. I say "soup" because it's more like a thick stew - it's vegetable and bread soup. Sounds slightly weird but it's fantastic. Kevin has recipes for it. =D After dinner we just went for a stroll around, just to get reacquainted with the city, and to kill some time before deeming it a reasonable hour to go to bed.

Saturday afternoon we were joined in Florence by the Smiths, who would be with us the first week. We left them to nap while we walked around and got some lunch. We found what used to be the Palazzo Salviati (now it's the headquarters for Banca Toscana) and naturally took pictures. I think, after some more research, that it belonged to the Salviati family in the 16th century, later than my persona's time, but it's the only one we could confirm. Renaissance palazzi are everywhere in Florence, marked by brown signs telling the name of the family and when they owned it. The older ones go back to the 12th century - well, OK, the oldest ones are actually torre (towers) rather than palazzi, but they fact that they're still standing is pretty impressive.

Sunday was Kevin's birthday. We went to Mass in the Duomo, which was definitely a neat experience. I'm not especially religious, but there is something awe-inspiring about Santa Maria del Fiore, even if the lantern on top of the dome is covered in scaffolding. Darn near everything in Florence was covered in scaffolding, unfortunately. The Duomo, the Baptistry, the Palazzo Vecchio, the Loggia dei Lanzi, Santa Croce... I guess this was the year that funding became available for restoration, because there was tons of it going on. It made for less than optimal pictures, but we were able to see most everything we wanted to.

We went to the Museo dell' Opera del Duomo, which houses all kinds of artifacts and architectural elements from the cathedral. Saw some very cool stuff there, from altar pieces to statues to Ghiberti's bronze door panels from the Baptistry. (The doors on the Baptistry now are copies.) I have a ton of pictures from the museum, though some of them are a bit blurry. I am certainly not the best photographer, but I did get some good shots. We'd started out as part of a tour in English of the museum, but when the tour guide asked if anyone knew what "Renaissance" meant, we realized that it was probably not going to be a worthwhile endeavor. We wandered off on our own shortly thereafter.

We tried to go to the Baptistry, but it was Sunday and thus closed for the afternoon. We did go in the Duomo, but mostly to show Jason and Shannon what we hadn't been able to see during Mass, since Kevin and I had seen it before. It is an amazing church, and of course the dome is a work of sheer genius. If you have any interest in it, I highly recommend Brunelleschi's Dome by Ross King. Great book, very readable.

Then we by chance went into a small museum on the Piazza del Duomo, the Museo del Bigallo. I don't recall it being there before, but maybe it was and we just didn't know it. This was one of the highlights of the day, and maybe of the whole trip - just a little undiscovered gem of a museum. Only three rooms, but there was some really cool stuff. Along with some altarpieces and artifacts, there were several 14th century frescoes that I had never seen before, not in books or online or anything. Now, I don't think I am being overly presumptuous with this but that's saying a lot for me. There were some awesome costume details and I got some really good shots. One of the nice things about these tiny museums is they will often let you take pictures, though usually not with flash, but for some reason our digital camera takes better pictures without it anyway. Anyway, I was in Italian costume geek heaven.

This should be manifestly obvious, but I have a ton of new pictures of Italian costume details from the 14th - 16th centuries. If anyone's looking for something in that range, let me know and I probably have some shots to send your way.

After that we went to the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi. This is the house that Cosimo the Elder commissioned from Michelozzi. It is really huge and imposing, but not overly fancy. You can't see all that much of the palazzo, because there are civic offices there as well. But you can see the Chapel of the Magi, which is really amazingly cool. Shannon and I hiked up to the second floor (third really) to see a Filippo Lippi painting and a long room with an icky Baroque painted ceiling. For the record, I hate Baroque art - way too froofy for my taste.

After that, we headed back to the hotel and napped, then went to dinner in honor of Kevin's birthday. We went to a place near Santa Croce that my parents recommended, which turned out to be really good. Kevin, Jason and I split two bottles of wine, which made for lots of entertainment - for us, for Shannon, for the waiter... We gave sober Shannon the map and put our walk (or stumble) back to the hotel in her capable hands.

Monday we went to Assisi. It's about a two and a half hour train ride from Florence. It was very foggy and cloudy on the way, but it did clear off later in the day. I've actually got a couple of really cool pictures of the Basilica of San Francesco in the mist, just as it was starting to clear off. About five minutes later it was bright and sunny. Anyway, the church is amazing - there is a lower church and an upper church. Both churches have some of the best 13th and 14th century art - some of Giotto's major works are here and it was inspiring to see them. For the less geeky among us, Giotto was really the first major innovator of Renaissance art, kind of the guy who started it all, though he built on what his teacher Cimabue was starting to pull together.

Oops, sorry... slipped into lecture mode there. Jason and Shannon got treated to impromptu lectures on Italian art and history periodically throughout the week. I warned them ahead of time, though, and hopefully I didn't make their eyes glaze over too much.

We visited the Treasury museum, which houses a number of artifacts related to the church and the area. Pottery, reliquary boxes, altarpieces, even fabric! Woot. After we visited the upper church, we split up and the boys walked down the hill to the church of San Damiano, and Shannon and I hiked up through the town, stopping at a couple of small museums and churches along the way. Assisi is basically on the side of a hill, and I was very glad I'd been working out before the trip! It is a really beautiful town though. We bought some maiolica in a little shop near the church of San Rufino - seems like every second shop in Assisi sells maiolica! We also bought some linens from Perugia, which are just gorgeous. I will bring mine to an event sometime to show off to the weaving types. From what I know about such things, the tablecloth and largish towel I got are pretty accurate for period... but I'd have to have someone confirm that. At any rate, I got a good deal - 26 euros for both of them. Woot!

We met back up at the church of Santa Chiara (St. Clare), which had some nice frescoes but they were hard to see. Then we headed back to the train station to go on back to Florence. (For EduCaitlin: We found the absolute Worst Bathroom in the World at the Assisi train station. It was disgusting - someone had apparently had a major incident in one of the stalls, so bad that they left their pants behind. Boggles the mind, that does. It was so bad, I opted to wait until we were on the train and used the restroom there. I realize that was probably TMI, but I dare anyone to top that.)

Oh yeah, we almost got to witness Jason put the smackdown on a drunken Italian bum. I'm glad it didn't come to that, because I don't really know enough Italian to bail someone out of jail.

Next installment: major museums in Florence!