Pietra Dura

My dad and I walked over to the Sant Ambroge outdoor market this morning along Via de Macci (just down the street from Piazza Santa Croce where we're staying) and I noticed a placard saying that one of the buildings we walked by had been a hospital built in 1355 by the Macci family.  It was run by the Poor Clares for the Malmaritate (battered wives).  I have walked down this street at least twenty times since we've been here and never noticed this before. When my dad looked inside the opening, we saw what you see in the first picture, the Lastrucci Mosaic studio where the Lastrucci brothers keep alive the pietra dura tradition.  First, I will say I have marveled at the ornate pietra dura tables in both the Pitti Palace and Palazzio Vecchio.  Pietra Dura means "hard stone" in Italian but it also refers to the decorative art using cut and fitted, highly polished stones and semi-precious stones to create images.  These are made from a drawn template, sliced and cut into different sections and glued together as in the traditional way with beeswax and applied to a support.  This reached its maturity as an art form in Florence in the 15th century.  I have always loved decorative arts and this was a bonanza to just come upon this shop.  They invited us in and showed us around the studio and explained how these are made...bonanza number 2! There were stacks of stones everywhere...everything from porphyry from Egypt (there is none left in the earth they say), lapiz lazuli, various marbles to petrified wood from Arizona! They had a little gallery in the back with new and antique pietra dura works from past centuries and they were absolutely remarkable.  It is also remarkable in this day and age to see craftspersons keeping alive a tradition in the same way it was originally practiced in buildings that were built at the time the craft was introduced.

Just inside "I Mosaici di Lastrucci" where the Lastruccis have a studio where they keep alive the mosaic technique (from 15th century Florence) on via de'Macci in the historical building that was once a hospital set up by the Poor Clares for the "Malmaritate" (the battered wives). 





They use the templates cut out from a sketch on paper and use beeswax to stick the pieces together and then they are glued on a solid support at the end.

a floral mosaic in process

showing the precious stones used in the mosaics: everything from lapiz lazuli, porphyry to petrified wood!

Here are the guys cutting the stone pieces

A large finished stone mosaic (approx. 24x30 inches)

tourists, vendors and then Pisa

Ryan, dad, Jackie and Evan in Pisa in front of Duomo and Leaning Tower

The Leaning Tower was 17.5 feet off the vertical by 1990 and closed to the public. Here it is now after fortifications including 661 tons of lead weights fixed to the tower's north side to counterbalance the southward tilt!  Today, they allow about 40 people to climb it every half hour. This is where Gallileo did his famous experiments utilizing the overhang to drop metal balls from the tower and show that falling bodies of different weights descend at the same rate.



Pisa's Baptistery, Duomo and Leaning Tower (to the left you
can see a piece of the cemetery)



Pisa's Duomo (this predated and served as a model for the Duomos in both Florence and then Siena).  Pisa started the line.  There was a saying in Pisa: "Better a dead man in your living room, than a Florentine at your door!"

Notice there were only two tourists the other day in Pisa!! 



The pulpit inside Pisa's Duomo



Several people have asked what it’s like to live here in Florence.  We don’t really feel like inhabitants here, more like we’re skimming the surface of this great historical pond.  This city is really a living museum within a museum.  When we first came here to the historical district, it was enough just to find your way around…the streets are narrow with very narrow sidewalks, the edifices of these imposing stone buildings come right to the sidewalk, there are tons of people speaking a variety of languages, there are cars and scooters to avoid along with the vendors constantly trying to sell you things.  You don’t really “see” the layers of things here until you begin to know your way around and feel a little more comfortable.  I have always been interested in human perception, how we experience things.  Particularly with human vision…when we are overwhelmed by something new, we focus on a few things and don’t take in as much of the surroundings because we are just navigating our way at first.  Later when we become accustomed to something visually, we tend not to slow down and notice things as we are bent on getting to where we’re going. Now, as I have more time than usual AND I am not driving a car, I began to notice some of the less obvious things—the markers on building around this area for the 1966 flood, the little tabernacles on the outsides of buildings, usually at corners (Florence has a 1000 of them!), the little water fountains in strange places and…

There are many street vendors here: they will roll in these large carts and set up shop on streets, at the edge of piazzas and they obviously have licenses to do so.  Then there are the itinerant vendors who show up spontaneously on rainy days, the ones who grab your arm when you’re walking in the rain to try and sell you cheap umbrellas or rain ponchos.   If you really walk around the city as we have, you notice these repeating patterns.  There are a number of North Africans who sell cheap replica purses, packets of tissues, etc.   There are others who sell standard art replicas…they will lay out pictures of the David, Botticelli’s Venus, some pretty awful paintings of nudes and they are all the same throughout the city so you know they all have the same boss.  Then there are the Oriental women with cheap shawls on their arms…they can be anywhere and it is almost uncanny how they do exactly the same thing…they shake and shimmer the shawls on their arms and tap you.  When you go to the open markers (Mercato Centrale or Sant Ambrogio), the gypsies will come up to you and stand and front of you, grab your arm especially if they see that you are purchasing something, and make that instant sad-sack face and say “miei bambini” (I know no other way to describe it, they do it as if on cue and it is fascinating to stand back and watch them work people…it is also fascinating to see them congregate at the end of the day together somewhere and smoke cigarettes).  Evan noticed that at least three of them in different areas were carrying the same laminated picture of the same two bambinos!  These are observations simply of people trying to carve out a living.

