On appreciating the little things…
After spending nine days away on spring break, I have returned to Florence with a newfound appreciation of my study abroad home.
Cost of Living
While I initially thought Florence was expensive (.78€ for a yogurt?! Are you kidding me?!), after spending the weekend in Edinburgh, I have come to appreciate the value of the Euro. My
happiness at seeing a familiar refuge designated by the twin-tailed siren was unfortunately hampered within moments of arrival. The Starbucks in Scotland provided momentary excitement, that was inflated when a gigantic (read: tall) cup was placed in front of me, however, my realization that it cost over £2.50 meant that I was paying about $4 for a cup of plain ole black coffee! Though the serving size of Italian coffee may be inadequate for my liking, the quality and affordability caused my first cup back on Italian soil to be exceptionally delicious.
Following this breakfast expedition, we made our way up to the Edinburgh Castle. Spoiled by our student passes that get us into state museums in Florence for free, we were taken aback by the steep £14 entrance fee. No student discounts either! That little plastic student card feels so much more valuable in my backpack now.
Size of Florence
Upon arrival in Barcelona (the second half of my spring break) I was immediately shocked by the size of the city. Compared to Florence, it is huge! The maps are rarely to scale so a seemingly 30 minute walk can easily take twice as long. There is no familiar Duomo looming over the city where one can orient herself immediately. Acknowledging the fact that I am not from a large metropolitan area, I usually can figure out public transit relatively easily. This was not the case in Barcelona. Attempting to navigate to Sagrada Familia, the main attraction of Barcelona, the girls and I became lost underground in the Metro. Not wanting to exit and have to purchase another ticket, we wandered around aimlessly seeking another line, the infamous L4. If I may quote a dear roommate of mine, “we are trapped in a place where we don’t want to be…and..we’re..trapped”. (If you must know, we did eventually escape and successfully make it to the church).
This morning, my half hour walking commute across the entire city to my Italian class allowed me to appreciate the dense conglomeration of art in such a concentrated area. Not only did I pass the Accadamia, Uffizi Gallery, and Orsanmichele, but also meandered around the Duomo and crossed the Ponte Vecchio.
Monoculture of Florence
After being in other areas of Europe, I have come to appreciate the monoculture of Florence. That is to say that though sometimes I lament the lack of ethnic diversity in culinary options (questionable Chinese restaurants, few American places to satiate that hamburger craving and only one Mexican restaurant!), it adds to the authenticity of my experience in an Italian city. I am getting the true assimilation into culture. Besides food, hearing essentially only Italian and on occasion English, is refreshing. In Barcelona, I heard Catalon, Spanish, English and French walking along the streets, giving the city more of a touristy feel. Hearing Italians answer the phone “Pronto”, happily respond “Va bene!” and chat with friends makes me feel immersed in a culture entirely different than my own.
Home is where the heart is, and in this case it’s Florence!
Reflections on Italy’s Past and Present
While searching for hotels and hostels to stay in during my spring break, I stumbled upon a series of poor reviews for many highly rated hotels. Reading closer, I found that each negative paragraph had the same complaints: the water was not always hot, the walls were thin, the air conditioning was insufficient, the building was old. After reading these reviews from unhappy Americans, I realized that the only flaw these accommodations possessed was that they were Italian. Americans are often accustomed to a lifestyle of cutting-edge efficiency and expected luxury. While the Italians splurge in many ways, much of their culture seeks to preserve what has always been. Rarely do they expect a visitor to be early, and air conditioning? Strong heating? They don’t need it. The Italians, in more ways than one, do not seem to seek change, but instead preserve what they have.
Last week, my Renaissance art class visited a restoration lab called the Opificio delle Pietre Dure, where they specialize in the preservation of hard stone. One of the most prestigious conservation institutions in the world, the Opificio handles many marvels of Italian history. As we wandered through the open rooms, we passed a potential Michelangelo sculpture; the stone was simply sitting on a desk. Our guide took us to a back room and talked to us in front of a restored Roman floor. The lab had completely removed each tiny tile from its original mounting and placed it in a more ecologically sustainable base. The team of conservators had spent a full year restoring the mosaic. In the next room, the massive bronze doors of the Florence Baptistery sat in a nitrogen-controlled case. The lab had been working on these for almost a decade. Among the efforts to conserve and restore, the lab always differentiated modern work from the original work. The fragmented Michelangelo sculpture differentiated the original pieces from the new ones, and the new pieces of tesserae were a different color than the rest of the mosaic. Not only was there a tendency to restore, but also separate the old from the new.
In Venice, history always takes precedence. Before this past weekend, I had never been to the legendary city—I only knew my parents’ ravings and descriptions from friends. As soon as we stepped out of the train station, my professor wove us through the labyrinth of streets, bridges, campos, and piazzas until we finally arrived at the Frari Church, a famous chiesa in the city center.
