Il Duomo e la Fortezza

February 27, 2012August 12, 2024Leave a comment

On Wednesday, word of an open-air market at the fortress was all over school, so a few of my classmates and I hiked around past San Domenico to Fortezza Medicea, once military fortress housing Florentine troops, and now an enormous public park.

Merchant stalls surrounded the ancient brick walls like the camp of an army laying siege, selling everything from clothes and shoes to kitchen utensils to beautiful meats, cheeses, fruits, and vegetables.

(I was much more interested in the latter.)

The fortress was built in the 1560s by order of Cosimo I de’ Medici after his Florentine forces conquered the city. With its perimeter of over one kilometer, it’s a popular spot for walking and jogging, as well as picnicking. I love to pick up a sandwich from a nearby bar or a bit of fruit and cheese from the market just across the bridge, and eat with a view of the majestic Tuscan hills or the city’s three great towers.

My friends and I wandered back through town and parted ways at the Duomo, which I’d seen last year but wanted to visit for a second time.

One of my classmates asked me an impossible question: between the Duomo of Siena and that of Florence, which one do I like better?

I think I prefer the exterior of Santa Maria del Fiore, with its pastel colors and gentler Renaissance architecture. Siena’s intensely Gothic façade and bold black-and-white stripes are a little too jarring for me.

Doesn’t stop me from photographing the heck out of it, though.

The structure is mostly 13th-14th century Gothic, influenced by what was then quite fashionable in France. Note the similarities between this facade and that of Notre Dame, particularly on the upper levels. (The Duomo’s first story, begun in 1215 and worked on until just before 1300, is more Romanesque, while the upper stories and the belltower were designed in the early 1300s.)

If you read my blog last year and are currently going, “but wait, this all looks so familiar!”, then you are right. I featured several shots from Siena’s Duomo last year. That day, however, my camera battery died partway through the trip, so this year, I have taken pains to ensure that you’ll get to witness as much of the Duomo as possible!

I mentioned before that I prefer the outside of Florence’s cathedral to Siena’s, but the reverse is true inside. While there is something to be said for the contemplative simplicity of Santa Maria del Fiore’s interior (Siena’s San Domenico is similar, and it’s one of my favorite cathedral interiors), the tightly-woven complexity of Siena’s really comes together for me. It is order just bordering on chaos, it’s a bold celebration of contrast.

The interior includes works by Michelangelo, Duccio, Donatello, Nicola and Giovanni Pisano, Bernini, Pinturicchio, and still others.

From the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, you can climb up to a vantage point on the wall of what might one day have been the new façade, if not for the bubonic plague. The Senese intended to expand the existing cathedral to fill the entire piazza, making it the largest church in Europe (and more importantly, larger than that in Florence); after the plague, the project was abandoned, the populace fearing that the plague was punishment for their hubris.

In addition to another lovely view of the countryside, this place gives you an excellent angle on the cathedral itself.

Note the changing widths of the white stripes on the bell tower. From ground level, this creates the illusion that the tower is much taller than it actually is.

Later, I returned to Piazza del Campo to people-watch and get a bit of sun.

Next up: San Domenico, and a day trip to San Gimignano!

Siamo in arrivo a… Siena!

February 27, 2012August 12, 2024Leave a comment

On Sunday, after my morning in Pisa, I took the train to Siena and a cab from the railway station to my host’s apartment, where I have been for a week, now. It’s a clean building in a quiet neighborhood, just a few minutes from the bus stop, and from there a fifteen-minute ride into town past silver fields of olive trees and hills with little golden buildings perched on them. Monday was terribly cold and rainy and I didn’t do much sight-seeing, but Tuesday was all blue sky and warm sun, so I did what I seem to do in every city I visit nowadays: find the tallest tower and climb it!

Torre del Mangia, seen in the above photo from a viewpoint atop the nearby Duomo, was the tallest secular tower in Italy when it was built, overlooking Piazza del Campo from the Palazzo Pubblico. It was named for Giovanni di Balduccio, whose nickname, “Mangiaguadagni,” more or less meant “he eats his paychecks” and referred to his love of expensive food. (He and I have something in common.) The tower is visible from almost all of Siena, and was designed to be the same height as the belltower of the Duomo, symbolizing the equal power of the church and the secular government in the medieval Senese republic.

