Close to the Heavens in Assisi

Assisi is one of those places where you just feel close to something wonderful and awesome.  Is it the sky?  The sky is certainly close, it seems, and filled with clouds that shape-shift and dance about.  The sun beats down on you but when the clouds drift over it seems like a performance of the Divine.

What is this amazing place that, like so many Italian cities, is built in layers.  Layers upon layers of time, architecture, beliefs, the dead and the living.  It's picturesque no matter where you look.  It's significant no matter where you look.  Etruscan first, the Romans came in and built on top.  Look at this very impressive 1st century Roman temple to Minerva that was transformed into a church during the Middle Ages.  It's huge!

But above all, Assisi is known as the birth place and home of St Francis and St Clare, both reformers of the Catholic Church in their own way.  'Francesco' as he was called, was born into a well-off family.  His father was a successful cloth merchant and his mother a high born French woman.  When he was a young man, he did his duty and went off to war when Assisi was fighting the armies of Perugia.  He had a rough time, was captured, imprisoned and essentially shell shocked.  He returned to home a broken man.  After being in a coma of sorts for weeks, one day he awoke a new man.. in love with nature, animals and simplicity.  In his wanderings around Assisi, he enjoyed visiting a broken down church, St Damiano.  According to legend, one day the crucifix spoke to him, "Francis, rebuild my church."  Meant to be understood literally and figuratively.  Rebuild St Damiano AND rebuild the Church, which had fallen into corruption.

The Basilica is massive and can be seen from quite a distance because of its whiteness!  The upper and lower basilicas are filled with work by masters, Giotto being one of them.  NO photos inside though.  Trust me.... they're BEAUTY!

Here are some other rules:  Silence! no cell phones!  no dogs!  and don't even TRY to get in half naked!
Fabulous!!!

The Richness of Viterbo

My fascination with confessionals continues with these models discovered today:

This one is in the Chiesa da Santa Rosa and it's surprisingly dreadful.  It looks like an over-sized stereo system from the late 70s.  The doors are all a tinted plastic so you can see who is in there. Who needs that kind of transparency?  You half expect to hear some old LPs playing, like Styx, or Kansas, or Bachman Turner Overdrive.  Not for me.

This one, in the Chiesa de S. Francisco, is like a little cabana of Love.  Sweet little roof line.  Roman arch doorway where "The Priest is IN", some IHS action, and side access where the penitent parks down on her knees to ponder her sins.

This one, in SS Trinitas, has a Baroque groove and is very much to my liking.  I am interested in the visuals and the speaking 'grill' that the confessing soul has to look at.  Here's one:

What kinds of exchanges happened here over all the years?  Hmmmmm.....
I had to leave an intention, a prayer, and a photo at the feet of Mary:

Lastly, nuns singing and a viewing of Santa Rosa:

To Trick the Eye

This morning we strolled around Viterbo and tucked into two fascinating churches, Santa Maria Nuova and San Giovani.  I think you all need a lecture on trompe l'oeil.  So here you go.  There will be a quiz:

Okay, no excuses.  Answer the following question:
The artist was able to achieve maximum depth of perception because he lined up the south side of the nave using which point of reference?
A.  Aligning himself with the eastern corner
B.  Turning his perspective toward the outermost whatsit
C.  Helping himself to an extra portion of cacio e pepe
D.  Helping a little Italian woman cross the street
E.  Saying an extra Hail Mary

Clearly it's fabulous.

And I love this cross shaped confessional:

The penitent is literally melding into the cross, which is a potent symbol of cleansing, purification, sacrifice and renewal.  V v wonderful.  And as you speak to the priest, telling him your innermost thoughts and feelings, you stare at this grill and wonder.....

or maybe you ponder.... what is for lunch? 

Impossible Causes?

