Week 4 - Catch Up!

I know I'm still a little behind on my blogs, so I'll recap week four. Last week was a great week, so I definitely want to share all that I can remember! Let's start with Tuesday's cooking class.

Syracuse University in Florence is this cute pink building called the "Villa Rossa" (literally, "pink villa"), situated in a little piazza. The school offers many activities, from cooking classes to knitting to choir singing (believe it or not) to soccer, etc. Really about anything you could think of, the professors could find for you. Not being blessed with amazing vocals (like you, Casey. Haha!) or having any knowledge of soccer whatsoever, I decided to sign up for several cooking classes. Taught by chef Jacopo and his wife, the classes are held in the Villa Rossa's basement kitchen, which is this adorable small kitchen that reminds me of one in the movie "Ratatoulli." Have you seen it? If not, it's an animated movie that should definitely be high on your film list (right next to "Up" and "The Incredibles").

I bet you can guess what we made for dinner. Yep - pasta! Not just one kind of pasta, but three! The first pasta we made was ravioli stuffed with spinach and ricotta in a butter and sage sauce. This was my favorite! The second was spinach fettucini with a garlic cream pepper sauce, and our last pasta dish was angel hair with a carrot, celery, onion and tomato sauce. Yum! Not only did we get to make all of the pasta from scratch (which was tons of fun), but we also ate a generous helping of each! It was absolutely delicious - so fresh and flavorful - enough to make your taste buds sing. And for dessert... drum role please... TIRAMISU! This was the first (and only) tiramisù I have had since arriving in Italy, and it was good. To be perfectly honest though, my Italian teacher at UGA makes better tiramisù. After stuffing my tummy with tons of carbs and sweets, my digestive system (and waistline) was thankful for the 20 minute walk home.

Thursday evening, I went to a chocolate festival with Jay, one of my friends here at school. Firenze has a chocolate festival once or twice a year (I think), and it's a huge four day event that is held in Firenze's biggest piazza - Piazza Santa Croce. Vendors from all over Tuscany come to show off and sell their chocolate. Oh - my - gosh... Dad, Megan, Casey, Karolina, Meredith and all my other chocolate-loving friends: You would have thought you were in heaven smelling, seeing and sampling all of the chocolate. Under this enormous white tent were probably about 100 booths of chocolate vendors displaying almost any kind of chocolate you could imagine: white, dark, milk with and without nuts and covered with candy and fruit. Truffles, fudge, hot chocolate, cake, brownies, fondu... enough sweets to put Willie Wonka out of business! The first question I made sure I knew soon after entering my paradise was "can I try some?" Thanks to a very friendly Italian man, I now have the phrase "posso saggiare questa?" down pat. I said it so much that I wouldn't be surprised if my roommate heard me asking this in my sleep. Hopefully that won't happen, Emily.

I was anxious to buy something from every booth but Jay insisted we walk around the whole exhibition before making any purchasing decisions. This was torture! I didn't understand at all why we had to wait to buy something, but he was pretty insistent for whatever reason, so I just went along with it, sampling chocolate at almost every station. (Blair, you would have let me take my time.) After two hours of filling our stomachs with enough sweets to last a year, I ended up purchasing as much chocolate as I could for 10 euros (that was my limit). I think I left with a white and dark chocolate rice bar and six truffles. This was a week ago and I've only had one truffle, which is pretty good self control. However, I can guarantee that it will be finito by my next post!

I woke up at 6:00 a.m. Friday morning to meet my art history class at the Santa Maria Novella train station. Destination: Roma. Art = AMAZING! We all must have been energized with anticipation and excitement because this weekend trip was non-stop. Our charged battery selves were dead come Sunday (after a long wet and rainy weekend). Our 8:00 a.m. train, which we were told was at 7:30 a.m., got us to Roma a little after 10:00 a.m. From the station we took a bus directly to the Vatican museum.