The tower is 330 feet tall and provides an astounding view of the city, the Piazza, and the surrounding countryside. From it, you can identify three other “high points” of this hilly Tuscan town: the Duomo, the church of San Domenico, and (difficult to see in the below photo, but look just behind San Domenico’s belltower in the far right) Fortezza Medicea.

The lower levels of the tower have windows overlooking the Piazza, making it an excellent place to watch the milling crowds on a sunny afternoon, or the preparations for Carnevale if you happen to be there on Fat Tuesday…

The Palazzo Pubblico, seat of the government of the republic for hundreds of years and now a museum and theatre, still sports the symbols of Siena’s medieval independence from nearby Florence and the Papal armies: the black and white crests of the city, and the water spouts in the form of snarling wolves (Siena’s symbol is la lupa who nursed Romulus and Remus, the legendary founders of Rome). When Siena was finally conquered by Florence around 1560, the Medici family coat of arms was added to the building’s façade, topped by fearsome metal crowns.

The white marble structure at the base of the tower is a chapel, built by the survivors of the Black Death in 1348; today, it is used to bless the participants of the Palio, a twice-annual horse race around the Piazza. (For more on the Palio, see my entry from last year’s Siena day trip.)

Any of the caffeterie or ristoranti around the Piazza give you a great vantage point for people-watching in the afternoon, and the prices, while somewhat inflated due to the location, aren’t nearly as bad as in places like Piazza San Marco in Venice or near the Vatican in Rome. The food is nothing to scoff at, either. A good Senese specialty, well-represented in the historic center, is pici, a type of thick, round noodle that is satisfying and chewy. You can also find lots of typical Tuscan secondi such as coniglio (rabbit) and cinghiale (wild boar).

The day wore on and Piazza del Campo began to fill with people in anticipation of Carnevale. I didn’t stick around, since the festivities were mostly oriented towards children and I was getting tired of the crowds, and instead took a walk towards San Domenico.

On deck: Fortezza Medicea and Siena’s striking Duomo.

La Torre Pendente

February 23, 2012August 12, 2024Leave a comment

Well, my internet access is dependable but infrequent, so apologies for how slowly I have been posting. Class is going well and my host, Marcella, is molto gentile. The last couple days have been gloriously sunny and almost warm, so I’ve been spending more time outdoors than inside the (freezing cold) school building.

Where were we? Ah, Pisa! I flew into the airport mid-evening and got a taxi to the pensione I’d booked, on a quiet little corner barely five minutes’ walk from the Leaning Tower. I got dinner at a trattoria across the street (penne con porcini, and rabbit in a lovely tomato and olive sauce), and returned to my room to rest up for the next long day.

It started to pour down rain on Sunday, so I bought a cheap umbrella at a roadside stand and got right to work.

The Leaning Tower, actually the belltower of the adjacent cathedral, is one of the most recognizable sights in Italy—perhaps in all of Europe. It is almost 200 feet tall and leans a full 15 feet—five degrees—to the south, thanks to the marshy soil and its shallow foundation. Construction began in 1173, but for reasons lost to history, work continued only for a few years. Twice, the tower was left incomplete—once in 1178 and again in 1278—each time for nearly one hundred years.

All of the buildings on il Campo dei Miracoli are leaning slightly, probably due to the unstable ground. The Baptistry leans about six feet to the north.

Pisa’s Baptistry is the largest in Italy, at 180 feet tall, and it showcases multiple architectural styles reflecting the length of its construction: Romanesque arches (12th century) on the lower level, Gothic (13th century) spires and arches mid-level, and a 15th century Renaissance dome.

The Duomo of Pisa is where the architectural term “Pisan Romanesque” is derived.

The interior is spectacularly painted and frescoed, but no photos were allowed inside, sadly. So, let’s focus our attention on that tower.

The tower’s incline presents some interesting problems when it comes to preservation and restoration. The south side, shielded from erosion from rain and wind, collects airborne dust and pollutants and requires manual cleaning; conversely, the north side suffers much more greatly from erosion and mineral deposits due to the flow of water. The angle of the tower places such stress on the structure itself that parts of the tower—particularly the outer columns, of which only 33 of the total 180 are original—have cracked or fractured.

Notice that the very top level, the belfry, appears slightly askew in relation to the rest of the tower. This was an attempt by architect Tommaso Pisano (a descendent of the original designer, Bonnano Pisano) to shift the tower’s center of gravity further north and slow its ever-increasing tilt.

