Ciao, tutti!
I am very sorry for the long break since the last update. My internet access is a bit unreliable, plus my mother arrived last Friday (we\’ve been very busy with sightseeing, and I hope to share all of that with you soon), and on top of all of that, I have hurt my neck and can\’t do much of anything right now. Once I am recovered, expect some treats from Palazzo Pitti and the Boboli Garden, Santa Maria Novella, and Fiesole.
<3 Thanks for your patience. Dopo, ciao!
After falling down a flight of stairs at a restaurant yesterday (this was before the wine-tasting, thank you very much), I did wonder if attempting to climb the Duomo’s 463 steps was the smartest of ideas. Thankfully, my ego was the only part of me that was hurt in the incident, and not only was today’s weather magnificent, but there was no line to get in, either! How could I pass it up?
The entrance to the cupola is hidden away on one side of the cathedral, where you pay, receive your ticket, and then start the long climb. How long is it? Well, I didn’t count the number or keep track of the time, but there are signs all over the ticket booth warning you that if you have a heart condition, you should not attempt it. The signs say that there are 463 steps, plus some additional walking as you circle the inside of the dome or go between staircases.
The staircases are narrow stone-and-brick passageways lit by electric lights and windows at regular intervals. At first, the stairway structure is rectangular, but it soon becomes a tight spiral. Along the way, you stop off at a few rooms with statues and art and so on.
More staircases and passageways.
A bit before the halfway point, you circle around inside of the dome, with an excellent view of the frescoes painted therein. From the ground, due to the distance and the angle, they’re pretty hard to see, but from here, it’s much easier to absorb the details.
Although you can’t see the entire work in this photo (I was shooting over a plastic barrier and couldn’t get an angle that would capture all of it), the fresco depicts the Last Judgment and was painted by two artists, Giorgio Vasari and Federico Zuccari, from 1572 to 1579. (The structure of the dome itself, designed by Filippo Brunelleschi, was built between 1420 and 1436.)
For a little perspective, you can see how high up I am at this point:
(Shot through the plastic barrier, hence the lousy colors.)
You follow a catwalk about halfway across the interior of the dome, and then go up…
… and up…
and up.
In this shot you can see that you are entering the upper part of the dome, as the surface begins to curve.
Now, I’m proud to say that I am in decent shape at this point in my life, and while I was not huffing and puffing like some of the tourists that I passed in the corridors, my legs were aching by the time I reached the top. It was quite the workout!
Anyway–at last you come to a short but extremely steep bit of stairs that is more of a ladder than a staircase, leading up through a hole only a few feet in diameter, and once you haul yourself up through that, you emerge at the top of the dome to what is certainly one of the most beautiful cityscapes in the world.
In the above shot, there is the Church of Santa Croce on the far left, and behind it, Piazzale Michelangelo. The Arno river is also visible if you look for it.
Facing the opposite direction, the stunning Tuscan hills…
… and looking down, the shadow of the Duomo and the belltower to the left.
Capelle Medici to the right, the Church of Santa Maria Novella to the left, and the train station (Stazione Santa Maria Novella) in the middle.
Looking down again, the body of the cathedral, and the belltower.
Like I said, the weather was just astounding. There was hardly any wind, so I was quite warm, even all the way up on the roof! The sky was wonderful as well.
On the way back down, you could stop and look at some of the old tools and mechanisms used for building and restoring the cathedral.
Finally on the ground again—how small it looks from down here!
That’s all for now. I don’t have any specific plans for what’s next, but there are still many, many places in Florence that I have not seen, so rest assured that our adventures are far from over. Until next time, ciaociao!
I wrote last time that I have been in love with Siena, very deeply and in secret, for a long time. Because of this, I wanted to devote an appropriate amount of effort to the story (and to the photos), and I simply didn’t think I could do it justice in the little time I had this morning. I also had been lazy and hadn’t finished processing the photos, but I like the first excuse better.