If you walk east along the Arno, there is an area just before Ponte San Niccolo bridge where the tour buses let off throngs of people…right there the itinerant vendors work the people getting on and off the buses.  Then there is the fascinating aspect of tours…most of these tours at some point come through Piazza Santa Croce and stand for a little bit in front of Santa Croce Church.  They never seem to go inside.  Each morning, I will take a walk or run along the river and often on up to Piazzale Michelangelo which has a replica of Michelangelo’s David and a fine view of Florence from a high vantage point.  In both places by 8 a.m. there are Chinese tour buses unloading whether it is raining, very cold, foggy or sunny.  I have seen more Chinese and Japanese here than any other group and they come in very large numbers (these are strictly my observations and I find it fascinating: the Italians find it less than fascinating and say the Chinese in Prato just north of Florence in the textile area where they comprise 50% of the population are undermining the quality of “made in Italy!!”).  You can tell one of these groups from the window as they always have a tour leader/guide at the front holding up a plastic flower or other object on a stick, and they walk two-by-two or single file in an orderly fashion down the streets, across the plaza and then into this one leather shop off the piazza.  They go in and out in no time.  When the Italians come for a tour (of course, they must be from “other” places in Italy), they are in a disorganized group spread out here and there!  There is confetti all over Piazzale Michelangelo where there are group package weddings on the weekends for the Japanese. I’ve been told that it is very popular for the Japanese to have a wedding ceremony in front of an Italian monument. Yesterday, we visited Pisa to see the Leaning Tower in the morning and there was already a Japanese wedding occurring outside the Leaning Tower —the bride and groom went rushing past the Leaning Tower with the maid of honor! (I’m thinking right now of all that’s happening in Japan and am happy to see that some of these folks have missed all the trauma there). Thus, this is really a museum within a museum: there are the art and architecture of Florence and Italy and the living, changing museum of tourists that come here.  The Italians say that the Florentines are “chiuso” (closed) and I understand how difficult it would be to live here in the museum.  I am just getting now to the American college students of which there are approximately 4000 per semester.  They also congregate in separate groups from the Italians on the piazza, especially on the weekends until 4-5 in the morning, often totally inebriated and leaving their bottles everywhere (since the drinking age here is 16, it’s not such a big deal for the Italians, however, the American students cut loose).

I enjoy traveling on the trains, especially seeing the countryside from a train.  There is also the interesting issue of gypsies on the trains.  Often times, they will get on at one stop and get off at the next stop before the ticket master comes by.  Years ago when I came to Europe they would just walk through the cars and ask for money.  Now things are much more sophisticated as they hand out nicely typed (in both Italian and English!) little squares of paper with something about having to feed a couple of bambinos.  Then a few minutes later they will come back and ask for the papers back with money…then you will see them get off the train at the next stop and start the process all over.

Today, a British guy who works in the Etruscan museum in Fiesole told me that Americans that visit there keep telling everyone they’re from Canada as the Italians are happier with Canadians now!  When Ryan had to get a visa for Russia (he’s going next week with his class to St. Petersburg), his teacher told us the Russians are a little more fond of Americans this year and not requiring them to have the permesso soggiorno first (something you need in addition to your visa for staying in Italy beyond three months…I thought that’s what you needed your visa for in the first place!) All of us are tourists in my Italian intensive class—I have finally finished week 4 and am just participating in some group conversation classes in the afternoon this week.  In the past two weeks I have been in class with Germans, Swiss, French, French Canadian, Irish, Colombian, Guatamalans and a Franciscan priest from the Congo!  Talk about interesting…the classes and conversations are completely in Italian and it is like a UN volleyball game with words!  We often try to talk in Italian about the differences between our countries.  I am getting pretty good at understanding but I still have marbles in my mouth when it comes time for me to talk.  Very interesting to see in action the native Romance language speakers suddenly catch on (the French and Spanish) and even the Swiss and German have an ear for the Romance languages since they usually have some fluency already in one of the Romance languages.  Hearing the language day in and out on the street really helps…somehow there are just little phrases that stick in your brain and pretty soon you just understand them.  In no way does this mean I am anywhere near fluent.

So, I had heard that Pisa was more of a tourist trap and found that I was pleasantly surprised when we visited the other day.