Assisi

It’s official. Assisi is the most beautiful town I have visited in Italy so far. I love the color of the stone, the character of the homes, the diversity of the spaces. I don’t think I have ever been filled with so much joy just from seeing one little town.

Chiesa di San Francesco was unlike any church we have seen so far. The piazza in front framed the church beautifully, allowing for a procession past a series of arches that set the church apart from the rest of the town like a gem set atop a crown. The church itself was set at an angle from the piazza and incorporated a collection of overlapping spaces and structures that caused the viewer to wonder exactly how it all fit together. It is a Gothic church, but its stone construction and relatively flat facades were reminiscent of the Romanesque era.

The interior of the lower church was also unlike any church I have seen. Though it is Gothic, it has surprisingly low ceilings that, instead of making it appear dreary and unwelcoming, brought it to life with color that floated close to the viewers’ heads. The frescoes were magnificent, telling stories of the life of Christ and St. Francis with vibrant colors. The procession through the lower church was like a procession through life on earth in which the end, at the altar, was death. But there, also, was the rising to the upper level, a resurrection, and the beginning of life after death. Here, on the upper level, the ceilings were magnificently tall and painted like the heavens. The windows emphasized light and the divine. The frescoes telling the stories of St. Francis’s life serve as inspiration to the viewers, depicting the life of a man who gave up all material things for God. The church is an incredible collection of spaces that symbolize the life God wants for us.

I found it very interesting that the church was so magnificently and richly designed while St. Francis was such a simple man. I wonder if he looks down on us now from heaven shaking his head and saying, “What were they thinking…” But at the same time, when looked at as a church of God, it can be viewed as giving up money and material things as an offering to God rather than a collection for our own selfish desires.

When we left the church and began to explore the rest of the town, I began to understand St. Francis’s love for nature. The piazza in front of the upper church provides magnificent views of both the valley below and the mountains above. The down dwells peacefully in harmony with the surrounding landscape, and the design of the streets, walls, and windows frame beautiful views, never allowing a visitor to forget God’s creation or even pass by without a glance. It is a beautiful town.

Florence II

I can’t believe how happy I am right now. This has been one of the best Valentine’s Days ever. It started yesterday when Kirk, from our group, bought each girl from Texas A&M a gerber daisy for Valentine’s Day. He did it anonymously, but we all figured out who it was. It was so sweet. And then today, Peri got TWENTY-FIVE roses from Chris, as well as a potted white orchid and the sweetest card ever. I was so happy for my friends, not even expecting anything for myself. But then, I went down to dinner with my bottle of wine and saw all my girl friends standing around a table. I completely passed them up to set up our table with my wine not paying any attention to what they were doing, thinking they had bought Lisa some flowers. Then I noticed they were all looking at me funny, so I walked over to them and there were three roses for me! Apparently Bryan had emailed Peri to tell her to buy three roses for me and he sent me a card. But the funny thing was they tricked me by asking me to go to the computer store with Lauren while Rebecca and Peri went to the florist to buy me flowers. It was so sweet. I got a Valentine from my boyfriend and my best friends at the same time! What a beautiful day!

Not only that, but today I got hit on. Well, that wasn’t exactly the most wonderful thing in the world, but apparently there are a few men at the leather market in Florence who recognize me and think I am beautiful. (It is probably just because I am tall and there are few tall Italian women.) I met one of them the second time I was in Florence when I stopped near his booth. I expected him to try to sell me something, but he started asking me how I was doing and where I was from. He was nice, but as soon as he told me it was nice to me meet, I took that as my cue to leave. The next thing I knew, he had told his friends about me and they were peeking behind the booth staring at me and touching their faces as if they wanted to touch mine. His friends spoke only Italian, but I could tell they were talking about me. I smiled stiffly, said a nervous “Ciao,” and turned to walk the other direction and out of sight. Well, today we went back to the same leather market not realizing that the same merchants stay in the same area, and I heard the voice of one man as I passed by. He recognized me, saying “Hello, again,” and asked me how I was doing. I was taken aback at first, but I managed to politely respond and walk on. Then I saw the other men in front of me who began to call, “Beautiful lady! Ciao, Bella!” I swiftly walked on past and out of the leather market. I’ll admit it was flattering, but a little scary. Maybe it was just the Valentine’s air. But, then again, that’s Italians for you.