For a measly fifteen euros, you can climb to the top of the tower. Tours are taken up every half-hour. As the groups ascend, peals of dizzied laughter begin to fill the narrow stone passages. The tilt is more than noticeable as you spiral up and up, and the cognitive dissonance between the seemingly-regular stairway and the changing angle of your ascent is… really something. I do not recommend this climb for anyone with vertigo or difficulty balancing. I would also suggest, if you make it to the top, staying on the north side of the belfry.

Still, the view is stunning…

… and they might ring the bells while you’re up there.

The tower is the only part of Pisa that gets much publicity, but another worthwhile stop is the Cemetery of Camposanto, a narrow, elegant marble structure just north of the Duomo, in which some six hundred prominent Pisans are entombed, many in recycled Roman sarcophagi.

The rectangular structure encloses a lush, bright courtyard, filled with soil that was brought from Jerusalem during the crusades.

Local legend holds that the soil has magical properties and can reduce a body to nothing but bones within a day. I had neither the time nor the spare bodies necessary to test it out, so a legend it will have to remain…

Camposanto was severely damaged during World War II (and today there are photos on display showing just how extensive the damage was). The roof, originally made of expensive lead tiles, melted when the building was bombed and damaged the frescoes on the walls.

Bit by bit, the frescoes are being restored and returned to their original positions.

Coming up next: some nice weather, for a change, and a look at Siena from several points of view.

La Città della Luce part II

February 20, 2012August 12, 2024Leave a comment

I have arrived safely in Siena and am getting settled at my home for the next three weeks. My host is a friendly older woman, my room is clean and bright, and I’m about ten minutes by bus from the historical city center. I don’t have internet access at home, but I do at school, so the blogging shall continue uninterrupted from here on. Anyway! There is still much of Paris left to talk about, so I won’t keep you waiting.

After leaving Notre Dame, I crossed to the north side of the river and walked west along it until I reached the Louvre.

The statue in the courtyard is of King Louis XIV, who in 1682 chose to change residence from the Palais de Louvre to Versailles, thus allowing the palace to be used as a residence for artists.

The famous palace was built on the foundations of an earlier 12th-century fortress, parts of which are part of the museum’s exhibition beneath the ground floor. It was converted to a public museum after the French Revolution and opened officially in 1793. You enter the museum through the iconic glass pyramid and descend into a mall-like foyer with entrances into the different wings of the museum, cafes, and gift shops.

The Louvre is enormous. It contains wing after wing of 35,000 works of art, housed in 650,000 square feet of space, spanning two millennia and three continents at least. I had already seen the Roman art and artifacts (it briefly was shown at the Seattle Art Museum a few years back), but I lingered among the Greek statues and the Italian Renaissance paintings, and spent as long as I could gazing into the eyes of the Mona Lisa (but only after fighting to the front of the mob of tourists gathered around her). I wandered the halls for a good two hours, occasionally getting lost and having to backtrack, and once I’d had my fill, I made my exit through the glass pyramid and went to stroll the Tuileries.

It drizzled on and off and there were low clouds for most of the day, but now and then the Eiffel Tower emerged in the distance.

I stopped for a light lunch at Café le Nemours, just a few minutes across the street from the Louvre: a green salad with warm chevre on toasted bread.

After the fuel-up (and more urgently, the chance to rest my already-aching feet), I headed across the river to the Musée Orsay.

Where the Louvre leaves off at about 1850, Orsay picks up the baton with 19th century Conservative, Neoclassical, Realist, and Impressionist paintings and sculptures. A little pressed for time, I went straight to the top floor for the Impressionists and basked in Monet and Degas for a while, then backtracked to the second floor for Van Gogh.

After I’d taken in about as much classic art as my brain could process in one day, I took a stroll up the Champs-Elysées, surrounded on all sides by glittering storefronts and expensive restaurants. The rain had started up again, so I put away my camera and just walked, heading towards the Arc de Triomphe, where I took the metro south to the Eiffel Tower.

It’s a few blocks’ walk from the nearest metro station, but the tower is hard to miss. At the time of its construction culminating in 1889, it was the tallest structure in the world, 1,063 feet including the antenna. It was constructed using 7,300 tons of iron and took just over two years to build (about one-hundredth of the time needed to build Notre Dame—how things have changed!).

While it is possible to take elevators to any of the three levels of the tower, I opted to save money and avoid lines by taking the stairs.

Remember last year’s 463-step ascent to the cupola of the Duomo of Florence? It is 670 steps to the second story of the Eiffel Tower. My legs ached for days.