When I was little, my mother had all of these books from her childhood by an author named Marguerite Henry. The books were all in hardback, with gorgeous color illustrations, and they were all dramatized but ostensibly true stories about horses. I was in one of those phases at the time and I must have read all of them cover-to-cover a dozen times each. A number of them were about a family on the island of Chincoteague on the American east coast, but there was one about a boy in Italy and a horse that he rescued, trained, and raced in the Palio in Siena. The book was called Gaudenzia–the name of the horse, which one character translates as “the joy of living”–and because of it, I became obsessed with the Palio for a good few years, in spite of how dangerous it was made out to be. I would play make-believe with props made hastily from whatever objects and art supplies I could find lying around and run around the yard, pretending that I was racing in the Palio.
The obsession faded after not too long, but you know, that sort of childhood love for a thing or a place never goes away. Even if I have not read that book in probably ten or twelve years, I remember the story in glimpses, in fragments of prose and mental images. Ever since reading it, I have secretly wished that I could see the place where it is held and experience it first-hand.
But before we get to that, I’ll roughly follow our guided tour and show you a few other things first.
Siena is very much a Tuscan city; the streets are narrow, and generally stone rather than cement pavement, with no real delineation between sidewalk and drivable surface. A defining feature of Siena is its hills; the city is built over three of them, with prominent city features placed on each one. When walking through Siena, you’ll go up and down, up and down, on steep terrain with abrupt changes in inclination.
The dominant architectural style is medieval; there is lots of old stone and terracotta brick. Some areas have an almost Roman feeling to them.
Our first stop on the tour was the Church of San Domenico, important to the Sienese because it was built in honor of St. Catherine, the patron saint of Siena and one of the two patron saints of Italy (along with St. Francis of Assisi). The story goes that Catherine, who had entered the public eye by traveling throughout Italy to help the poor and the ill and to advocate for clergical reform, went to Avignon (at the time, the seat of the Papacy) to ask the Pope to return to Rome. Less than a year later, her request was granted, and Pope Gregory XI moved to Italy. She died and is buried in Rome, but her skull and her thumb are preserved as relics in San Domenico.
There were no photographs allowed inside the church, though some members of our group were taking photos anyway. Let me take this moment to say that it really frustrates me when people do not respect the wishes or regulations at historical sites. Regardless of one’s religious belief, I think it’s important to at least give respect to the people who live in, worship at, and take care of these places, and above all, to never use your flash at historical or artistic sites, EVER. I could rant forever on this subject, but I will spare you.
Our next stop was the Duomo of Siena, formally the Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta.
Constructed in the 13th century but including works from the Renaissance and additional chapels and structures from even later. As such, this Duomo is unusual among Italian churches in that it incorporates four architectural styles: Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, and Baroque.
The black and white marble is all from Siena (and other colors and varieties of local marble can be found inside, mostly in floor mosaics). Black and white, the colors of Siena, are said to represent the colors of the horses owned by the city’s founding brothers, Senius and Aschius.
The façade is distinctly Gothic, and in fact reminiscent of the Duomo of Milan.
The interior is rich with frescoes and statues, and of course, the black and white stripes.
The Duomo has a library that was, until recently, closed off from the public and kept dark. As such, the frescoes on its walls (our guide attributed them to Rafael himself, but Wikipedia says differently—I shall leave it to you to decide!) are preserved in astounding color.
After leaving the Duomo, our guide took us at last to Piazza del Campo, where the Palio is held twice a year (once in July, once in August).
It is a surprisingly small space for a horse race! In fact, the race itself takes only a little over a minute.
The race represents a traditional rivalry between the seventeen districts, or contrade, that make up the residential sectors of the city. Each contrada has a mascot and a distinct identity. If you are born in a contrada, you belong to it for life, no matter where you may move. In each Palio, ten of the seventeen contrade contribute a horse and a jockey; the jockeys ride bareback, and use their whips as much to disturb other jockeys and horses as to encourage their own. Preventing one’s rival from winning is as much a part of the sport as aiming to win oneself, and a surprising amount of physical interference is permissible. It is not uncommon for jockeys to fall (or be pushed) off, though it is important to note that a horse can win the race with or without its rider.
Standing in the Piazza del Campo was certainly one of the top ten most amazing moments of this trip. (Also among the top ten were: the tower in Lucca, my first cappuccino, standing in the Colosseum, the bistecca fiorentina that I had for dinner last night.)