Okay, so let me just tell you that pictures in art history books and online images don't do paintings and sculptures justice. Tears filled my eyes when I saw Raphael's Transfiguration. The Transfiguration, commissioned by the Medici for a French cathedral, marks the moment when Christ reveals himself as divine for the first time. Peter, James and John (Christ's followers) fall asleep atop Mount Tabor and are awoken by Christ's radiating light. Christ is accompanied by Moses on one side and Elijah on the other, giving us more proof that He is the Savior of the world. Raphael included two scenes in this composition: the first just mentioned and the second an illustration in the lower half of the painting. The lower scene depicts Apostles unsuccessfully attempting to free a boy who is possessed by demons. They wait for Christ, who performs a miracle by liberating the child. Raphael's Transfiguration expresses the connection between God and His people (through Christ). As much as I would like to think that the entire painting was completed by Raphael, it was actually unfinished. After Raphael's unexpected death in 1520 (he died in the arms of a prostitute - interesting story for another time), a student of Raphael's, named Giulio Romano, was believed to have completed the work. Until this piece, I had put Raphael on the second string of my list of favorite Renaissance artists. However, after seeing how he successfully and amazingly combines Leonardo's chiaroscuro and Michelangelo's vibrant colors and muscular figures, Raphael earned himself spot #3 on my "favorite artists" lists (behind Caravaggio and Michelangelo, of course). I know the photograph I took doesn't allow you to fully appreciate the work, but I promise you that since it was oil painted on wood, the colors are still so vibrant and rich. As a side note, if it was frescoed or painted on canvas, the colors would have been more heavily absorbed and would have faded over time.

I thought I couldn't get more excited after seeing Raphael's Transfiguration - boy was I wrong! I almost broke into sobs when I saw Caravvagio's Entombent. I know this sounds so incredibly nerdy, but I have been looking forward to this experience for the past two years, right after I began studying art my freshman year and developing a passion for it. Caravaggio, another Italian Renaissance artist, is also my favorite painter. Despite his personal reputation as being a hell-raiser and his sad life of having been exiled from Rome and serving several sentences in prison, there is no other artist who I admire more than Caravaggio. Amazingly, he prepared no sketches for his works. Not a one can any art historian uncover, which is pretty unbelievable. Also, and for this reason, x-rays of his paintings reveal messes of figures displaced throughout. Essentially, Caravaggio used his canvas as a sketch board, so you can imagine how different the beginning composition would look compared to the finished product. I could go on and on about him and his paintings, but then this post would turn into a book. So, let me just give you this photograph and tell you that no other artist pre or post Caravaggio (in my opinion) has been able to pick up a brush and create such beautiful contrast between light and dark (a term called "chiaroscuro").

The next two pieces of art we saw were sculptures. The first one I'm showing you is called the Laocoön. It is an ancient sculpture depicting Greek/Roman mythology. I do not know much about this protagonist in the middle other than he was a Trojan priest of Poseidon and was credited with the infamous line, "Beware of Greeks bearing gifts." Anyone ever seen the movie "Troy?" (Katherine I know you have! Let me take a moment to say: "Hector! Hector! Is there no other!?") Well, this first line of warning refers to the moment when the Trojans gave their Trojan horse as a gift to their enemies. Laocoön was a smart one - his people should have listened to him. I wish I knew more about classical mythology, but I don't. Sorry, that's about all I can offer when it comes to the story. However, I can tell you that this sculpture, as well as the Torso Belvedere inspired Michelangelo and forever changed him as an artist. Look at the way Laocoön, as big and as strong as he is, is struggling to save his sons. This sculpture shows an enormous amount of drama and emotion, emotion that was definitely missing from classical sculpture. Know that this sculpture has been said to be the "most important sculpture in the ancient Roman world."

This next image (above) is the Torso Belevedere. While the sculptor is unknown, this ancient piece has a tremendous impact on Michelangelo's life and how he would later craft the male and female figure. This huge sculpture (bigger than life-size) shows extreme and unnatural body definition. It is evident in Michelangelo's works (especially in the "Sistine Ceiling") that he recycles this sculptural body type over and over.

Speaking of the Sistine Chapel, or la Capella Sistina, that was our next stop. Unfortunately, photographs are prohibited in the chapel so I don't have any pictures to show you. However, I can give you a written visual: When you come into the Sistine Chapel, right in front of you is the Last Judgment fresco, which covers the entire wall. It was painted by Michelangelo about thirty years after the ceiling. The work took four years to complete and depicts the second coming of Christ. Human souls rise and descend according to their judgement - a very intense moment, needless to say. The two side walls are adorned with frescoes: on the left wall are scenes from the life of Moses, while on the right wall are scenes from the life of Christ. These paintings were carried out by a handful of artists, including Botticelli, Raphael and Bernini. Above each fresco of either the life of Moses or the life of Christ is a papal portrait.

Okay, now to the ceiling... The ceiling records nine main scenes from the book of Genesis, starting with God's creation of the world and ending with Noah's drunkenness. The figures are absolutely amazing. Painted with conviction and passion, they show extreme emotion from every one of God's major happenings. My favorite, like most, is the Creation of Adam. It's a fresco painting you can actually feel - one that gives you goosebumps as you imagine the moment when God sparked life into Adam. As weird as this sounds, that feeling of coming alive (like Adam did) happens when you look at this picture. It's as if Michelangelo wanted to create a moment that viewers could experience on site. Amazing.

