So its been a good week and a bit since my last post, and I apologize. Life has just been insanely hectic: I had a midterm last Monday that I needed to study aka cram aka study for, and right after that, my class took us to the small(er) towns of Assisi and Perugia. So after that, I spent a night in Siena, then went to Verona with my friend and sister, Holly and Casey (respectively). After that, my parents came! They were in the southern part of Italy, just outside of Naples, and came to Siena for a day and night, so we went for dinner, and they left for Firenze (Florence) with my sister. So I'm all alone. =(
Ok, I promise. That's not my entire post. I just needed to have an introduction before I get into huge detail. So. Here goes nothing.
NOTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
But seriously. My midterm last monday was worth 35% - more than any exam I've had (save for my second year course when it was literally 50% midterm, 50% exam), and since I've had no background in FORMAL art history (hence the history/philosophy double major) I was kind of freaking out. Looking back on it, I know I didn't fail. That's always nice to know. :P I THINK we're getting our marks back on Wednesday, but we shall see!
So after the midterm (or the next day) we did our prep for the very very very religious Catholic town of Assisi! Assisi is a small town in the Italian province of Umbria, and it is the town where the REAL LIFE SAINT FRANCIS (or San Francesco) is from. Originally a rebel, St. Francis was converted from being a noble, knightly figure to becoming a man who gave everything material up and went to preach God's Word after seeing a vision of Christ come to life to say "Go forth and (re)build my church" (I think). A great saintly story - but with one big difference. Unlike the gospels, Mary, Jesus, etc, there is historical proof for a Francesco who walked in the streets of Assisi, preached the Gospel, and all the other fun stuff he did. Canonized two years (!!!!) after his death, the whole Franciscan order was founded on his principles: humility, chastity, obedience, and poverty. The basilica they founded in honour of him, the Basilica of San Francesco, is... well, being completely honest, the decoration, done by Giotto, is essentially where the Renaissance Style started. No joke. For an order obsessed with poverty and giving up the material world, their head church is visually stunning. Done in a proto-realistic style, the most contemporary and modern for the time, it manages to recall French Gothic images while creating a new style of art that is more "natural" and "real" than anything previously (save for the Greeks and Romans). Pictures are below of the Church.
However, Assisi (and Perugia) were also great because as a class, I find that the class I'm in, we all got much closer. Previously, we've walked through Florence, and sat in class in Siena, but this was our first REAL travel trip as a group, so (at least I feel) a bunch of people just got more familiar with each other - and that's always great. We went out for dinner near a church (so many churches and dementors aka priests in Assisi. No joke. The monks there wear robes that make them look like wizards, and with their hoods on, like dementors. It was entertaining, but I felt like a horrible person. I also saw a lot of nun's, and had to restrain myself from humming "SOUND OF MUSIC") and the dinner was great because it was getting to know the people in my class - and professor - in a non-academic environment. So yeah, the days and nights were a success.
So Assisi was all about the religious art being done in the late 1200's/early 1300's. Perugia (a small town right beside Assisi) was all about the SECULAR art of that period - something that apparently was brand new at the time. So we went to Perugia, which was beautiful, and saw the fountain, something John White (one of my readings) described as a "Perugian Encyclopedia in Stone". It was beautiful. What was really cool about it was that it didn't just depict religious figures, but also described (in allegory) the seven subjects of the Medieval University Curriculum, it pointed towards Rome, had the Zodiac, Old and New Testament figures, and most importantly, named and had a sculpture of the podesta (leader) of Perugia at the time of the actual creation of the fountain. It was so amazing to see - firstly because getting fresh water to the top of a mountain-town is apparently really difficult, so to see a working fountain is really cool, and secondly, the independence of Perugia, the way they strode forward with secular artwork in the whole communal government period is insane. It's what my professor focuses on - the secular artwork of the early fourteenth-century. I'm starting to understand how revolutionary it was, because artwork depicting the values of a communal government had never been seen before. It's so cool...
Anyways, after a lot of focusing on the fountain in Perugia, we went to the communal palace to see more of what the professor was describing, and had the rest of the day off (aside from the bus ride). I got chocolate. Perugian chocolate is DELICIOUS. So yeah, Happy Barry was Happy.
