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.