Month: June 2016

If I can make a post for the freighters in my family, I thought I should do one for the musicians, too. Let’s start with the magnificent organs in some of the churches. The first photo is from the Santa Maria del Mar Cathedral in Barcelona.

The second organ is in the Sienna Cathedral (with pipes on opposite walls, hence two photos). Notice that the pipes on the right have a great set of trumpets. I tried a second shot to highlight them, but it was hard to make the trumpets  show very well with the painted walls in the background (at bottom).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Because making music books was difficult and time consuming during medieval times, often only one or two books were created. Therefore, the church choir music was printed in very large books. The books were then placed on equally large stands, big enough so that all the singers could read from the same book. The music stand in the photo is from Santa Maria Novella Cathedral in Florence. You can judge the size of the stand by comparing it with the people in the photo.

 

 

 

 

 

Below are some examples of the music books from the Sienna Duomo. Again, you can gauge the size by comparing the book in the case with the woman standing at the left.

These music books were highly illustrated (and beautiful). Here is a larger picture of one of the books. The books were all protected by glass, as you can see in the photos. It was, therefore, hard to get a clear picture. Most of the pictures reflected the colorful ceiling paintings.

Just to illustrate, in the photo (on the right) I deliberately tried to get the ceiling to reflect on the music. To help you see it, I’ve posted a picture of the ceiling by itself on the left (see how elaborately it was painted,) and then a close up of the book of music and the accompanying illustration. You can see the side arches of the ceiling showing in the glass over the music.(You may have to click on the photos to enlarge them enough to see it.)

In many museums, some musical instruments were on display. First, the building housing the David (Galleria dell’ Accademia) also previously held the Academy of Fine Arts. A collection of musical instruments belonging to the Academy were on exhibit. The musical instruments were from the”Granducal  Collection.” Along with the instruments, a painting, Musicians of Grand Prince Ferdinando (about 1685), was displayed, which set the style and time frame for the instruments, I thought.

(Left to right, top to bottom)
Stradivari Violin, 1716; Piano-guitar, 1793; Brass instruments, early 1800s
Collection of woodwinds, 1800s; Percussion, mostly 1800s

The Academy also had an  amazing keyboard collection; I’ll post only a few examples, but notice the first keyboard with the soundboard sticking straight up perpendicular to the keys!

Finally, the Palazzo Zuckerman Archaeological Museum in Padua also had some musical instruments.

Not to be forgotten, though, as a postscript, are paintings of musicians…this one of angels in paradise playing songs of praise, from the Medici Chapels in Florence.

 

 

While we were on the tour of the Carrara quarry, we were able to see some of the effort it took to move these massive blocks of stone. Waiting for the tour to the quarry itself, we watched them load this truck

Along the main road were several marble yards. I don’t have great photos because I took them from the window of our van, but you can see the amount of stone stored in the yards, stone that made it down to these yards on those trucks, a few blocks  at a time.

Later, at another yard where artists were working on marble pieces that had been commissioned, we saw them using this crane for loading a truck.

I can even try to see if the video will load and face the right direction.

Image moving this stone 500 or, especially, 2000 years ago!  These marble oxen were part of the museum, Cava Museo, at the quarry. I’m sure animal power played an important role in those days.

How did they get that massive stone Michelangelo used to sculpt the David down the mountain and 60 miles to Florence?

 

Note: If you are interested, the tour of the Carrara marble quarry was put together by Heather Evertsen of Europa Vita. You can contact her at: http://www.europavita.us/.

 

Many famous buildings and statues have been made from the spectacular stone, Carrara marble, which I saw at the quarry (previous post). Seeing the source of the stone in the quarry was a high point of my time in Florence and now I enjoy things made from this stone even more than I did before.

A few of the famous buildings and statues built of Carrara marble that I have actually seen on this trip, lucky me, are in Rome. The oldest of the buildings that I saw (that sources say use Carrara marble) was the Pantheon in Rome. I’m not sure where Carrara marble is used because much of the marble from the outside is missing and in the inside there is plenty of non-white stone (which is therefore, not Carrara marble).

Another very old example is the Column of Marcus Aurelius (which was modeled after the Trajan Column, which I don’t think I saw during my brief visits to Rome). The Column of Marcus Aurelius was built between 176-193 A.D.