I am a very spatial person; I love maps, and I love being able to orient myself in new cities, but after that walk, we could have been anywhere on the island, and I would not have been the wiser. The architecture of the city climbs up and around the canals and walking paths. As the town was essentially built upon a marsh island, nothing is flat. The cobblestones push up and push down. Walking through San Marco, the floor looked like a checkerboard of miniature rolling hills. In one bell tower we passed, the lower half was built at a different angle than the top half, as if the constructors had corrected for the sway midway through the process. These tiny quirks and flaws in Venice’s fabric have been preserved for the past millennium. Repairs have been made at different points in the city’s history, but the buildings were rarely replaced. Even today, building or renovating in the historic center is a literal nightmare. Simple projects can result in mountains of paperwork. Venice, a city slowly sinking into the sea, a town that still collects garbage by boat, is reluctant to change, no matter how necessary it may seem. The cultural and artistic history is so rich, and the tendency towards historic preservation so strong, Venice seems like a city frozen in time, moving neither forward nor backwards.
As an art historian, I both appreciate and adore Italy’s embrace of its historical culture. I love that I can see the development of art over time; so much of the Renaissance and Baroque period remains here, especially in the cities like Venice and Florence that are no longer the economic and political centers they once were. Italy gravitates towards historical and artistic tradition, and I wish I could see more of that in the United States. But in spite of my attraction to this culture, I wonder if Italy’s tie to cultural tradition serves to divide it from countries developing more rapidly. Does it lead to wealthy and unfit politicians like Berlusconi taking power? Does it lead to the preservation of the power of the Catholic Church, even when few Italians attend mass? I love the Italian culture, but its implications are much farther reaching than the conservation of the art that brought me here.
Passion of Italians
PASSION: A strong liking, desire for or devotion to some activity, object or concept
During high school I was always told to avoid starting off an essay with a dictionary definition. First of all, this can hardly be considered an essay, and secondly, I think that the incompleteness of Merriam-Webster’s definition of “passion” provides a fitting context to illustrate the real “passion” I have seen exemplified by Italians in my first month in Florence.
…for one another
My first Friday in Florence was spent at Pangoro Firenze, a small pub in Oltarno, watching Giacomo, one of the CET Italian roommates sing. My apartment mates and I were among the first people there and were blown away by the crowd that had gathered by the end of the night. Giacomo played Beatles covers (which everyone sang along to), American pop classics (Stacy’s Mom was quite the hit) and to our delight, some Italian ballads during which we observed the Italians harmonizing with gusto. A friend of Giacomo’s even hopped up on stage with him for a few of the songs! The amount of support exemplified by Giacomo’s friends was astounding and the dynamic between performer and audience was enlivening.
…for their history
During a weekend in Milan, I unexpectedly bore witness to the passion that Italians have for their history. At Basilica Sant’ Ambrogio, a church a bit off the beaten path, I wandered around searching for the uncorrupted body of Saint Ambrose that I had read about. When I fortunately ventured down to a small chapel underneath the altar, I found the body of Saint Ambrose adorned in gilded garments. Though the chapel was quaint, I was not alone. A man with rather torn clothes knelt in the presence of the saint and held a crumpled scrap of paper in his hands as he recited prayers in Italian under his breath. With tears in his eyes, this man was deeply moved as he payed homage to the fourth century bishop of Milan. This outpouring of emotion was completely authentic and representative of the unadulterated passion exemplified by Italians I have as of yet encountered.
…for us!
For some odd reason, and to my surprise, Italians are curious about and intrigued by American students. CET arranges certain activities for us throughout the semester, one of the most recent being a cooking class at InTavola. With the help of the staff, we prepared a delicious eggplant appetizer, homemade pasta main course and a sinful tiramisu. During the whole preparation, we attempted to converse in Italian. Though I am far from being fluent in Italian, humor hardly needs translation. Fabrizio, our instructor, continuously teased Brian throughout the cooking process, since he originally stood out as the ‘Celiaco’ (Celiac). All the teasing, of course, was good-natured jesting, and any slip-up one of us made was inadvertently blamed on ‘Brrrrrian’. Fabrizio and his staff seemed thrilled to share their culinary culture with us and were pleased with our willingness to learn with a positive attitude.
I finally grasp why a dictionary definition is an inappropriate way to start a piece of writing. The word one seeks to define cannot be condensed into a single sentence or string of words. “A strong liking, desire for or devotion to some activity, object or concept” cannot possibly convey the raucous applause Giacomo’s friends showed towards his performance, the humbling sight of the kneeling pilgrim, nor the jest with which Fabrizio teased our cooking group. I look forward to the opportunity to continue living in and learning from a culture of people whose actions embody the essence of passion.
