Italy

October 16 to November 8, 2017

MILANO

More is more. Money and power ooze from the DNA of this city. Civic sensibilities originated as the Viscontis and Sforzas feuded their way into royalty.  They shared a goal, and that was to make their city state the richest in Italy.

Before the Sforzas (1450-1500) arrived on the scene there were the Viscontis (1378-1447).   Milan still has a canal system that was developed by the Viscontis to join the Alpine rivers to the ocean. It provided irrigation for the dry lands.  Weavers of wool and silk flocked to the region; smiths and armorers supplied force to protect the emerging wealth. This solution to trade and transport was the key to Milan’s rise in power.

Secular humanism also reached Milan and likely influenced its industry.  Leonardo da Vinci spent many years there.  On his resume’ to the Sforzas he listed several skills – military engineer, architect, fortifications specialist, inventor, musician and “I also paint.”  More than 400 pages of his drawings exist in a Massive Codex in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, an academic library whose dark wood and worn stone casts a soft glow – or is it skylighting from a gallery or window above?  You feel wiser just because you have entered the building. Sara walked us past the gates and guards to the inner library, its panels and shelving burdened with leather volumes that extended far over our heads.  We were there to see the cases – each month the pages are turned so that nothing ever receives too much light or air. After five hundred years we are awed by the presence – one of the greatest minds to ever exist on this planet.

One interesting detail – da Vinci did not sign his paintings.  Painters were just artisans.  He loved his puzzles, and somewhere in his work there will be a knot, drawn, painted, dark or light.

His employers were an interesting band of rogues.  It is likely that my impression of the Sforzas was influenced by “Duchess of Milan” a highly salacious historical novel.  Yes, when you walk down the streets in these former city states, there will be English language signs for “Museum of Torture” usually with a photo of some really appalling piece of lawn furniture – such as a spiked iron chair.

On the opposite wall a gaudy crowd scene depicts the crucifixion, everyone dressed up in their festival best. That artist did work in the wet plaster and it will be here a thousand years after the Da Vinci is gone.

Into the Tuscan Hills

The Autostrada is packed with trucks. We have a choice of the scenic road through the Tuscan hills or a vast concrete express route.

After the first tunnel, a midday sun lights golden terraces of grapes, row upon row of topaz, citrine, peridot – jewel colors of the spectrum and beyond. Vines and the fields are nurtured by this sun, and the changing of its seasons. Tuscany is a world heritage site – it’s cities, it’s artworks, its vineyards, works of man and of nature.

The Italian Renaissance – Why and How?

The rise of the Medici coincides with a seismic shift in European culture.  The Dark Ages seem to end almost simultaneously with the final fall of the Roman Empire.  The Ottomans took Constantinople in 1453.  Scholars grabbed their parchments and library rolls, and ran for boats to get out of Asia Minor.  With them they brought the tales of Greek and Roman antiquity, a pagan world.  Secular humanism emerged.  Art and poetry had new life.

Cosimo di Medici was active in the early gatherings of artists and he was willing to support free expression.  The Medici banks had faced all sorts of libel and slanders about their commitment or lack thereof to “Christian” values.  Christians don’t lend money at interest.  Their fortunes turned when the pope needed a lot of money.  They lent a fortune to the church at no interest.  The church then awarded them a contract to handle all church finances in Europe, collecting tithes from parishes, bishoprics, and city states to forward monies into Rome.  The Medici were literally in the middle of every major financial transaction in Europe from each skein of wool to every load of pepper.  Tuscany and Florence became the richest domains in the world.  Florentines reinvested their monies into palaces, castles, and art. The art told stories of heroes and monsters, warriors and queens. History was already beginning to repeat itself.

But I digress. Giovanni’s two sons, Cosimo and Lorenzo took the family from a banking power to a political power rising to the top of twelve or so competing families.

The elders from alliances with their enemies or near enemies – grabs for power, wealth or land – by marrying off their kids and agreeing to enormous dowries.  The young woman comes into the marriage with a lot of money, but it’s not hers.  However, she can always report to papa if she is concerned about investments.  Some children come from these unions, and several other children come from extramarital liaisons. Mistresses may have some power to claim the heart of mind – or to be discarded completely.

So, the families are split, then split again, bending like cypresses in the wind. Pines and pine cones are a common icon.

Marble and Paint

We did have Uffizi tickets, and it was as good a place as any to start. I was last in Florence in 1972 – enchanted by everything in the city, but much too ill to take the time to reflect on what I was experiencing. It was more than thirty years and several disastrous Mediterranean trips to learn that tomatoes give me immediate and violent food poisoning.