Other than that, what a beautiful day to be in Florence! We saw the Duomo (again), but this time it was with Paulo, our professor. We also saw a gorgeous palace that our professor used to live in when he was a boy. Now it is just a historical place that you can visit. (Wouldn’t it be amazing to live in a palace that was later a tourist attraction?) We also went to a science museum. Even the scientific instruments were beautiful. The flasks and thermometers were fashioned into pretty designs and even animals. On in particular looked like a crab! The rest of the museum was also pretty interesting, but we were so exhausted it was hard to pay attention to our professor as he spoke. But it was still an amazing day.


Oh, there is something else I would like to document. I should have written this days ago, but I have been so busy. We went to Como and Milan last weekend and I saw an absolutely GORGEOUS church. We were in Como walking around after lunch and we decided to enter the cathedral. It was amazing. I can’t even describe what it was about the church that I loved so much. I guess I can start from the outside. It was built of light gray and reddish stone and had a gorgeous loggia on the left of the façade that looked like it used to be used as part of a cloister, or perhaps it was just a covering for events. It has since been damaged, but it had a mystical quality about it that made me want to walk under and around it and sit beneath the arches for a while. A group of us sat under there for a moment and took some funny pictures. The façade of the church did not have a huge impact on me, but walking inside was incredible. The thing that struck me the most was the way the light hit different parts of the church. The colors of the stained glass danced on the columns in rich pink, blue, and yellow. The rose window splashed light next to the altar, and light played on the beautiful ornate, gold sculptures. The layout of the church itself was relatively simple, allowing me to capture its plan as soon as I walked in. I wasn’t overwhelmed by a forest of columns, and yet the dynamic, ornate sculpture and brilliant gold ceiling drew me forward to explore the church. As I stepped into the crossing, my eyes were immediately drawn to the left side of the transept where a beautiful crucifix was lit with gold light and surrounded by ornate sculpted columns and an altar. Across the church was a beautiful depiction of Mary. As my eyes were drawn upward by the columns, I discovered incredible representations of the Risen Christ on the ceiling above the crucifix and the Assumption above Mary’s altar. Here again, the light played an important role as the artists of the church brilliantly used the ambient light on gold sunrays behind the statues to draw the eye toward the sculpture. The light seemed to emanate from the sculptures themselves. The stained glass windows along the aisles and in the transept were painted in incredibly vibrant colors, lifelike, yet mystical at the same time. The stories they told seemed endless, and I could have stared at each one for hours. The church was a masterpiece, and yet, few people seem to have even heard of the Cathedral of Como. It gave me a new fervor for designing churches and inspired even more about what I want to do if I ever become an architect. Imagine if churches in the United States aroused this kind of feeling in their parishioners. The church was incredible… and to think I just happened upon it on a weekend trip…

Siena

I had this idea that Siena was going to be one of my favorite cities. It turned out that the day we went it was rainy and muggy and the morning hadn’t started out very well, so I wasn’t in a great mood. I was tired, and I knew we were going to have to do a lot of walking.

We started out in the Church of Saint Dominic, which didn’t look very much like a church upon entering. After studying it for a while, I found the main altar and realized that the pews had just been turned sideways. It was a very simple church, though it had some Gothic characteristics with pointed arches and windows. It housed a relic of Saint Catherine, the patron saint of Siena. The pews had been turned to face her chapel, which expressed the city’s pride in their patron saint and their emphasis on religion. I wonder if the simplicity of the church was related to its association with the Dominicans who focused their attention on practical reasoning and activity instead of spiritual contemplation.

We then moved on to see the Cathedral, whose ornate, white façade seemed to chase away the foggy storm clouds in both the sky and my day. I was staring at a marble sculpture that could hardly be grasped in one glance, or even at one distance. It was striking as a whole, and yet I wanted to examine every detail up close. The Gothic intricacies were found in both the myriad colors and sculptural details. Layers upon layers of faceted marble drew me in and planted my feet at exactly the same time. Later on, when I went inside the church, I was overwhelmed. The ceiling was arrayed with magnificent groin vaults; a forest of beautiful black and white marble columns lined the aisles and transept arms; and the side chapels and paintings were masterpieces in themselves. I could have examined this Italian Gothic church for hours.

