I March 30, 2007
Three short weeks in Florence...
(Please note that for the moment the photos with this entry are NOT of Siena or S. Gimignano, but show an event on Palm Sunday morning... I hadn't had a chance to describe it. Along with Fabbio and Allesandra and Martina (the bambina) we walked a few blocks to a newish bookstore near the Duomo. Turned out it was a public gathering of about 40 schoolchildren, all singing songs they had practiced with their music teacher. The photos show this very pleasant event. The text below, with no pictures yet, is about what I did and thought on Saturday and earlier.)
Too many people smoke. In most places in Florence you must smoke outside, thank the goddess. However, this creates packs of smokers who together foul most hallways and street corners. Across the street from Scuola Leonardo da Vinci is the venerable and still highly utilized Ospedale Santa Maria Nuova. The hospital's first-aid crews smoke. The ambulance drivers smoke. Girls well on the way to lung cancer smoke. This is not news, of course.
CAUTION: Brushing by smokers standing on tiny sidewalks may burn holes on the arms of your jacket.
CAUTION 2: If two people are talking on the street, they will arrange themselves like bowling pins: hard to hit squarely, impossible to miss.
All Japanese students carry miniature Casio language translators. These are necessary because of the gap between Japanese characters and the Roman alphabet. The three Japanese students in my class each have one, which they consult constantly. When one of these students is called on to speak there are long, long pauses, and typing, and longer pauses, and the lively class creaks to a silent halt. They are excellent exercise-doers and test-takers but consistently slowest to speak, slowest to understand what is spoken, most difficult to understand. It's as if they are faking it, and they are not. Dumb on the spot, smart on the test. I don't actually understand the phenomenon.
Last night at dinner the Feri welcomed back Harriet, and her mother Anna, from Milton Keynes in England. Harriet lived with the family and went to "my" school several years ago, and on vacation here with her mother had a mini reunion, bringing lovely flowers, too. Anna (no last names, never actually heard them) is an architectural historian, and the conversation turned to the ceiling above our heads at dinner.
Fabbio said he thinks this part of the house is about 500 years old ("and the rest, downstairs, is much older. It used to be convent," he said). Outside above the entry door is a coat of arms for the Roman pope, so the supposition is that this house was built by and for the church (after all, we are three short blocks from Santa Croce). I tried to joke (one of the most difficult things to do in Italian, I have discovered) that a church and its many people have a lot of requirements, not just housing nuns. Maybe this place held horses (some surprise, not much humor... ooops!) or (I went on, heedlessly) they stored grain for horses here (as the table got even more quiet I attempted to recoup) or flour for the nuns, or maybe they stored other things here. OK, probably it was a convent.
We are all friends, my food is not poisoned, no feelings were hurt. But, I think for a moment there I definitely stepped in it.
By the way, in class today we were discussing "superstitions" and I discovered that the Italian word for dog shit is the same as the French word for dog shit, and when you inevitably step in it, it brings you luck. Sure. Sounds to me like an early dog shit stepper made that up to save face. (French: merde Italian: merda. If that's not the same word I don't know what would be.)
I also heard that in Spain it is not done to wear yellow anywhere near a theater stage ("non si vesta giallo"). I wonder if that tradition holds in other places, like Mendocino? Be yellow, of course. Wear yellow, no. However, I also learned that Italians wear red underwear on New Year's Eve. The routine was teacher asked each student if these superstitions, I mean traditions, I mean customs, held in their home countries. I suggested red underwear is a tradition for February 14, not December 31.
It was interesting to find out which of these national traditions stayed within borders, and which were more universal. Consistently, the incommunicative Japanese students claimed most of these customs were unknown in their country. Will have to check on that.
We Journey in Autobus a Siena e San Gimignano
Ahhh, Siena. You may have lost the economic and military wars with Florence, but you win the prize for silence and beauty. You are large enough to be real (unlike San G.) but still truly a small town - 60,000 souls, compared to more than 400,000 in Florence. Siena's population 500 years ago: 60,000.
It was unanimous... everyone seeing Siena for the first time enjoyed it.
We had a free hour between guided walks (with Luca, a young and serious young Florentine who turned out to be a worthy substitute for "Monica" who is listed on all the school adventures, but has yet to appear... maybe she is a ghost?). We chose for lunch one of the many café restaurants lining the north and northeast edges of the famous square, Il Campo.
From the pictures you can see we not only ate well (pizza, roast vegetables, risotto finished with vodka, beer, bread and wine) but had a lovely view of the piazza in the intermittent rain. Plus, the welcome influence of two heat lamps, and waiters who, however busy, made me welcome by actually paying attention when asked for heat, or bathroom, or il conto (check). A wonderful moment.
Siena's Duomo is one of the few cathedrals as interesting inside as out, and one of my favorites in Europe - richly done, but not overdone. I am a BIG fan of striped marble. The dark green and white marble stripes seen everywhere inside and on the adjacent tower outside (see photos) is striking whenever viewed. We walked mostly on a plastic floor tacked down with packing tape (The covering moves sequentially. It is all exposed August - October. Make reservations now). The part we could see was quite striking - the floor is a vast canvas to tell stories from the bible. Bas reliefs maybe 20 or more feet square, tell stories illustrated with 15th century citizens going to war, or looking bemused, etc. (again, see photos). From the Michelin guide:
"The pavement is unique. It is composed of 56 marble panels depicting figures from mythology (Sibyls, Virtues and allegories) and scenes from the Old Testament, all of them outstanding for their intricacy and liveliness...(the panels) were produced between 1369 and 1547 by some 40 artists... the oldest panels were made using the 'graffita' technique; they consist of white outlines on a black background and the details and reliefs are engraved in the marble then blackened using asphalt."
Church-approved graffiti!
The plague devastated Siena for six months in 1348, just 21 years before this work started. The population had been reduced by more than a third that year.
Our visit to San Gimignano does not need to be recorded in detail. This is Euro Disney at its best: It is impossible to spot the rails beneath the moving exhibits, or the computers running the lights, but no doubt they are there. It's a living museum, and interesting because of that, but there is no contemporary life there except for bars and stores. Inside the former Duomo, now "Collegiata" the walls are lined with frescos, Old Testament on one side (no halos), New on the other (many golden haloes.
More thumbnails ...
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