Now we were skilled at ordering risotto a la funghi or tartufo.

My mother is behind a lifelong fascination with Florence, and I always sensed it was my home.  I cut my teeth on slide frames as she prepared the lectures for her art history classes. She insisted that I was the spitting image of Simonetta Vespucci, the young woman portrayed in Botticelli paintings. Every woman feels comfortable imagining herself as some great beauty from the past.  I accepted mother’s sentiment, and the idea that my brother was “Mars.”  Funny enough, my first visit to Florence was a joint group with Uncle Bill, the Art History prof and a painting group.  One of the painters that summer wanted to paint my hair, the mane that took several minutes to untangle each morning.

It took forty-five years to get back here. The painted people in my mother’s imagination were alive. After all those years and extra pounds, I no longer saw Venus and a possible previous incarnation. My body is scarred and the hair was sacrificed years ago. I moved past the selfie takers and on through the gallery.

It is an ideal time to examine the Baptistery doors, which are closed.  During visiting hours they are pushed aside for quick glimpses. The Ghiberti reliefs are a UNESCO treasure and a one of a kind human achievement.  I am visually tracing the lines and forms of some of the stories.  Around me are people reading their phones and guidebooks, glancing at the doors, or just standing in their presence. the entire spectacle of the cast bronze, and the inspiration of this artist seems to pass them by.

All these artists knew each other and worked together.  Ghiberti and Brunelleschi were two competitors among dozens.  Ghiberti spent 21 years on the first set of doors.  The second set was commissioned, and by then the project was so famous that every Tuscan artist volunteered for the sculpting and casting of the Ghiberti designs, including Brunelleschi and Donatello.

Brunelleschi’s triumph was putting the dome onto the cathedral, leaving the interior without extra walls, columns or buttresses. The book Brunelleschi’s Dome (Ross King) is a worthy read, and it was wonderful to gaze at the dome again after reading the book a decade ago.  To accompany this feast for the heart, Chet orders gelato – not a little dish, but a massive cone with multiple flavors, whipped cream and sprinkles.  A balanced diet for dinner. It was the tourist treat that Rick Steves said to avoid.  We are so glad we didn’t.  We sat in the dark, gazing up onto the patterned bricks of Brunelleschi’s masterpiece, a vast eggshell perched upon the jigsawed black and white marble cathedral.

10/21 SAT –  Pitti Palace and Ponte Vecchio

We know the symptoms by now. Chet woke with abdominal cramps and needed a day in bed.  Next up on my list was the Pitti Palace. The branches of these families continued to spread, and the Pitti Palace sits across the river from the Palazzo Vecchio.  Between them are the stone walls, and a gentle river where boaters were out sculling the waters, their oars stirring up reflected leaves and hillside palazzos.

The Pitti Palace is quite different from the fortress like Medici palaces.  The Medici were targets for assassination, so stone walls and torch rings offer more of a warning than a welcome. The elegant courtyards show off the structure, but there is very little evidence of living things.  The Pitti is graced with an open plaza, welcoming all.  It would be easy to envision servants, tradesmen, and arrivals of coaches at the gates.  The elegant apartments display centuries of decorative arts, arts that were used for living. My mother’s spirit accompanied me on my walk through the second floor, stunning displays of fashion over hundreds of years, notes on conservation, explanations of when garments can be hung vs. laid flat in glass boxes.  And the shoes!  Oh such shoes.

The theme today, David and Goliath.  This story was a favorite of artists and audiences.  Interesting choice, if you replace Goliath with the ruling dynasties and David with the disenfranchised workers.  Chet wanted to see what choices artists made in telling this story. His perceptions changed my thoughts on the subject.

I tend to see “the whole picture” and sometimes I miss the main idea.  Donatello’s David is one of those times.  In photos a graceful youth has shoulder length waves and wears a wreath of flowers. His likeness has appeared in the backgrounds of hundreds of festive scenes. What have I been missing? We do not see the boy’s face in the photos. He has the body of a child, but you look up into the face, there is steel in the boy’s glance. There is no bravado, perhaps the remains of fear. The slingshot is dropped to the ground. The muscles are no longer tensed, not even in his sword arm.  He is spent, and the head of Goliath is under his foot. Other Donatellos ring the gallery, beautiful works, caresses for the eyes.  We wander the galleries and porches of this beautiful old palace, enjoying breezes, the warmth of faded frescoes telling us of a thousand sunny afternoons.

“This is the face of someone who is about to take aim.  Look at the tension in his face, his resolve and purpose.”