Michelangelo, Bernini, Donatello and Tuscan Wine Tasting
Last week, I visited Museo del’Opera del Duomo with my Renaissance Art class. I wasn’t entirely sure what was inside other than Michelangelo’s late Pieta, but I quickly realized that it was full of art historical gems. When we moved into the room holding Donatello’s Magdalena my breath completely left me. This wooden statue of the penitent Magdalene is overwhelming. It looks like a form of Rodin’s style, only transplanted to 400 years earlier. She is so full of texture and emotion. And her feet! They are so real and full of weight! She has this emaciated look about her, but her feet are spread across her rocky base as if to grip the ground. The statue was amazing; it was both terrifying and beautiful at the same time.
Michelangelo’s Pieta had a similar effect. His sculpture, more massive and made of marble, was completely unfinished. He made a self-portrait of himself as Nicodemus, the man accredited with having made the first sculptural image of Christ, and shows a muscular and weighty Christ falling into the arms of his supporters. The way Christ’s head falls onto Mary’s unfinished cheek! Even without the smooth and expressive finish of Bernini, Michelangelo captures so much emotion, so much expressiveness. And his composition is perfect. The more I see of him, the more confident I am in his genius, as tortured and mangled as it may have been.
After that we moved into the Bargello, the old government palace meant to oversee the courts (coincidentally, this place is also ON our street, maybe two doors down from my apartment). It is a really substantial and influential medieval building in Florence, and is gorgeous on the inside, though fortress-like on the outside.
After wandering and admiring the famous and impressive collection of the Bargello, we came to the last room. We stood in front of a huge and initially unimpressive sculpture of a drunken Bacchus, the Roman god of wine. The closer I looked, however, the more I could see that this Michelangelo sculpture captured the inebriation and expression of Bacchus. The surrounding sculptures of the same subjects couldn’t match the physique, the glazed look, or even the hungry and erotic visage of the satyr at the god’s feet. Indescribable and unforgettable. I will be going back soon.
And just because I hadn’t seen enough, a friend and I decided to make our first visit to the Uffizi. It was overwhelming. Just their International Gothic room alone, holding the most famous altarpieces of Cimabue, Giotto, and Duccio, would be a blessing to any museum in the world. Each room we passed through was another surprise. Oh! There’s Raphael’s Madonna of the Goldfinch. Oh! There’s Botticelli’s Birth of Venus. Oh! There’s the Portinari Altarpiece. Oh! There’s a Caravaggio. It was absurd. All of these canonical paintings crammed into a massive museum with at least ten other paintings in the same room. Impressive doesn’t begin to describe it. I will need to go back, however, and visit single pieces over and over again this semester. I cannot get enough of the art here.
Later that day, the whole program attended a wine tasting. I wasn’t sure what to expect from this; I had never been to a wine tasting before. We walked into this fabulous little wine store called “Pozzo Divino,” made our way towards the back of the shop, and wandered down a small stairwell into the wine cellar and a small seating area. It turns out, this cellar was actually a part of the Bargello, and 700 years ago had been a prison, complete with secret passageway to and from the government palace. I know this seems a little scary to think about, but it was a neat little aspect of the building’s history–the exposed brick and medieval arches were all still in place, but were now just covered with wine racks and barrels. The man who owned the wine shop, Pino, was this very eccentric Italian man who spoke some English, but most of what he said had to be translated. Thankfully, my improving but limited Italian enabled me to understand almost all of what he said! My vocabulary has grown exponentially since I arrived, but it was so gratifying to be able to understand and communicate with a born-and-bred Italian.
Pino supplied us with white and red wine, along with some small plates to enjoy with the liquid. All of it was Tuscan: made with Tuscan grapes grown on Tuscan soil. The most famous wine of the region, a red and slightly fruity wine, is called Chianti Classico. It is loved by many in Italy, and can only be made in a small region just between Florence and Siena. We tried some of Chianti and another local red wine. The latter was much drier, and somewhat smokey. It was “piu vecchio,” translating to older and of higher quality, and was served in a specialty glass. The white wine was good, but not comparable to the flavor of the red wine. He also served us this incredible balsamic vinaigrette (aceto balsamico). I’ve never tasted anything this delicious. I put it on the tomatoes, the cheese, the bread. I probably could have had it by itself. It was 15 years old and 35 euro for each tiny little bottle. Tasting that stuff made me think it might be worth it though… It was interesting. It was not just about tasting the wine or knowing where it came from, there was a technique to it. We were taught how to identify a good wine just by looking at it, as well as understand the appropriate times to drink red or white wine, as well has how to drink it and what glasses to serve it in. It was so educational and very Italian–I think that was the best part.
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