Renaissance Excursions

Firenze and Arezzo

Land of internationally renown beauty, and also mud-brown rain that stains our coats.

Witnessing the movement from doubt to belief from lower body to upper in Verrocchio’s bronze Doubting Thomas.

Rusticated stone, gray skies, warm neutral yellow buildings, and David’s smooth white marble skin.

Sitting on the porch of the Ospedale degli Innocenti where mothers left their children so that they might have a better life, and feeling the harmony and comfort, but knowing it is a place of sojourn not permanence.

The reverberating echoes of Dona Nobis Pacem in a chapel.

Meditating in a mausoleum

Wishing I could tell the fashionable, vain Brancacci dandies to look left and right to the miracles happening next to them in the frescoes.

The pleasant surprise of a gypsy music concert and dancing with abandon, simply letting the strings and tambourine do its work.

Monte Oliveto

Further hagiography painted in the walls of the courtyard of the monastery.

Sunshine and silence.

Buying strawberry honey harvested by the Benedictine monks 

Siena

One of the most successfully constructed public spaces in the world. Successful enough to keep the tourists sunbathing in the Palio ring instead of flooding the Sala de Nove where we freely examined the Allegory of Good and Bad Government.

A town hall that smells like the inside of a metal tin containing old crayons. But also has lots of very famous artwork.

Viewing the city from atop the remains of a broken pride: the separated skeleton wall of the Duomo that was supposed to make its size surpass that of competitive Florence, but the hill could not support it. Now a wall of contentment, to walk to the top and look over the city that had a paint color named after it.

Watching Manuele our carpenter friend be more enthralled by ornate door frames than famous frescoes. Getting on the floor and touching the low reliefs.

Learning about Italian geography from him in Tuscany (in Italian… therefore stretching my communication skills) and singing Lykke Li and learning Italian songs as his co-pilot on our drives to our destinations.