Siena-San Gimignano-Viareggio

Oh my, I have so many things to write about!
Firstly, on Friday, one of our down-the-street SACI neighbors, Katie, stopped by and mentioned that she was going to the Uffizi that afternoon as part of her Early Renaissance art history class. I know how these trips are and there is almost always an extra spot left by someone who was unable to come. I decided to go meet the group and see if I couldn’t get in, too. I had not yet been to the Uffizi even though I live directly behind it because of the unbelievable lines that form outside it. One often has to wait in line for four hours before entering and I rarely have any chunk of time large enough for that! Even the reserved ticket line for planned-ahead visits can get quite long from tour groups. In any case, I was able to go in and see quite a number of important works including famous Madonna and Child altarpieces by Cimabue, Duccio, and Giotto all located in the first room on the top floor. I had studied each of these (like every other art student!) in my survey art history course and was totally blown away to see them in person. They are unbelievably huge and made with such detailed gold-punching! I had done a rather long paper on the development of representations of the Virgin throughout the renaissance and had used these very images in my discussion. I had at one point printed out an extra reproduction of the Cimabue and, instead of throwing it out, tacked it to my wall where it remained the rest of my junior year, a little altarpiece behind my computer. It was somehow poignant to confront the actually painting, a few times my own height.
I also saw works by Simone Martini, Masaccio, Paolo Uccello and others before entering the room housing Fra. Filipo Lippi’s most famous Madonna and Child (I’m sure the title also includes a reference to the two little angels that accompany the mother and son but I can’t remember it precisely). It was absolutely beautiful: the colors, the line quality.
I saw Botticelli’s Birth of Venus and Primavera and a large number of other works which are not quite as famous but have been the subjects of discussions in previous classes of mine. The room housing these works was really quite enormous in comparison to the others and, at the far end, even contained an outrageously huge and very famous Northern Renaissance altarpiece. The next room, however, nearly made me cry because it houses the three Leonardo da Vinci works owned by the museum: the Baptism of Christ by Verrocchio in which we find Leonardo’s famous angel, his early Annunciation, and his unfinished Adoration of the Magi. It was, as I have said before, an extremely surreal experience. Having seen all of these works countless time in books, slides, and documentaries and then to finally be able to walk up to them, verify their existence, see their true color and size, even search for brushstrokes instead of scanning a color print really captures and sums up the entire reason I’m here at all. I did notice something rather humorous, however. If one stands in front of the Adoration of the Magi and turns 180 degrees to face the entrance back into the Botticelli room, one can see an Annunciation painting by Botticelli, a contemporary of Leonardo. It was this very painting that Leonardo once mocked when he advised artists in a bit of writing on composition and painting to, basically, watch out for melodrama or you will end up with ridiculous gestures which make the Virgin look like she is fleeing for her life from the angel Gabriel. It’s interesting that these two portrayals of the Virgin have ended up confronting each other on a daily basis.
As the gallery then closed, I was unable to see any rooms beyond Leonardo’s.
That night, Katie and I went to eat at a cute little restaurant called Natalino which is actually very near the grocery store I frequent and is built in part of an old church. I had pasta stuffed with pear and then topped with gorgonzola sauce. It was very good!
We then met another neighbor, Rebecca, to go to an English language play we had earlier been told about by a girl who was also a part of the Uffizi visit. However, her directions to the theater (where she volunteers) advised us to take a left turn when we needed to go to the right. The result was that we walked for two miles out of our way! In the end, however, we made it to the theater where the play had been postponed due to the overlarge crowd which had shown up for it. Because there was an amount of confusion and frustration on the part of the staff to get things started, we were among a group that were let in for free and told to just find a seat if we could. So we weren’t obliged to pay for our tickets or to wait in line! The play was called “Love Letters” and was very enjoyable not least because it was a form of entertainment done completely in English.
The next morning found Justine and me jogging to make the bus for the Siena field trip, which we just barely did! It took about an hour’s drive through beautiful countryside to get there where we immediately visited a Domenican church dedicated to St. Catherine of Siena (absolutely no pictures allowed). The church had quite a number of relics from Catherine including, most grotesquely, her mummified head preserved behind the glass of a reliquary situated in a chapel with frescos from her life. Her poor head was just staring out of death at us! It was terribly disturbing, especially when Katie, who was also on the trip and is herself Catholic, pointed out that this was her and my patron saint.
We then took a coffee break, most of us going to the café and bakery indicated by the art history instructor, Helen, as having very good local sweets. I had the obligatory cappuccino (I am going to miss those in the States), a pastry that was like a little donut filled with stiff whipped cream and two “ricciarelli” cookies which are almond-flavored (although there is also a chocolate variety) and have a thin, stiff crust with a soft interior. They were simple and good but not stellar.



