duffys in Italy: Jan 30, 2011

view of Siena's cathedral from above

It is raining steadily today and Evan is recovering from a bad cold so there’s time for a long post! We're just sitting around eating lots of blood oranges, which are in season right now, and the basis for a citrus addiction! Last Saturday, the boys and I took the train to Siena, about an hour and a half south of here. Siena was on the "holy road" to Rome and Florence was not--churches on the holy road profited from the pilgrims making donations during their pilgrimages as you will see in the pictures below of Siena's cathedral. Siena is a medieval city that was always in competition with Florence until it was suppressed in the 1500s by Florence. Thus, the medieval portion of the city is pretty much intact from that time on. It was a very cold day so we decided to stay for the afternoon, walking the mile from the train station to the medieval part of the city. It has a huge square in its center called Il Campo where the famous Palio bareback horse races are still held to this day. We climbed the 500 steps to the Torre del Mangia (the first watchman was an "eater of profits" and thus the name!), visited the beautiful Sienna Duomo and walked around the city a bit until we were frozen and Ryan found us a taxi to get back to the train station!

Palazzo Publicco and Torre del Mangia (Siena)

view of Siena and Tuscan countryside from Tower of Mangia

Another view of Siena and countryside from tower

Siena's Duomo

up close, filigree work on Siena's Duomo

Ryan and Evan at top of Torre del Mangia

Okay, if you're still interested in churches, I have some pictures (below) and info to share from my tour of Florence's Duomo the other day with the art history class. (The boys say they're sick of visiting churches!) Both of these cities had Baptisteries (for baptizing their entire populations) and these were separate from the cathedrals and octogonal. 8 was an auspicious number, indicating infinity (especially when placed on its side!) but also because it represented 7+1, that is it symbolized the eighth day of creation or eternity. Florence's Baptistery was built in two stages, the first part including the first two stories and then the third story was added later and you can see this difference reflected below. It is a beautiful building and it was built over the site of an old "domis" or home from the Roman times. The Florentines simply built up the piazza and put the Baptistery and church above. We went underground below the Baptistery and saw the original mosaic tile floor remains of the house that was there in Roman times as well as some of its walls. The church that accompanies the Baptistery is called Santa Marie del Fiore, St. Mary of the Flower, and it was built directly over Santa Reparata, the original church on the site. St. Reparata was Florence's original patron saint, but she was really a "second-rate saint" (you know, only an eleven year old martyr) and so the Florentines decided to name St. John the Baptist as their patron saint to garner a little more respect. Below you will also see a picture of a memorial to St. Zenobius, Florence's first bishop, just outside the Baptistery. The day we were there, it was decked with all kinds of fresh flowers to commemorate St. Zenobius...legend has it that there was an elm tree on that site in antiquity, and when St. Zenobius corpse was carried past it, it spontaneously burst into bloom!
At any rate, I am fascinated by how legends, myths, politics and competition all intertwine in the building of churches and are reflected in the symbolism within. Inside all of these churches are chapels and statues, etc. commissioned by wealthy families to establish their perpetuity, or some type of everlasting fame, and there is competition here as well for bigger and better. Seems like we do that with our homes now, not so much our churches! Inside of Santa Maria del Fiore are large paintings of some of their condotterie (mercenaries, in this case from England) who fought for Florence (Again, I love all the contradictions). We stood inside Santa Maria del Fiore right on the site where the Pazzi conspiracy occured: the Pazzi family decided to take out the Medicis and while Florence's bishop (who was in on the conspiracy as was the Pope at the time) was delivering communion to Lorenzo the Great and his brother, the Pazzis stabbed Lorenzo's brother and killed him right on the spot. Lorenzo ran into the sacristy of the church and barricaded himself there until help arrived. Now, that would have been a much less boring lesson than the ones I learned in catechism class!
We had the opportunity to go up on the outside railing of the church (it has a rather low railing I might add) and view the city and Brunelleschi's Dome close-up. Brunelleschi's Dome was an architectural marvel at the time and still is, since it was the first dome of its type built with flying scaffolding (usually the dome would have to be built over some type of support which would later be removed). They still don't know exactly how it was done and Brunelleschi never revealed his plans....he didn't write backwards and upside down and cryptically like Leonardo da Vinci, he just didn't keep his plans. As an aside, Fred and I have read Ross King's book "Brunelleschi's Dome" and it is a fascinating account of the building of the dome and the politics and history of the time. We were also able to go inside on the inside upper railing of the church and had some stunning views from above. Elaine Ruffolo seems to have an "in" with the museums and churches and this has enabled us to do some things you wouldn't do on a normal tour.
I also wanted to mention something about the campanile (bell tower) that accompanies the churches. Many of these ring at odd times in the city and this still reflects their original purpose--to indicate when the gates to the city were opening in the morning and also to reflect the "working day"--thus, they are still calibrated every few days so they ring at sunset and every hour before sunset for that given day. You will also see below an original 24 hour clock on the back upper wall of the church. Just across from the Baptistery is a building called the Miseracordia ( a place to "help people") with a fresco of St. Peter preaching to the Florentines to give alms to the poor. Ironically, it was closed just three weeks ago because of a scandal--there is a great deal of money mysteriously missing from its coffers!
One of the things you can't miss are the Baptistery doors made of gilded bronze. In 1330, the Florentines celebrated their wealth by commisioning these doors...the first set is by Pisano and they are solid bronze (directly below) and have panels you "read" from left to right of biblical scenes from St. John the Baptist's life. For the second set of doors, the Florentines held a competition and it boiled down to Brunelleschi (who lost) and Ghiberti who won. The second set of doors are hollow bronze--there was the revival of the lost wax technique of bronze casting re-discovered from the ancient Roman times. In any event, the doors are fantastic and there are even little "portraits" of the artists sculpted into the doors!
Though, it is often strange to be "living" in the medieval part of a city, there are some great benefits to being able to go back and forth to these sites at will. Often times, you can't take all of it in on the first pass. Yesterday, I braved going into the Uffizi Museum for two hours...there was no line and I was able, for instance, to stand right in front of Botticellis' "Birth of Venus" and actually look at it for awhile...not many people even in that room! The down side to living in a medieval part of a city is that there aren't many trees or greenery, and some of the narrow streets seem like dungeons...just pavement and stone and noises just reverberate off the stone walls. Today marks 30 days since I have driven a car so that also feels strange since the method of transport is mostly our legs, followed by buses and trains!

Florence's baptistery (St. John) . Notice the gilded bronze baptistery doors

Brunelleschi's Dome on top of Santa Maria del Fiore cathedral (little black holes in the dome are where the flying scaffolding for building the dome went or so it is said. Inside, the dome, one of the holes comes out right where Christ's head is in the big fresco)

Memorial to St. Zenobius, Florence's first bishop. When his body was carried by the elm tree that originally grew in this spot, it was said to have flowered spontaneously!