We moved on to the Campo, which signified the civic importance in the town, and into the Palazzo Pubblico. Here, the paintings on the walls and ceilings were incredible. I was struck to find that the artist of these paintings seemed to be of no importance, as if his art-making was a common task. The paintings told propagandistic stories about the town, and I learned of the effectiveness of art on the public. People were made to believe that everything was fine even in the worst wartimes. The greatest art, I was told, is made during the most tragic times (the Middle Ages, etc.) when glorious propaganda is needed the most. I also was struck to discover the presence of religious art in an institution that was striving to separate itself from the Church. I was told that though the two bodies were separate, the people who governed were still religious, so it was not a contradiction. It seems like this lesson should be adopted today, as the American government strives to separate from religion by removing it completely.

Even though my day and the weather started out a mess, the sights of Siena salvaged it, and I enjoyed myself after all. At the least, I sure wouldn’t mind coming back—only next time the sun is coming with me.

Florence I

Sometimes people talk about spiritual experiences. The connection between God and Man, when people feel the “spirit moving through them”. Sometimes this happens during a moving song; sometimes this happens at a significant point in one’s life; and sometimes this happens when one encounters beauty.

Today, in Florence, Italy, we discovered man’s search for this connection between God and man, between the physical and metaphysical. During Classical times, people saw God and man together, simultaneous. The church was where both the physical and spiritual were united. In the Middle Ages, however, people thought man and God were separated. They saw life as a journey to get to God, and the church represented that journey. You enter and you travel to a destination, to meet God at his altar. Then, during the Renaissance, people began to go back toward the Classical idea, to rationalize God, to “bring Him down to size” in order to fit Him into a container that man could understand. Everything built was planned with a set idea, using proportion and order, instead of just building hands on without a set image in mind as in the Middle Ages. In the Middle Ages, man saw the world as what already was; in the Renaissance, the world was how man made it.

We began our own exploration at San Miniato, a Classical church with some aspects of the Middle Ages. It sits on top of a hill with a view over the city. The view itself seemed like an encounter with God. I can’t even imagine what it would have been like years ago when San Miniato was first built and the city below was scarcely built. It was a view of nature, of valleys and planes, of God’s precious painting. The church sat on top of it all. It was a journey just to reach the entrance. Inside, as the first church we entered, it took my breath away. The height was impressive, the ceiling ornate, the artwork so detailed and elaborate. The paintings were the textbook of its century, a magnificent teaching tool for the people. The trussed ceiling was painted elaborately in blue and gold, in tiny detail that I wished I could examine up close. It made me realize how much the people valued their faith (or perhaps how much influence the Church had) to see the gold, marble, and other precious items detailing their vessel to God.

We moved on, passing the river snaking through the colorful city and then through the winding, narrow streets lined with tiny shops beneath tall apartments. Finally, we made it to Santa Croce, whose façade took my breath away. It faced a piazza, which once again spoke to me about the importance of the church. In a city like Florence, this could be valuable building space, and yet, it was preserved for the purpose of the church. Inside, the interior moved me even more than San Miniato. The sheer height of the church was incredible. Builders were beginning to use pointed arches, which moves toward Gothic (and toward the sky), and speaks about their desire to reach Heaven. The stained glass windows were what got to me. They were so detailed, so colorful, and perfectly balanced the rest of the dimly lit building. The bays of the church were wide and, though ornate, seemed simple compared to so many other churches. They framed various sculptures and paintings above the side altars, as well as the stained glass windows. Between two of these arches at the back of the church were the tombs of Galileo and Michelangelo. After examining this, we moved out to the Franciscan cloister next to the church and then into a building that housed one of the most beautiful paintings I have ever seen. It was a depiction of Jesus being taken down from the cross, with Mary beneath him with open arms. Many other figures surrounded the two, creating a very dynamic, lively scene. The colors in the painting were vibrant and myriad, and the range from dark to light was incredible. The paint was so smooth, it was as if no brush had ever touched the canvas. I could have stared at the image for hours.

