London/Florence Adventures

Well first off I have some news, I will be traveling to California this coming summer. I have been accepted to a research program in Santa Barbara to work with the Religious Studies department. So what I am trying to say is don't be sad when this trip is done and the London/Florence blog sees no more posts, for Rachel will start a new blog about my West Coast Adventures!

But now back to Florence...

4/10/12
It was nice having a Monday off to relax and explore but Tuesday it was back to school and back to work! I have to say though, not a bad thing! In the morning we went on what I consider the most wonderful tour yet, of the San Marco Convent, of the Dominican friars. Yes, it was fantabulous (I know that's not a real word I really don't care). Cosimo de' Medici paid for the reconstruction and a whole lot of paintings to basically cover every square inch of this place. They did not allow pictures to be taken in here, but I am not a good person and did not follow the rules, I mean how could I when I saw the Annunciation by Fra Angelico? They can't really expect me to not sneak my camera out for a bit...

There are people in the way but you can just ignore them, I do. The convent is also where Cosimo would come and study, pray, and even sleep on occasion, he even had his own cell (since it was a convent there were many cells, or rooms, that the friars would stay in) that I was also very bad and took pictures of. Each of the cells had their own paintings and Cosimo's were pretty cool.

A crucifixion with saints including Cosmas and Damian (patron saints of the Medici family)

A procession of the magi (an event painted very often on Medici commission)

I loved this visit and did want to leave when the tour was over, and I plan on returning!

The rest of this day was classes, early afternoon I had another Italian class with Professor Luigi (I still love his name!) and then my Renaissance literature class with Professor Caldwell later that afternoon wherein we discussed family life during the Renaissance.

4/11/12
The morning this day was a little slow, we took a trip to the State Archives of Florence, which don't get me wrong, it wasn't boring, it was actually pretty awesome, but at first it was a lot of listening to things being repeated several times since the tour guide only spoke Italian and so we needed Professor Caldwell to translate everything for us. That can get just a little tiring. The visit was great though! We were able to walk all over the archives and even go in the document storage area where no other tours are allowed to go on and we got to take a close look at century old tax documents. I guess that can sound a little boring, but seriously it was cool, I am amazed at how great of penmanship these Florentine's use to have, they needed to really since those documents were all pre-printing press.

The afternoon wasn't too eventful, Italian class and then a final edit of my first paper due in Florence (which I already got back and did pretty good on if I can say so).

This was a very long night for me. I met up with some people to go out for dinner since we had a show we had to make it to. ACM paid for the class to go see Breakfast at Tiffany's- all in Italian! So I didn't want to eat at my host family's place to make sure I made it to the show on time. So we went to this cute little restaurant and I just pointed at something at the menu and ended up getting this-

Looks weird

Tastes great!

They're called gnocci, they are this weird flour/pasta ball thing with sage and butter sauce. I would get it again.

4/12/12
It was time for another tour this morning, this time it was for Professor Caldwell's class! But Professor Mariotti still led the tour. We went to Palazzo Davanzati, it was a palace owned by the Davanzati family (shocking right?!). It was awesome. The family obviously was pretty wealthy since they owned a palace (that's what Palazzo means in case you didn't catch that) so they had some things that most families probably wouldn't have, such as and area above the entrance door to drop down rocks or hot oil in case of an attack. Sorry no pictures at this one again :(

I did get to take pictures at another place though, after Italian with Luigi in the afternoon the class went with Professor Mariotti again to check out another Palazzo, the Medici's!! I realize a lot of people may not understand why this is so awesome, so take a break from reading right now and google Medici Chapel Procession of the Magi, see all those cool pretty painting? I spent an entire class last semester learning all about those paintings and I got to see them!! Up close and personal! Hannah understood my awe at this moment as well (we did a whole report on the chapel) and of course, just like everything else that I absolutely love here I could not take pictures of it! I did get some pictures of other parts of the palace though.

4/13/12
So Friday's we don't have class but from time to time the program will take us all on a trip to different places in Italy. Last time we went to Venice and this time we went to Siena for a day trip. First off Siena is beautiful, and second we saw some pretty awesome stuff! The first place we checked out was the church of Catherine of Siena (can you guess where she is from?) which is where her head is, yup, her head not her whole body. Poor woman has body parts all over the world just like so many other saints. Sorry to say I didn't take a picture of it, I kind of felt like it would have been rude towards her. I did get some pictures of her house though, which we walked by on our way to another church.

We also went to the Cathedral of Siena called the Santa Maria Assunta. It was absolutely gorgeous and again has links to the Medici and several great Renaissance artists. There are many side chapels including one dedicated to St John the Baptist and a studiolo, an area commissioned by a pope where he could keep all of his books and manuscripts.

Santa Maria Assunta

Sculpture of Popes

The Medici family coat of arms

extravagant pulpit

St John the Baptist

An illuminated manuscript

Next we went up, way up to check out the view of Siena...

When we finally climbed down what felt like the hundreds of steps to get up in the church we made our way to the Campo of the city so that we could find a place to eat before our next tour. This was a nice relaxing time for all of us, we just ate our pizza, told stories with one another, and tried to scare the pigeons away from us while moving as little as possible. Before we knew it though we had to regroup for our tour of the government building of Siena. It was a grand and beautiful building with a lot of art meant to inspire the government leaders of the city.

After this tour we were done in Siena, but before we left the Professors decided to treat us to some tasty cookies that Siena is apparently famous for. I don't remember what they are called but I will find out and let me tell you, I really recommend them!

4/14/12
Well Jenna Hannah and I went to the library this day... we registered for the library... and I listened to some music Jenna was nice enough to share with me. I'm pretty sure that covers Saturday.

4/15/12
Sunday was more eventful!! We went to Palazzo Vecchio! It was a side field trip that was just optional, we had to sign up ahead of time, and regardless of having signed up early and receiving all of the information ahead of time some people still managed to be quite late. Not that I was frustrated about this or anything...
Anyway, we were able to see some of the ruins that are under Palazzo Vecchio from the Roman ages and then we got to actually go inside of the Palazzo. So this place was once the home of the Medici until the moved into Palazzo Pitti during the Duchy with Cosimo I (not the Cosimo mentioned earlier, that was Cosimo the Elder). A lot has gone down in this place. The architect/artist Vasari has had his hands on this place for a really long time, covering paintings and even raising a ceiling in one of the rooms, and some works by Michelangelo can be seen here as well!