In the  city of Sienna, the Duomo di Sienna, built between 1215 and 1263 had white marble mixed with other colors, primarily green. These different colors of marble were used both inside and out.

Perhaps the most famous story of the use of Carrara marble is the huge block Michelangelo inherited from other artists who started but did not complete a statue from the huge piece of stone. Michelangelo used the block to create David.

Michelangelo also used the same type of marble to sculpt Pietà, created between 1498-99, located in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. I tried to get a good picture, but it was hard because everyone was trying to do the same thing–all 35,000 of us (okay, that many people come each day so they weren’t all there when I was there, but it was certainly crowded.)

The Christus and the Twelve Apostles, carved by Bertel Thorvaldsen, also used Carrara marble. The LDS Church has commissioned a copy of these statutes for the Visitor’s Center at the Rome Temple.The Christus was still on the lot at the quarry, so we were able to see it up close.

Because of the position where the statue was stored, with a packing box of some type in front, it was hard to get a full photo. However, I loved this view from the back.

Life-size copies of the Thorvaldsen Twelve Apostles were also still in another building off-site from the quarry, waiting for the Visitor’s Center to be finished. Peter is in the middle photo; you can tell because of the keys he holds.

Remember, if you are interested, this tour was put together by Heather Evertsen of Europa Vita. You can contact her at: http://www.europavita.us/. The specialty tour of the quarry is at: http://www.europavita.us/classic-carrara/.

As mentioned in an earlier post, we were able to take a tour to the Carrara marble quarry. The tour was organized by Heather Evertsen of Europa Vita (contact information below).

The mountains in the area are all marble, and the guide on the tour told us the marble ran more than two miles below sea level. Perhaps you can see from the photos below a bit of the size of the mountain where our quarry was located. One photo is looking up toward part of the quarry and mountain and one photo is looking from up near the top of quarry down  toward the sea beyond Pisa.

It was a foggy day, so the pictures are embellished with white cloud on white stone, but you can get a sense for how massive the marble formation is.

The lines on the face are cut marks. They cut massive blocks out of the cliff face, one row at a time.

In the photo on the left, you can see the saw and water supply used to make the first cuts on the stone (the fog lifted a bit and I got a slightly clearer photo). After the blocks are on the quarry floor, they are cut into smaller pieces that will fit on the trucks hauling them down the mountain.

Some well cut stones can be seen in the quarry yard at the bottom, but they also used marble stones to build up the strength of the road. Can you imagine marble roads?

At the point where we picked up the tour into the quarry, they had a couple of stores and a small museum. I resisted buying anything at the stores because my suitcases were full, but enjoyed the museum, including a board that shows the color of marble from around the world. (All the marble at Carrara is white.) I had to take three pictures to get all of the colors in!

Included at the museum were these marble tributes to quarry workers.

Magnificent place! Visit someday (see contact information below for Europa Vaita).

One last photo of my brother, Keith, and his daughter, Lisa, on the tour.

Contact Information:

Heather Eversten, Europa Vita: http://www.europavita.us/)
See the specialty tour at: http://www.europavita.us/classic-carrara/

 

 

 

Because I arrived in Spring, I started taking photos of beautiful flowers (as you have seen). One flower seemed to be in a lot of locations–wisteria. In our first apartment in Florence we had wisteria growing all across our patio (which we didn’t use because of the mosquitoes, but the flowers were nice).

When more people arrived to join me, we moved to the Tower House in San Donato in Colina (a small town a little south of Florence).  Once again, the wisteria welcomed us to the house, hanging over the front door.

During our walk to the childhood home of Leonardo di Vinci, we saw a house with a pleasant, flower-laden yard which included nice wisteria.

But the best ones were just outside the archaeological site of Herculaneum. They had a mix of white and purple, growing on an arbor built for them.

Enjoy a few photos of these flowers (although I could post a large number of them).

Lovely smell (if you could only be there) to all these flowers.

(another catch-up post from earlier in the trip)

 

 

 

The ceilings….amazing! For this post, I will use some examples just from Florence and not other places I’ve been (since I started this post while still in Florence and am finally finishing it in Arizona). These ceilings will give you a sense of some of the different ceiling styles in the Renaissance. First, the wonderful and amazing dome in the Duomo.