Nothing is impossible for a girl who is willing to 'own it' wearing trousers like these.  Who run the world?  Girls.
I am now settled in Viterbo and I'm sorry for being off the grid for a few days.  The internet access was impossible in Florence so I had to just back away.  But now Victoria and I have begun to settle in to the Italian life.  Slow down and chill out.  Drink strong coffee.  Have wine at lunch.  Eat gorgeous food.  Shop for little treasures AND.....
attend the service at Santa Trinitas for Saint Rita of Cascia.  Saint Rita is so loved around Italy that many cities just claim her as theirs.  Why?  Perche?  Because she is the patron saint of lost causes.  And lost causes are something Italy knows quite a bit about.  Look at the entire 20th century and just choose an example.  Rita was born near Spoleto.  She was a devoted wife even though her husband was abusive.  She never lost her faith with him though.  And then she got lucky... because he died.  And that was fabulous.  She then joined an Augustinian convent which she thought was a wonderful life. She spent most of her widowed life in a convent.  According to the legend, once when she was very ill she asked her cousin to bring her a rose from her old home garden.  She asked this in January, so of course, roses in January.... the impossible.  But when her cousin went to look they was a single rose. Because of that, Rita is celebrated with roses.  We went to the church, bought roses, and then joined the congregation in getting them blessed by the priest.

She was up against an impossible act of reformation, that of her husband, and she kept trying.  Again, fortunately he was murdered.  So.....  lost causes.  She's your girl.
And in terms of getting lost.... who wouldn't want to get lost in lovely Viterbo?

Perched up in the Lair of Stardom once more, looking out on to BEAUTY!!

Is this property for sale?  Hmmmmm................

From Nightmares to What Dreams May Come

Being in Firenze makes you appreciate so many things... the way that faith inspires art, the ways that radicalism can sway frightened masses, the role that hope plays in the human experience.  Like so many cities in Italy, it is one that is dense with glory, beauty and inspiration.  For sure it's calmer here.   And one is calmed by the simple things like having architectural landmarks that one can use to navigate the medieval maze.

Blogging has been delayed by a slow wifi so hang in there!
Today was a visit to San Marco.  A Dominican monastery that is important for many reasons.  It was the 'home' of Savonarola, the radical monk who, appalled by the materialism and decadence of the Florence of his time, began a highly successful (though short lived) career as a charismatic orator whose best sermon actually inspired (via terror) people to burn all their goodies in the world's first bonfire of the vanities.  He was a handsome guy with a wonderful nose.  But, those qualities only go so far.

The monastery has a grand collection of the work of Fra Angelico, AKA Beata Angelico.  Gorgeous.
(sorry this is short but the wifi is impossible.... hang in there!  More to come once I settle in Viterbo.)

Venezia!

My sister Victoria has joined me in Italy and currently we are in lovely Venice.  It's dreamy and in some ways otherworldly.  A floating city.  We spent the day meandering through the maze, taking the obligatory wrong turns, getting lost, stepping into any open church and having a look around.  I am fascinated my confessionals and this one is particularly cute:

I love this because it looks like a little bumper car.  Like the priest could get in it and steer it around.  But what is most fabulous is that I pulled the purple curtain aside and found a newspaper.  So while the priest is listening to drab confessions, he can get caught up on soccer scores.

So on the the Doge's Palazzo which is choke full of incredible Venetian artists like Veronese, Titian and Tintoretto.  I love how this art spins and cascades in swirling glory:

Mosaics of Splendor

It's impossible to describe the experience, the effect, of seeing 9th century mosaics.  All my photos are just "meh."  I have to confess that for many years when I came to the mosaics in my humanities textbook I just 'this can be skipped.'  How wrong I was.  How foolish.  Truly, early Christian and Byzantine mosaics like the ones you can see in Rome and Ravenna (a June trip for this lucky girl) are breathtaking.  And so interesting!!! because in them you see artists trying to render an image for dogma and ideas that perhaps they're not even sure of.  What IS this new God?  He's kind of like an emperor, but not.  He's sort of a man, but he's not.  The narrative, the symbolism, the hierarchic structure of the heavens, the place of the angels....it's all being worked out in these magnificent works of art.

These above are from Santa Prassede.  And these below from S. Maria Maggiore:

And then on to S. Giovanni Laterano:

I couldn't get any closer.  The news station was there setting up for some kind of story and I couldn't get behind the rope.  Alas.  And speaking of the only news worth listening to.... Vatican radio is "Bringing Francis to the World" and it's a good thing.

Sporca Miseria to Splendor!

I have an ambitious day today and it involves the Metro (subway).  It is a good time to introduce you to the saying "sporca miseria," which means 'dirty misery.' It's wretchedness and it goes something like this:

It's public and it's transport.  No worries.  Because after a few transfers you end up at the metro stop Pyramide! It was built in 18-12 BC as a tomb for Gaius Cestius though they have never found his remains in it.  It might have been raided at some point in history or there may be a chamber they haven't discovered yet.  Anyway, Cestius served in one of the campaigns to Egypt and Nubia and at the time of his death, Egyptian style was in vogue.