But we were in a hurry to get to lunch, so we had to move on, and before I knew it, our tour was finished. We ate a fabulous meal at a restaurant in town and spent the rest of the day learning how to decipher the true authentic medieval architecture of Florence from the buildings merely made to look like it. Finally, I window shopped. We are definitely going back on Friday.

Today a dog chased me… It was an experience… An experience that divided a series of experiences. We had some time off today, and, after having lunch in Roggi’s (a restaurant in town) and walking a while with a group, I decided to wander around the town alone. Don’t worry; it’s safe. People do it all the time. Well, I decided to stop for a while in a park outside of the town walls and take a look at the wonderful view down over the lower town and surrounding landscape. I noticed a middle-aged man standing a little ways away from me, but I ignored him and continued watching the view. I was trying not to look like an American, but after a while I gave up and took out my camera. The view was too wonderful to pass up. After snapping a few pictures, I looked over at the man and noticed he had moved to a bench that was nearer to me. I decided to leave. But the man began to speak to me in Italian and motioned for me to come sit next to him. I tried to be polite and tell him I didn’t speak Italian and that I wanted to go. He continued to motion to me. Finally I just began walking down a street on which I had never walked. I walked for a while and suddenly out of nowhere a tiny, furry, gray dog began to bark at me and ran out from behind a car. I think he was protecting his territory. I thought he might bite me, so I yelped and jumped away and then turned around to run the other direction. When I did, I saw the man. He was following me. Fortunately there was a woman walking my direction with a dog on a leash, so the dog chasing me diverted his attention. I quickly crossed to the other side of the street, praying that the road would lead me to some familiar part of the town and that I would find my way back to Santa Chiara. Finally, I found some stairs I recognized and made it back to within the city walls. I walked further down the narrow street to Santa Chiara and met an Italian woman and her husband. She began to speak to me in Italian, so I tried to explain that I only knew English. I said “Santa Chiara” and she understood that I was a student. She became excited and began to point me out to her husband. I didn’t want to be rude, but I was in a hurry to get away from that man. When I looked back again, he was still following me. A pit in my stomach began to form and I continued my trek. Within a few steps of the door, I remembered that it was locked and anxiously began to fish for my keys. Luckily, when I reached the door of Santa Chiara, a few people were waiting inside and they let me in. I wasn’t sure if he saw me go in or not. It was a long time inside those safe locked doors before that pit in my stomach began to recede. I told one of the directors of the program about the incident and she calmed my fears. She told me that some men are just pests, some are even mentally ill, but most of the time they are nothing to worry about. The town people will take care of us if we just mention that someone is bothering us, and most men will leave us alone if we make it clear that we do not want their company. Though she said one should still be wary, no one has ever been physically harmed by anyone of the town. Her words calmed me quite a bit. But still, what a day.

It's 10:45pm over here :) We landed safely in Paris after an extremely long flight and then took another plane to Rome, and then took a three-hour bus trip. Over 18 hours of travel time... I am pretty exhausted, but very excited. It is incredibly beautiful over here. Green hills dotted with red, tile roofed houses and distant mountains beyond. Sheep are everywhere, and the lack of cows makes me wonder whether they eat beef :) There are lots of farmland and lots of vineyards. The streets of the town are very narrow with tall buildings pressed right up to the road, giving the sensation of being between very windy cliffs. Every building is very similar--tall, either stone or light-colored stucco rectangular buildings with rectangular windows all the same size. The center itself is amazing. It's at the very top of the hill, but it’s still built into the hillside so it has lots of different levels. The narrow doorways, endless halls, and many steps give the impression that you are in a castle and can never explore the whole building. They serve pretty darn good meals, too. Our shower is tiny though. Let me just say, you can't drop the soap (I tried it. :)). Tomorrow, we are going to Mass and then taking a tour of the town. Then school starts Monday. We'll see how that goes. But I’m excited. This semester is going to be amazing…