Cool news and more Italy stories

Wednesday, Dec. 01, 2004
5:52 PM

Sheesh, it's been a busy couple of weeks. No time to update or do much more than try to keep my head above water. At least I have been getting stuff accomplished. Parts of the house are cleaner than they have been in a while, the garage is much more organized and we have gotten all the Christmas cards in the mail. I still have a ton of stuff to do, like laundry, cleaning bathrooms and working on wrapping presents. I guess I am kind of in a mood to work on household type chores, I better take advantage of that while it lasts!

In other news, I am preparing to take my first apprentice. Siobhan is fairly active locally, though she is new to what she calls "the real SCA" (she's been going to Pennsic for a number of years, but camping with a group that doesn't play the rest of the year). She has jumped in with both feet, and is busily researching anything and everything to do with Ireland, Flanders and Italy. We have already spent hours costume geeking and I think we are both going to get a lot out of this relationship. Now I have a bunch of fun stuff to do for the ceremony, which will be at Twelfth Night.

Now then, back to the Italy stories (yes, there are more!)...

Where were we? Saturday October 30 - Kevin and I were on our own after Jason and Shannon headed back home. I woke up feeling vaguely icky but not so bad that I couldn't do anything. So we headed out to the Opificio delle Pietre Dure. Pietre dure is a type of precious stone inlay that is distantly related to mosaic, very big in Florence in the 16th - 18th centuries. Not a lot of period stuff at the museum, but really amazingly intricate stuff nonetheless. Then we went around the corner to the church of Santissima Annunziata, which is a minor church but with some cool 16th century frescoes by Andrea del Sarto in the courtyard area. The inside of the church is fairly Baroque, so we didn't stay overly long. Then we went across the piazza to the Spedale degli Innocenti, which was an orphanage during the Renaissance. The museum is upstairs in a long hall that I think was one of the dormitories - lots of cool artifacts and paintings. One of the most touching things I saw were a bunch of tokens that mothers would leave with their babies when they dropped them off, so that they could find each other again. The tokens were things like half a medal or coin on a ribbon that the mother would pin to the child's clothing. These were mostly eighteenth and nineteenth century items, though.

We went back to the hotel to nap for a while, though unfortunately it didn't help my stomach much. We went back out and tried to go see some stuff that was closed (Orsanmichele and Casa di Dante) but did eventually get into the Palazzo Vecchio, after waiting a while in line to get through security. The Palazzo Vecchio was the seat of government from the 13th century, and then the home of the first Grand Duke in the 16th century. Lots of fancy frescoes and decoration, very sumptuous rooms and chapels, etc. There are some parts where you can still see earlier decoration, and some museum rooms with various artifacts. I took a picture of a period loo! Gotta love it.

The next day was Halloween - not such a big deal in Italy. There were some decorations, but we saw only one kid in costume, and that was a plastic cape and a mask. Halloween seems to be really more of an excuse to party, kind of like St. Patrick's Day here. We went to Mass in San Lorenzo, which is a different experience than in the Duomo, but just as nice. Afterwards, we went around the back to the Cappelle Medicee, which is where many of the Grand Dukes are buried. Lots of colored marble and pietre dure - very richly decorated. There is also the New Sacristy (the Old Sacristy is off to the side of the nave in San Lorenzo) which was designed by Michelangelo and has several sculptures by him. There are also earlier generations of Medicis buried there, including Lorenzo il Magnifico and his assassinated brother Giuliano.

Then the Christmas shopping began! There is a street market all around San Lorenzo and you can find all kinds of things there for very good prices. I also got a Universita Firenze sweatshirt for 15 Euros. It was very crowded though, so we knocked off after a while and went to dinner at La Maremma.

OK, dinner's ready and my proto-prentice is coming over for fabric geeking. I promise I'll wrap up the Italy trip sometime before the end of the year.

Ciao!