Our bucket list had always included a month in Tuscany. Chet and I are fascinated with the Renaissance, and how it changed Europe.
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.
The story begins as you take a look inside the duomo. Our guide, Sara Cerri knows her art and she knows Italy. She presents facts to the tourist – but being Chet and Connie, we want to interpret. What is the story here? The white towers present like a gaudy wedding cake covered in fondant and icicles. The height is staggering, especially inside where the worshipper is made insignificant by the massive columns. Sara says, “They made the columns this high to show the greatness of God.” We crane our necks and near the capitals are some figures. There are no bible stories chiseled in the stone, no parables. The effigies preside as you wonder, “are these pictures of saints, or images of people being portrayed as saints? Are we portraying the greatness of God or the greatness of the Sforzas?
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.
The Castello Sforzesco is a massive citadel, and Leonardo finally had the opportunity to realize some of the ambitions that he had presented years before. We sat in the courtyard to catch our breath and enjoy a piece of pizza.
We held tickets to see the Da Vinci Last Supper, a fresco that will not survive the ages. Fresco has to be worked very quickly in wet plaster. Da Vinci was a perfectionist who took the time to tell a story in each face. He scrutinized the way light revealed characters, and painted and repainted the details. A one-shot permanent medium wasn’t the way to do this. This intense story was painted in tempera on dry plaster. Tempera is a mix of dried chalk with dyes, usually blended with egg or some other medium to make a smooth paint. It began to flake away still in Da Vinci’s lifetime, leaving just the ghosts of the figures for us to study. This room is a refectory, a dining room so that the monks could participate in the Last Supper each night and at some point, a door was cut right through the painting to make access from the kitchen easier. The table for the Last Supper is cut, but the knots in the end of the cloth are still visible.
Chet immediately identified which apostle was which, recognizing symbols of trades and relationships. It turns out he remembers his Catechism in great detail, even though for years, he has claimed that his main Catholic school memory was being punished for not paying attention. I was startled by the blatantly Semetic figures on Judas, a cruel face with hooked nose and curling hair, clutching a purse. We are well aware that Romans killed Christ, but in this image the blame falls squarely on the “Jew” – oh, right, we are in Italy.
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.
“Despotism was a boon to Italian art.” Durant
In our vision, an old man walks along his rows, pruning shears in hand, examining his vines leaf by leaf, bunch by bunch. Other will do the harvesting – he is intent on seeing that his precious vines are free of pests and rot. And so we meet Giovanni di Medici, scion of the Medici that come to establish the greatest center of arts and culture known to man. We did go through the painful experience of watching the miniseries before we came. Were they trying to make Game of Thrones in 15th century Italy?
Dustin Hoffman plays the patriarch in the American Miniseries. He is the only actor in it, a minor role that dominates all the yelling and swordfighting of the attractive walking headshots that dominate screen time. The settings are gorgeous, filmed in Tuscan towns and palaces. However, some costumes are questionable and their makeup artist needs to be taken out and shot. He/she/it got paid to make us believe the actors, but somehow they never ever looked at a Renaissance painting. They photographed people in their paste on beards, and all tints of rosy lipstick, eyeshadow and eyeliner. Would it have been too much trouble to get them Uffizi tickets for a day? Just saying.
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.
Botticelli holds a partial answer to my big question. He spent his life with the Medicis. The first works are church paintings. A face looked out at me from a canvas, one of the hundreds of Madonnas in this museum. The baby in a Botticelli Madonna – an image of my son as a red-headed infant. I sat down and closed my eyes.
The Duomo at night is quieter, and we decide to walk once again into the center of our old city. the piazza is active, a festival atmosphere, but not nearly as crowded as the daytime. The intricate black and white marble facade lets us know that we are in an important place. Not a whole lot of reverence tonight. Lighted toys are whirling into the air, and vendors are pushing their way through the visitors. This week is fall break for schools, and groups of Italian teens are everywhere.
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.
My feet hurt, my back hurt, and I wanted more. The ticket included the Boboli gardens, but I realized that I could no longer stand. Instead I headed downhill, and leaned into the gates of a fabulous grotto where evening entertainments were produced. The Boboli Gardens will have to wait for still another visit. I couldn’t take another step, and our apartment was a good couple kilometers away. Luckily the shopkeepers let an exhausted woman sit for a bit to admire their goods. I got across the Ponte Vecchio for a mere €500.
10/24 Bargello and Academia
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.
Our walk continues all the way up to the Academia. This is a working art school and it also houses the Michelangelo masterpiece, David. Scholars argue the scenario – Was the David conceived before or after he kills Goliath? Chet spends the better part of an hour examining the sculpture from every angle. He is a warrior, with terrific artistic intuition – he reads words of art the way others of us read storybooks.
“This is the face of someone who is about to take aim. Look at the tension in his face, his resolve and purpose.”
I followed his thought. “The head and body are turned for the shot. He doesn’t see you, or anyone else in this great hall. He only sees his objective. The stone in his hand is his destiny.” The man takes my breath away. He sits down at the back of the statue to study his idea. I wander off, distracted by the color and noise of the crowd.
It’s our last full day in Florence. We have a guest card for a nearby restaurant famed for its steak Fiorentina, a monstrous cut of greasy, bloody beef. Neither of us can comprehend the idea of eating a kilo of Tuscan beef, served nearly rare. For some reason, just the sight of the enormous cuts has driven us to vegetarian meals night after night.
We tuck into a lovely plate of pasta, vegetables and wine.