Cappuccino and ricciarello

We met in the Piazza Campo, the main piazza of Siena in front of their equivalent to Florence’s Palazzo Vecchio: the Palazzo Pubblico. This is the piazza that sees the bi-annual Palio, a dangerous, dramatic, extremely fast, and extremely old horse race that takes place every July 2 and August 16. Siena, small as it is, is divided into a number of regions with which residents fiercely identify. In fact, if there is a marriage between a couple from two different areas of town it is locally called a mixed marriage. This horse race is a competition between representatives of these regions, the winner of which gets a monetary prize and captures glory for his region. Flags with the colors from that region are displayed in the town all year. We saw them: they will be green and white until another region wins.
We walked to the Opera del Duomo museum, housed in a section of what is an abandoned attempt at expanding the Cathedral of Siena. The architects made some miscalculations and the piers that were built weren’t strong enough to support the addition so it was left unfinished and unroofed and now serves as a piazza, parking lot and museum. Inside is the Duccio altarpiece for Siena, the very famous Maestà, which has an unbelievable number of panels that, when they were still all together in their original frame, comprised a super-altarpiece. We were also able to climb an extremely narrow spiral staircase and walk out on some of the abandoned parts of the cathedral extension from which wonderful views could be commanded. Siena is an extremely beautiful place and you will find that most of the pictures I took have nothing to do with its extant art but everything to do with its potential for inspiring future works (I’m thinking drypoints). It is built in the hills of the Apennines and benefits from the clear, clean mountain air. Traffic is non-existent in the historical areas and in comparison to Florence the tourists are few. The country can easily be viewed from a high point and quickly reached yet the shopping and restaurants seemed cosmopolitan. I think it was just about the loveliest place on earth.
Coming down from this perch, we walked over to the cathedral which, for this one month per year, has its entire floor uncovered for view. I was told that it is usually covered up with cardboard. It is stone that has been laid in an intarsia technique, producing beautiful illustrations of sibyls and bible stories. There is also the Piccolomini Library in a sort of side chapel area where illuminated manuscripts are on display. It is forbidden to speak in there. Siena, like Pisa’s baptistery, has an altar by Nicola Pisano but due to the floor being roped off in so many areas it was really difficult and annoying to fight fellow tourists for a decent view. My pictures are all blurry from being shuffled around.
We also went to the baptistery which has a font that is a mish-mash of works by Ghiberti, Donatello, and Jacobo della Quercia.
After this we finally got to go to the Palazzo Pubblico, which I had been looking forward to for its famous government fresco cycle by Ambrogio Lorenzetti. Before we could see this, however, we had a half-hour guest lecture from an art historian about current debates regarding two frescos in the Palazzo which have probably not been attributed correctly. Local authorities don’t want the attribution to change, however, because then the frescos would not be as artistically prestigious. It was a very interesting discussion. We then went into the room containing the Good and Bad Government Allegories. I know that I keep saying this but it was so much bigger than I imagined it! I took a number of pictures.
We then had about an hour for break after which we were going to board the bus for San Gimignano. I quickly ate something and then walked to a shop we had passed earlier. It was full of all sorts of old original prints. I left with an engraving of Piazza Santissima Anunnziata here in Florence. I should have also gotten one of the Siena Cathedral but it’s not a big deal. I don’t know what it is about those typical little engravings from the 1800s but I love them. I then walked to the same café/bakery from the morning and bought a slice of “panforte,” another local specialty that means “strong bread.” I tried it when I got home that night and really liked it a lot. The variety I got was called margherita and had honey, almonds, and candied orange peel in it.