Two fun facts about the Sistine Chapel: 1. Michelangelo was in Rome for another project when he was asked to paint the ceiling, which was a project he took on with the assumption of it being a short work to do on the side while he was already in Rome. Yeah, I think he figure out after the third year of painting the ceiling that it was going to take a little longer than he had planned... Fun fact number two: The Sistine Chapel's dimensions exactly match those of the Temple of Solomon (in the Bible). Our visit in the Sistine Chapel definitely wasn't long enough for me, so I can assure you that I will be going back.

I know I'm skipping right over Raphael's "School of Athens," but I'm giving you pictures (which I'm pretty sure we weren't supposed to take). This is another absolutely beautiful and interesting work - one that you should research in your free time.

On to St. Peter's Basilica...

St. Peter's Basilica is the largest Christian church in the world, followed by St. Paul's Cathedral in London and then Florence's Duomo. St. Peter's Cathedral is 186m long (longer than the length of a football field). Why is it so enormous? Well, the point was to create a church big enough for God himself. I say wow to the goal and wow to the finished product. The interesting thing is that St. Peter's doesn't feel that big on the inside, or at least not to me, and I figured out why. Because everything is so massive, there's nothing to compare size to, so when everything is on a monumental scale, it's more difficult to decipher exactly how big the space, architecture and sculptures is/are.

Not wanting to take up too much more of your time, I'll just briefly talk about one piece: Michelangelo's Pieta: Okay, so the Pietà is an extremely famous work in the art world. Carved when Michelangelo was just 23 years old (in 1498), it shows the Virgin holding her dead son in her arms. The Virgin looks biologically younger than her son, a representation Michelangelo purposefully crafted in order to suggest a theological mind-bender that the "eternal Virgin" would be best shown as "eternally young." So, her inside purity and youthful innocence is then shown on the outside. Interesting thought, Michelangelo. In my opinion, the Virgin's expression shows us she knew the whole time she'd have to give up her son, and now is the time - the moment she knew would come, but as a mother didn't want to. The Madonna and Child pictures depict the beginning of the tragedy of Christ's crucifixion, while the Pietà is the conclusion of this tragedy. So, we've come full circle from birth to death in regarding Christ and his mother.

Our Christian art feast ended there. Later came the Pantheon and Coliseum. The Pantheon, built in the first century A.D., was a place of worship for the military men for whatever gods they worshiped. And the coliseum, well... movies do a great job of showing you what they were used for. While I haven't seen "Gladiator" (I know, I'm such a bad American), I'm pretty sure the film is successful in showing you that death was a form of entertainment during those times, as disgusting and disturbing as that sounds.

Saturday was awesome! We went to the Villa Farnese and the Villa Borghese, two villas housing amazing art. The Villa Farnese is mainly adorned with gorgeous frescos while the Villa Borghese is more of a museum. Both were built by extremely wealthy men during the Renaissance. They were their vacation homes. Needless to say, these mansions were more elaborate and decorative than any "vacation" home or regular home I've ever seen. These villas were huge show-offs during extravagant dinner parties.

You would think come Sunday I wouldn't want to do anything but go into a deep sleep comma. However, somehow I managed to muster up enough energy to go to a football game - Firenze v. Roma (very fitting since I was just in Roma). The Italians get VERY into their football (soccer) here. As a matter of fact, the Roma fans were contained in this little section with bullet proof glass. They lit fireworks every so often and were screaming nonstop. Unfortunately, Roma won. But the Fiorentina fans were still proud of their team, which was great to see. Speaking of games and fans and football, congrats to the Saints on their huge Super Bowl win! Megan, I know you are absolutely ecstatic! Well, you and the rest of Louisiana.

This is me completely worn out on our hotel bed in Rome. And I'm sure this is exactly what you feel like doing right now after I've taken up 30 min of your life with this blog post. Thanks so much for listening (those of you who actually read everything). And those who just looked at the pictures... well, thanks to you for checking out my photos!

I know you're probably wondering if I actually go to school here in Italy, and the answer is yes! Even though it may seem like my current job is touring Italian cities, I actually have quite a load of homework piled on my desk. So, I should probably go and get that stack thinned out a little. But for those of you who read by last post and haven't tried a blood orange before, I took a picture of one at breakfast to show you what they look like:

Ciao! (I promise next post will be shorter.)