Half of it is inside what is now the Protestant Cemetery.  This was just what I needed, a quiet day out of the craziness of central Rome.  It's filled with birds, cats, and beautiful old tombstones.

Goodness.  Wow.  So exquisite. 

Keats and Shelley are buried in this cemetery so I went and had a moment with them.  Then, on to catch another train to Ostia Antica!!  This port city was founded in the 4th century BC.  I guess it started life as a military camp because it essentially 'guards' the mouth of the Tiber.  Hence it's name ... ostium is Latin for 'mouth.' From there it really took off as a port town and they estimate that its population was about 50,000 around the 2nd century AD.  It fell to ruin after the fall of the Empire and was abandoned, its marble 'procured' for other building projects, and then just basically covered by river silt.... which is why it exists in such a primo state.  It's not unlike what happened to Pompeii.

It's huge, acres!  You walk in on this ancient Roman road.  There are mosaic floors here and there.

The bath house has these gorgeous floors feature Neptune and other sea motifs:

There's an amphitheater:

And it's all just ... there.  Just there.  Hey ho.  No one's looking. 

Eine kliene German Romanticism

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, like any German Romantic worth his salt, was drawn to Italy during his life.  In fact, he made a personal pilgrimage to the Eternal City in 1786 with the intention of spending time with artist Tischbein, who ended up painting this rather famous portrait of him:

He stayed with Tischbein, in a little apartment off the Palazzo del Popolo.  Today I visited this residence.  Probably the coolest things in there are his sketches and some thoughts written down on various scraps of paper and journals.

I love the intimacy of things like this.  I bought a book that had excerpts from his diary and here is one of my favorite of his observations:  "I am now in a state of clarity and calm such as I had not known for a long time.  My habit of looking at and accepting things as they are without pretension is standing me in good stead and makes me secretly very happy.  Each day bring me some new remarkable object, some new great pleasure, and a whole city that the imagination will never encompass, however long one thinks and dreams. ... The Colosseum is so huge that the mind cannot retain its image."  (11 Nov 1786)
I simply had to have lunch to ponder it all:

Earlier in the day I went to the Museo Etrusco at the Villa Giulia inside the Borghese gardens.  Again, part of the thrill of museums here is just being allowed into these stunning old homes:

With their courtyards so beautiful.  Who needs a room with a view when you have this?

The collection is vast and unbelievable.  It is mostly the collection of a very wealthy 19th century devotee of Etruscan art.  V v old.  6-7th century BC, darlings.  And so sophisticated and divine!

Here's a very famous couple :)  You have to take a close look at these works or you'll miss their story:

Juxtaposition.... not into it

One comes to Italy to escape the modern.  Why do they insist on setting up these exhibits that juxtapose the modern with the clearly more superior Baroque.  I'm not buying it, dudes.  For example, today I bought skin cream that is banned by the U.S. FDA.  Why?  Because it is made out of god knows what, DNA from Etruscan placenta?  What ever it is, it works.  I don't need to be saved from my skin cream.  I want to live on the edge.  Frankly, Italians know a thing or two about living forever.  They all smoke, they drive like maniacs, they're all emaciated and short, and they live to be 105. 
I think it's all about gusto.  Beefy, gorgeous, no-holds-barred gusto.  Lop off a couple of heads.  In fact, that is today's theme, compliments of Salome and Judith:

Today I headed to several churches that I love, those that have on exhibit lovely paintings that I like to visit:

A little Caravaggio after colazione.  Gorgeous.  Then I simply want to be in other people's villas.  So I went to two museums that are in family homes: the Rome National (Palazzo Altemps) and the Doria Pamphilj.  I am so inspired by these elegant homes and the interior courtyards filled with fountains, trees in pots and statuary:

Chock full of glorious statuary, 'collected' by the uber-rich, pillaged from archaeological sites in the wonderful days before people got too picky about moving a couple of rocks, for god's sake.  And then of course, I'm off to lunch.  What a fantasy life.  Sleeping in, walking, art, lunch.....at a wonderful Tuscan ristorante, where I had pasta and black truffles:

And a gift of a tiny glass of vin santo from my charming waiter...who thought my italiano was splendido!