By the way, for a good read, try learning about Filippo Brunelleschi and the building of the dome on the Duomo. It is an amazing architectural achievement for the mid 1400s. Perhaps I’ll post more on the Duomo as a whole and the building of the dome in particular.

Right next door in the Baptistery (an older building than the Duomo) is this ceiling. This photo is a small section of the entire dome, showing Christ on His throne of judgment.

Here is a larger photo of the Baptistery Dome.

The Palazzo Vechio, city hall for Florence, had a number of ceilings worth noting. First, the main meeting room, still in use today (and shown in the photo on the left), had a large ceiling entirely covered in paintings.. The photo on the right is a small section of the ceiling, it being rather hard to get a shot of the entirety.

The Palazzo Vechio also had other interesting ceilings, but not all were the more common paintings of people and animals, as these two rooms below show.

The Pitti Palace had a series of impressive ceilings and domes, with every surface covered with sculptures, paintings, or carvings. Here are a couple of photos of some of the detail and then a larger shot from the Pitti Palace.

This ceiling (still Pitti Palace) is not really as high as it looks–it is painted to look like it has another floor. Can you see the “person” up on the balcony looking over the edge?

The Medici Chapels had the same impressive work on the ceilings (and the walls and floor, of course) as in the photo on the left, but one of the rooms (of this mausoleum) with wonderful carving from Michelangelo had a plain dome (photo on the right). It was rather a peaceful change and let the attention rest on the sculptures.

After all the ceilings covered in paint or frescoes, to see a carved wood was also a welcome change. With two examples, first is this ceiling in the library at San Lorenzo, which was designed by Michelangelo, and second is a ceilings in Santa Croce Church.

Santa Maria Novella had plainer ceilings in much of the building, but did have some painted ceilings in the Chapter Hall (note the painting of Christ rescuing Peter from the Sea of Galilee.)

 

Finally, for an end to this post, a rather distinctive terracotta ceiling in Santa Croce, and in another room in Santa Croce, two angels to protect us on our way.

 

 

We are back on land following the cruise. Since Internet on board ship was slow and expensive ($.95/minute….and you could spend a minute trying to load one email message), I have not made a post in the last couple of weeks.

Here is a one shot per port/sea day as an overview. Our ship, the Norwegian Spirit (not taken on the first day).

We left from Venice on rainy, rainy day….water town, right? What is a little rain? The photo is looking back toward Venice from the deck of the ship.

The ship sailed overnight to Dubrovnik, Croatia (new country for me). The city in medieval times was a well-fortified location, with large sea walls protecting from the sea and a high mountain protecting the area on the land.

Then we went a short distance overnight to Kota, Montenegro (another new country)–listed as having one of the most beautiful bays in the world (so the guide said, but judge for yourself when I post a few more photos).

Okay, I have to give you two photos here. First you have a map of the bay–the city of Kotor is near where a man on our tour is pointing on the map. The sea is at the bottom. The second photo is of a piece of the bay as we navigated our way out (with the aid of a helicopter?)

Then we had a sea day, with lectures on Peter and Paul…(photo of the sea and not the lecture!)

We spent one day in Greece (not enough, of course), but did see the ruins of ancient Corinth, and Mars Hill and the Parthenon in Athens. (Which merits two pictures?) First Corinth on the left and then a view of Athens from Mars Hill, with Eric Huntsman giving information about Paul’s visit. [Correction: We spent two days in Greece, just one in the Athens area.]

The next day we visited a small Greek island called Mykonos, with unique architecture and charming views.

Another sea day (I actually liked these days–to not be on the run in a shore excursion)

Then it was Rome for one day to see the Vatican, the Pantheon, and to have a short walk around central sites.

The next day we docked at Livorno, which for most of the travelers was their shore excursion to Florence and Pisa. Gael and I opted for going to church at the Livorno Ward (where our airbnb hosts from our Incisa house near Florence actually now live; it was nice to see them again). I didn’t take any photos that day (but enjoyed being at church a lot)!

Monday we were in the Toulon, France area and took a drive through the countryside and some small seacoast towns. The photo is of the town of Sanary-sur-Mer.

We docked Tuesday morning at Barcelona and disembarked. Gael and I are spending two days here, and then it is finally home to the USA. A view of Barcelona port through dirty windows on the ship.

More on some of these sites in the next three weeks.