Wine, Swine, and Art

Our Easter break came in two parts. First was Italy, or as we called it, the land of wine, swine, and art. Indeed, we proudly consumed a pork product at every meal. A change from Cairo. I particularly wanted to go there since Harris had never been, and it had been 26 years since I was there last. It thrilled me to not only experience the place but to experience through Harris’s delighted reactions as we turned a corner and an ancient Roman site appeared, or looked left and saw meandering medieval alleys.

Building detail, Florence

This posting will be pretty quick and dirty since I want to get it up before we depart for part two of break, a dive trip of the southern Red Sea.

Our Egyptair flight to Rome brought us to the charming Albergo del Senato, right on the Piazza della Rotonda, with the glorious ancient Roman Pantheon built for Hadrian viewable from our window. Its stunning dome, coffered to reduce its weight, remains a wonder. Rather than let it crumble, the Church converted it into a Christian site, and today, it’s where the painter Raphael is buried. It was great to pop in and out since it was right in front of our hotel. Pleasant to enjoy a glass of wine while viewing it, as well, through the hordes of tourists. Note to self: don’t go to Italy during Easter break because it is everyone else’s break as well. There were wall to wall tourists almost everywhere, especially at sites like the Pantheon and Vatican.

How cool is the Pantheon?

Especially its interior (internet photo)

Our view from the hotel, Rome

I made a few travel arrangements that worked out very well, so I’m passing them on: book tours with Context Travel (www. contextravel.com) to avoid lines, see the sights with brilliant guides, and navigate the most complex museums; transfer between cities by car service from Prestige Rent (www.presitigerent.com) to really see the countryside, and make side trips en route; and be sure to seek out the more obscure museums and churches to avoid crowds and see great things. I may be an art historian, but the private tours we had from Context were conducted by great teachers (art historians and historians), and both of us learned so much.

Our first (and only) day in Rome began with a tour of the Vatican museums and Saint Peter’s on Good Friday (another note to self: avoid the Vatican on holy days) with the brilliant guide Lauren Golden. She offered us a curated tour of the museums, highlights that meant the most to us, and was expert at politely but firmly making way through mobs with constant permessos and persistence. Using a few objects as touchstones, we saw the collection with insight despite the crowds. For example, Lauren suggested examining the Belvedere Torso, an ancient Greek marble that probably depicted Ajax about to commit suicide—twisting, anatomically dense—as the window onto understanding Michelangelo’s work. Evidently, it was not just his favorite work, but as an old man losing his sight, he would run his hands over it (don’t try this today!); its anatomy depicts every muscle of an athlete with detail. Indeed, scholars know that Michelangelo did secretly dissect human corpses in order to master anatomy.

Saint Peter's dome in the background

The Belvedere Torso (and tourists)

The Apollo Belvedere, one of many ancient sculptures in the Vatican

What can one say of the Vatican collections? Stupifying, glorious, priceless, and a mix of ancient, Renaissance, and Baroque. Everyone knows Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling and wall of the Last Judgement.

Sistine Chapel ceiling, my photo

Roman sculpture of the Nile; click to enlarge and note the croc 

But what opened our eyes were the magnificent stanze in the papal apartments frescoed by Raphael. In one room in particular, we could see the change in Raphael’s work from before he beheld Michelangelo’s Sistine ceiling in the wall representing Theology to after, in the wall of The School of Athens. One is static and conventionally painted; the other is dynamic, with acidic colors, and Michelangelo represented as Heraclitus, clearly identifiable as him not only by his face but by his sculptor’s boots and moody demeanor. Raphael paid homage to another master, Leonardo, in the figure of Plato in the center, pointing towards the heavens. By the time we got to Saint Peter’s itself, with Michelangelo’s “Pieta” and the baldachino by Bernini, we were overwhelmed. The place exudes power.

Raphael's "Disputa" or Theology (internet photo)

Raphael's School of Athens; click to enlarge and see Michelangelo and Leonardo

The one night we did not eat pork was a dinner at La Rosetta, Rome—and probably Italy’s—greatest seafood restaurant, just a stone’s throw from the Pantheon. Beginning with raw oysters and ending with dolci, the tasting menu lasted three hours and two bottles of wine. Truly outstanding, a blowout meal worth every Euro.

We had just enough time to scamper over to the Spanish Steps and into the Keats-Shelley House. This modest apartment was where poor John Keats, barely 25, suffered and died from tuberculosis. His chamber, with its small bed, death mask, and drawing of the late Keats by his friend Severn, was deeply moving. Keats's “To Autumn” has been the subject of some of Harris’s work, and as he wrote in the guestbook, it was “heartbreaking.”

Harris contemplates Keats, his death mask and drawing

Keats's room viewed the Spanish Steps (though without so many tourists)

Italy has more Egyptian obelisks than Egypt!