After Siena, we went to a wine-tasting at a small Chianti vineyard called Sant’Appiano, which ages its wines in oak barrels in a traditional underground cellar that is more a cave than a constructed space. It’s beautiful.
The wines (and the olive oil) were excellent.
I have given up on trying to keep track of how many days I have been here (correct answer: quite a few) and will just give dates from here on. In any case, I have survived three weeks, have moved into my host family, and have made some friends!
Thursday was Epiphany, so the school was closed and we decided to take a tour of the Chianti region and Siena. Chianti is the name of the hilly regions south of Florence; it is best known for its wine but also produces some of the best olive oil in the world. The gently-sloped hills are all shades of green, covered in mist, and scored with vineyards and olive orchards.
Our first stop was a tiny town called San Gimignano. It is perched on the top of a little hill, overlooking the rolling landscape, surrounded by olive trees and pines.
It is deliciously medieval.
Really, it’s the kind of place where seeing a car or even a person in modern clothing seems an anacrhonism.
The history of San Gimignano and the Chianti region is tied to the ancient rivalry between Florence and Siena, and was shaped by the effects of the Black Death. The ruling powers of both cities wanted the land between them (and each other) for their own, not only for control of wine and oil production, but for control of the roads and the ability to tax the goods that were transported there. Florence eventually won, and Siena was subsequently crippled by the Plague; thus, it was Florence that had the greater political and financial power, and Florence that gave birth to the Renaissance, while Siena did not experience the same population growth or architectural evolution. Thus, Siena and many of the small towns in the Chianti region (such as, for example, San Gimignano) have retained this medieval character and tend to have very small populations.
In the piazza by the town’s cathedral, surrounded by fourteen ancient towers, there is an open-air market of clothing, gifts, and fresh food.
San Gimignano’s town hall shows some of the earliest examples of perspective in frescoes. The three-dimensionality is striking in person—the images pop out at the viewer and really have an astonishing sense of depth.
We had about an hour to wander San Gimignano; my friends and I stopped for coffee, bought some postcards and souvenirs, and mostly wandered the stone streets gaping in awe. When our time was up, we piled back onto our tour bus and were on our way to Siena.
Now, as you may remember, I had a misadventure in Siena during my first few days in Italy, so I was really looking forward to the chance to experience it properly. I also have been secretly, deeply in love with Siena since I was very young, and I will tell you why in my next post!
For now, here is a preview:
Until next time! Ciaociao!
Ciao, i miei amici! School started this week, so I have been very busy getting settled in at my home (an apartment I share with two other students and our landlady) and adjusting to having classes and homework and all that. Once again, I am largely without internet and I haven\’t had much time for photos, though I do have a few from the weekend that I have not posted, and there is an organized tour of Siena tomorrow that I will be attending, so you can expect some pictures soon!
Class is intense, and it is strange to come home from my day and still have to use Italian! I have never studied abroad before, so this is new and interesting. I am studying hard and trying to get over all of my fears about speaking.
In bocca al lupo! Ciaociao!
Not much description today, as I am currently on a bench outside a cafe with WiFi, it is cold, and my battery is low. While there are internet points all over and I can check e-mail/comments easily enough, I need WiFi to actually upload photos from my laptop and I have had terrible luck finding any that works. Please forgive the irregular schedule lately.
On the 30th I went to the Museum of Archaeology, which included Etruscan burial hordes and pottery, and a whole bunch of Egyptian artifacts, mummies, and papyri; I also managed to reserve a ticket to the Accademia that afternoon, where I saw Michelangelo’s Davide and a whole bunch of other sculptures.
On the 31st, I made the climb up to the Piazzale Michelangelo, where stands a bronze replica of Davide, and from which you can see all of Florence. It’s magnificent.
Looking west, with Ponte Vecchio:
Looking north:
The hills south of Florence:
Ponte Vecchio again (I just loved this angle):
Church of Santa Croce on the right:
Anyway, it is officially 2011. Where the heck did the time go? It was a beautifully clear, sunny morning, so I was going to climb the Duomo, but of course the cupola was closed. Instead, I went to the Medici chapel and will hopefully post those photos soon.
Buon’anno, tanti auguri, e ciaociao!