I didn’t go up to the third and highest level (I was having bad enough vertigo as it was, the elevator lines were long, and sunset had come and gone), but they say that the view is best from the second level, anyway.

Just as I was getting ready to return to solid ground, they switched on the lights.

I made my sore and breathless way back down to earth through the blinding golden floodlights, and followed the crowds across the bridge to place de Trocadéro.

After sunset, for five minutes, the tower comes alive with dancing white lights.

I ended the long day at Café Bonaparte, a block off of boulevard St. Germain, with steak tartare (raw, seasoned, ground beef on toasted bread) and a glass of cider.

Next up: a morning in Pisa!

La Città della Luce

February 18, 2012August 12, 2024Leave a comment

Buongiorno (or should I say bonjour?), amici! You are probably wondering what is taking me so long to get this thing started. Well, I’ve been in Paris for two days, and I haven’t had any downtime for anything other than sleeping. I wrote much of this post at the Orly airport, and I am finishing and posting it from Pisa (tomorrow, I will do a little sightseeing before catching a train to Siena in the afternoon).

I arrived in Paris on Thursday and caught a cab to place de le Bastille. The most prominent structure there now is the Opera, which is glaringly modern.

From there, I took a long walk through Marais, which included a light lunch (an omelette with Roquefort and walnuts) at a chic teahouse called Le Loir dans le Theiere (the doormouse in the teapot).

Its walls sporting advertisements for local theatre and music events plus a hand-painted Alice in Wonderland themed mural, Le Loir appears to be a popular spot for Parisians of all ages; there was hardly room to move around the tables, and I was seated at what was probably the last open chair, at a table with a few teenagers visiting from Switzerland. The omelette and the tea were sublime.

I strolled from Marais across the river and made a lap around the east end of Île de la Cité.

Most notably, I circled around Notre Dame. Check out those flying buttresses.

And around to the facade!

After my walk, I hopped on the metro to my hotel on rue de Rennes. I didn’t get much else done that day; jet lag was starting to set in, so I wandered out for a quick dinner and went to bed soon after. The jet lag didn’t last, fortunately, and I woke up the next morning ready for a very long day.

I had a chocolate pastry for breakfast at a corner patisserie, and then set off for Île de la Cité via metro. I started at Sainte-Chapelle, the outside of which is a little dull (the Gothic style is similar to Notre Dame but on a smaller scale) and the inside of which is beyond amazing.

The first floor is notable for the brightly-painted ceiling and arches.

The second is notable for some of the most intricate stained glass you’ll ever see. The 14 windows depict the entire Christian history of the world, from Genesis to the Apocalypse.

Sainte-Chapelle was comissioned in the 13th century by King Louis IX to house several relics, including the Crown of Thorns. These relics are now kept in a more secure location, though it is occasionally brought out for display in the elevated pulpit.

(Open this one up for a higher-resolution view, to see more detail of the stained glass:)

After Sainte Chapelle, I returned to Notre Dame and went inside.

Notre Dame (“Our Lady”) de Paris is another Gothic cathedral, with architectural features similar to the duomi of Siena and Milan. Construction began in 1163 and continued until roughly 1345, though it has undergone frequent repairs, remodels, and reconstruction (particularly after the French Revolution, during which many historical sites were vandalized). Its 7,800-pipe organ (not pictured, though goodness knows I tried), made by François-Henri Clicquot, was installed in the 1700s and rebuilt a century later by Aristide Cavaillé-Coll.

Inside, there is a memorial to Joan of Arc, who led the French army during the Hundred Years’ War. The decision to declare her a martyr was made at Notre Dame some 25 years after her death.

Look at the painted detail of the stained glass (close-up from the treasury).

Leaving the cathedral, on the wall to the right of the door, there are statues of angels and a saint (I haven’t been able to find out who) holding his own decapitated head.

Who are all these guys on the front (again, open it up for a higher resolution view)?

These twenty-eight statues represent the Kings of Judah, distant ancestors of Mary and Jesus, though they also are said to represent historical kings of France. Fun fact: the statues were actually beheaded during the French Revolution. One assumes that new heads were sculpted some time after, as most of the heads were not even recovered until 1977.

That is all for the moment! Check back soon for further adventures in the City of Light.

Doing the Thing

let's goooooooooooooo

Month: February 2012

Il Duomo e la Fortezza

Siamo in arrivo a… Siena!

La Torre Pendente

La Città della Luce part II

La Città della Luce