We went by car service from Rome to Florence with two outstanding detours to San Sepolcro and Arezzo, both important sites for frescoes by Piero della Francesca. The weather had turned foul, rainy and cold (tiempo brutto!), which was something of a blessing since it kept tourists away from these already somewhat obscure towns. San Sepolcro’s town museum is home to several of Piero’s works, and most satisfying, his “Resurrection” of ­­­­­­­1463. We were able to just sit and gaze, allowing its rational image of the miraculous to soak in.

Piero's Resurrection (internet photo)

Medieval streets of San Sepulcro

 In Arezzo, the church of the Franciscans houses a major cycle of Piero frescoes of the finding of the true cross. They were cleaned since I was last there in 1986, and are glorious, particularly the images of the finding of the cross, with San Sepolcro in the background.

Piero's Finding of the True Cross (internet photo)

Our driver Severino took us up to the Piazzale Michelangelo before dropping us at our hotel in Florence. Its sweeping views of the city reminds us how the massive dome by Brunelleschi dominates Florence, visible from nearly every point in the city.

Windy but a great view

Yes, it really looks like this when the weather is good

The Arno at night

After enjoying the view, Severino dropped us off at Hotel Gallery Arts, one of several boutique hotels run by the Ferragamo company, and we moved into a glorious suite on the top floor with a view of the top of the Duomo and something one rarely finds in Italian hotels: lots of space. It spoiled us for our four nights there.

A very nice room indeed!

View as we cross the Ponte Vecchio right outside our hotel

On Easter, Florence began the morning with a beautiful parade through the city of people dressed in Renaissance garb, playing drums and horns as they marched through the streets to the city’s symbolic center, the Palazzo della Signoria.

Drummers on Easter

Horns in the Easter parade

Over three and a half days, we walked until we couldn’t walk any longer, and began to suffer from Stendhal Syndrome (an overdose of art). What did we see? The Uffizi, with its many treasures (guided by a wonderful historian from Context Travel);

Bottecelli's Primavera, one of the Uffizi's many gems (internet photo)

Santa Croce, with its Giotto frescoes and Brunelleschi’s gem of a chapel made for the Pazzi family;

Dome of the Pazzi Chapel

Harris considers the Pazzi Chapel

the Medici tombs by Michelangelo, a wonderfully pressed space, narrow and high, with the tomb figures of Dusk and Dawn, Night and Day, surmounted by his brilliant images of two not very important Medicis, Lorenzo (brooding, with a moneybox on his knee);

and Guiliano  (martial and twisting);

Michelangelo's compressed space in the Medici Chapel (internet photo)

Brooding Lorenzo, with Dusk and Dawn (internet)

Martial Giuliano, with Night and Day (internet)

the Laurentian Library and vestibule, also by Michelangelo, with its steps flowing like lava and glorious reading room;

Flowing steps of the Laurentian Library (internet photo)

the Bargello museum, home to Ghibert and Brunelleschi’s competition panels for the Baptistry, which I have tormented students with in the art history survey,

Ghiberti on the left, Brunelleschi on the right

as well as Donatello’s Saint George, David (one of the most lewd sculptures I’ve seen), next to Verocchio’s much more proper David;

Verocchio's youthful David

Donatello's saucy David

Donatello's St. George as a soldier

Bargello courtyard

Bargello courtyard

the amazing frescoes of the Brancacci Chapel in Santa Maria Novella, most famously those by Massacio;

The Tribute Money by Masaccio in the Brancacci Chapel (internet)

Massacio’s fresco in Santa Croce of the Holy Trinity, combining science and faith in its geometry;

Massacio's Holy Trinity (internet photo)

Pontormo’s “Deposition” in Santa Felicita, one of the most beautiful paintings ever.

How gorgeous is it? (internet photo)

On our last day, we went through the Palazzo Vecchio, the city hall, with its rooms decorated (or should I say, over-decorated) by Vasari, its grand hall, and most beautifully, chapel for Eleanor of Toledo, painted by Bronzino.

Bronzino's frescos (internet photo)

And no, we did not brave the hordes at the Accademia to see Michangelo’s “David.” The one is Las Vegas at Caesars Palace will have to do for now.

Overdose of art indeed! However, we also fed our bodies and very well. Between pork and bistecca alla fiorentina at Ristorante Toto to wild boar at Cinghiale Bianco to maltagliati and fine wines at Cantinetta Antinori, we ate and drank very well. BTW, the Cantinetta Antinori is housed in the palazzo of the family, and of course, features their many wines, all very reasonably priced by the glass and bottle.

Mangiamo!

Today, we are doing laundry, repacking for the dive trip, and I’m grading papers. The weather in Cairo is perfect spring weather, unlike the cold winds of Italy. More in a week or so!