Panforte margherita

San Gimignano was very close by, located high up on a hill and crowned by 15 towers. It is sometimes called the Manhatten of Tuscany because it kind of looks like its towers are medieval skyscrapers. At one time it had over 70 of them. I guess people didn’t feel very safe living there because, excepting the Palace of the Podestà, they were all privately owned and built for defensive purposes. They were also status symbols, of course.
San Gimignano is actually too small for a cathedral but its main church, the Collegiata, is often called the cathedral anyway. It has a special chapel painted with early Ghirlandaios dedicated to a local saint, Fina, who died when she was only 15 of some sort of horribly painful and debilitating disease. Its nave is covered in a rather large fresco cycle, one side depicting Old Testament Scenes, the other depicting the Life of Christ. After leaving the church we went to the Palace of the Podestà which is now a Civic Museum. The only thing of interest there, in my opinion, was the tower. We got to climb it (I couldn’t look down while on the stairs, it was that high) and view the countryside for miles and miles from the top. It was so beautiful.
We then went to an outcrop in the old wall and sampled cheese and wild boar sausage and a local white wine called “Vernaccia.” I actually liked the sausage, I was too late for the cheese, and I know nothing about wine so my opinion of it wouldn’t be very informative..
Back in Florence, my roommates and I answered a buzz at the door to be greeted by our Italian upstairs neighbors inviting us to a party. We really didn’t want to go (we were already in our pajamas) but they talked us into it. We were the only Americans there and it was pretty obvious. We stayed for about two hours, the first of which was just really awkward with the second one being much more interesting. We met a few people that either spoke good English or wanted to practice their English with us. Of course, conversations basically revolved around the differences in our cultures but I think we all enjoyed ourselves.
On Sunday I also got up quite early because I had purchased a train ticket the night before with Katie and another classmate named Misan to the beach at Viareggio. The train took about 1 ½ hours and we were splashing around in the Mediterranean Sea by 11:30. We ended up meeting an Italian guy, Claudio, who knew very good English (built up solely on his knowledge of American music and one 3-week visit to California) and had grown up in Viareggio and his friend, Ricardo, who spoke even better English though he’d never been to any English-speaking country. He said that going to Florence was basically like going to American as there are so many Americans there! They were kind enough to answer quite a lot of Katie’s cultural questions.
I swam only a little as the water was very cold! It was very shallow but blue and clear, calm and extremely salty! The salt dried into visible droplets of white on my skin, in fact. There was an arm of the mountains that ran down to the sea in the distance and a marina framed the other side of our view; sailboats ran across the horizon. It was a very wide beach. They had the same kind of shells that the beach my family vacations at in South Carolina has: coquina clams. There was actually a man with a net and a wet suit skimming around in the sea. We asked Claudio what the man was doing and he told us that he was looking for those live shells because they’re a delicacy. I have pried those things open as a child and there is no way I would want to eat what was inside!
We left on the 5 o’clock train and made it back to Florence around 7. I think we must have made more stops that time. In any case, I had a wonderful, relaxing visit to the beach and am now a bit more confident about taking the train myself to Pisa when I fly to see my uncle in Frankfurt at the end of this month. It was a very busy but very fun weekend!
Here are the pictures:

Siena:
1) http://s211.photobucket.com/albums/bb82/katemcwhorter/Siena/
2) http://s211.photobucket.com/albums/bb82/katemcwhorter/Siena%202/

San Gimignano:
http://s211.photobucket.com/albums/bb82/katemcwhorter/San%20Gimignano/

Viareggio:
http://s211.photobucket.com/albums/bb82/katemcwhorter/Viareggio/