So after Perugia and Assisi - a VERY art focused trip - turned into a wonderful experience, and then I went back to Siena. I was supposed to go to Milan this weekend, but that didn't end up happening- so instead, Holly, Casey, and I went to Verona, the town where Romeo and Juliet is set. Its a beautiful small town, very romantic, so we stayed there for Saturday night and came home Sunday night (to see my parents!). More about Verona - it's a town in the province of Veneto - so essentially the "newer" version of Terra Firma, or the land territory of Venice. So the Stone Lion of St. Mark was EVERYWHERE (as were Masks). But Verona is a beautiful, if small, town. There's a Roman Arena where operas still go on (Romeo and Juliet is coming later in the summer :P), a medieval Castle which we booked through on a horse-and-buggy ride, and of course, Juliet's house. Being with my sister, of course, we went to see Juliet's house - and it was actually very nice. Being in Via Cappello (Hat Road), Giuletta Cappello's (as her name would have been) house is a beautiful medieval domus with (of course) a balcony. And a statue of Juliet with one breast exposed that you're supposed to rub. So we went, admired all the walls, as people would write their names and who they loved on the walls, and then went into a small knitting store - where we saw a TINY sign going "Juliet Club upstairs". So we went upstairs.
Enter Juliet's Clubhouse. In the middle of a sports store (no joke), is a place where a bunch of people meet and when they receive letters to Juliet (like the movie), they respond. Its very beautiful - with a view that looks immediately to Juliet's courtyard and balcony - and the letters they get are beautiful letters, from 14 year old girls who want a boyfriend to 65 year old women wanting to know where the person they saved during the war was, and if "he found his Juliet". Its poignant, beautiful, and romantic. So, in the middle of a sports store, all three of us sat down, and wrote letters to Juliet. If anything, it'd be nice to get a response, but it was a very relaxing, cool, and (again) beautiful experience. We ended Verona having a beautiful dinner right beside the Roman Arena, and then did a horse-and-buggy ride around all the highlights in Verona. We passed Juliet's house, Romeo's house, Sant'Anastasia, the Duomo, the Arena, etc, etc. In all honesty, I loved Verona - its a beautiful, albeit quiet, little town.
The next morning, me and my sister said goodbye to Holly (she was staying to see an Opera), and Casey and I tried to make our way back to Siena by 4. There's just one problem. The timetable we got told us that it would take 6:30 hours to get back to Siena from Verona - a journey that shouldn't be more than 4. I wasn't happy.
So we took literally the slowest train from Verona to Bologna. It stopped at every. single. town. on. the. route. No joke. It was so bad - and then guido's got on at one of the stations, and wouldn't shut up. Argh.
So - an hour and 50 minutes later - we got to Bologna. I looked at our timetable again, and saw that we had literally an hour and 50 minutes to kill in Bologna Centrale, so I refused to believe that, and Casey and I booked it from where the train let us off to the biglitteria (spelling mistake is mine alone) to see if there was anything else. Lo and behold, there was!... you know, 5 minutes later. So we ran across Bologna Centrale carrying our backpacks, and made it on the train with 2 minutes to spare. Amazing.
So that train ride (which was going to Naples, but we got off at Florence) took about an hour and a half, and we got off at Florence Santa Maria Novella to discover that the train we wanted was all full, and about to leave. That was at about 3 pm - but Casey reminded me that we could take a bus! So we RAN to the bus station, and managed to catch the 3:10 "Siena Rapida" bus to Siena... at 3:08. EPIC. WIN. FOR US.
I'm just gonna brag a bit. That was epic. We got on the train leaving verona at 12:26, and got home by 4:40. The woman in Verona who booked us 12:26 to 6:38 was LYING TO US. Bitch. But we beat her! HAHAHAHAHA by about 2 hours.
So when we got back to Siena, mom texted us to tell us that she was already in the hotel, and to go back to our residence to pack an overnight bag. Coincidentally, the hotel was right beside the bus station - but we walked back to our residence, then attempted to take the same route back. There was just one problem. Because it's the weekend before il palio (the big horse race) our route was diverted TWICE due to parades, so here's me and Casey, dying slowly due to heat exhaustion and sheer exhaustion from travelling all day, walking around the outskirts (but still in the walls) of Medieval Siena.
Eventually, we FINALLY made it to the hotel, and after a nice long shower, in an air conditioned room, we collapsed and just relaxed for the rest of the day. The family went out to Restaurant Guido in Siena, which was wonderful, then we grabbed Gelato and spent a good amount of time eating gelato in the Piazza del Campo, people watching. After a nice, amazing sleep in an air-conditioned room (!) and a breakfast buffet that WASNT JUST BREAD (!!!!!!!!!), we spent the morning and a bit of the afternoon just walking around Siena. They left at 3 with Casey for Florence, and here I am, just sitting in residence.
The palio trial is tonight at 7:30, and friends are meeting up to cook before then, so Imma gonna go join them. But tonight will hopefully be a nice, relaxing end to an amazing - but BUSY - weekend!
There are so many photos I need to post... X_X
I'll try and spare you all
Till next time! A PALIO POST!!!!
Arrivederci!
Barry
PS: No pictures are below. Internet is crappy enough here, so I'll do a post of pictures later. I PROMISE!
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