Day 20 - Orvieto!

Day 20! - Orvieto

Loads of great surprises today. From our palatial little condo we headed out to check out the Orvieto Underground tour first thing. First thing being around noon today! The underground tour was fascinating- led by a young German musician who had a passion for his subject that someone who grew up here might not. There are over 1200 caves under Orvieto, which is on a built on a a big plug of fairly soft volcanic tufa that's easy to carve out. Some of them go back to Etruscan times (before 500 BC). They were used for all kinds of things, except actually living in them- they're too cold and damp.

These were dove nests dug into the tufa under the  city. In hard times they could eat both the eggs and the birds. Cheaper than chickens since they go get their own food. The stairs went up to the owners quarters.

We then got into more Etruscan stuff in a whole variety of little museums near the Duomo. In the Archeological Museum, we were having fun looking at various artifacts that had been dug up in the Necropolis that's just outside the walls of the town, when a curator beckoned us to come with her and flipped the lights on in two rooms of original Etruscan frescoes that had been moved there from another site. WOW- I just wish I'd been able to take some photos. They were far beyond anything I thought of as Etruscan in their sophistication. Elegant figures and scenes of a feast in a triclinium (Roman era dining room). Very cool!

Lots of Etruscan terra cotta artifacts in the museums- including several gorgon heads like this. This would have been on the peak of the roof to ward off evil spirits. About 500 BC

Hopped upstairs to another museum (these were all pretty empty- seems the tourists only know about the Duomo and the gelateria) and saw some great bits that had been removed from the church over the years and replaced with copies. Cool to see these up close and personal, also a great black and white room by Luca Signorelli (?). 

Little fun poked at the choir director? 

Went through the sottopassagio (underpass) of the rear of the cathedral, which is full of the antique tools used for repairs and some bits and pieces of things to be worked on, including a pair of 40 foot high doors (amazing when you see these lying on their sides!) Finally entered the main cathedral from the side aisle, and, just as we do in all of these monstrous spaces, we gasped. 

Organ in the Duomo. Half expect to see ghosts emerging from the pipes as they are played!

This one is very similar to the Siena Duomo in the use of alternating bands of dark green and white stone, plus it has two amazing alae (side wings). One side is painted in the 1350's, the other side was begun by Fra Angelico in 1447, and later finished by Luca Signorelli starting in 1499. I had forgotten that this exquisite work is here- it's one of my favorite pieces of ornamental art (and the murals aren't bad either!) 

Awesome grottesca work by Luca Signorelli in the Orvieto Duomo

At this point Marianne was about to pass out (I don't know how she keeps up with me- I am truly obsessive about this stuff in a way that no human should be) so we headed back to our luxicon for some snacks. Decided to head out again around 5 so we went to the other Archeological museum (gotta love a town of 6,000 residents that has more than one archeological museum!) Man was I glad we did!! Besides having an outstanding collection of more Etruscan pottery and artifacts, it was also set in a killer neo-classical painted palazzo directly across from the Duomo. Totally unexpected treat!

The Faina museum has great Etruscan art set in a gorgeous neo-classical palazzo

We stayed there til it closed, then moseyed over (most everything in this town is within about a 2 block radius) to the Torre del Moro, a clocktower in the middle of town. Climbed up and got a great view of the town and the surrounding countryside, aided by the fact that Orvieto is on a very high plateau so you really see a long way. It was getting later (6 pm to be precise- which I know because the bell went off right next to us- practically jumped over the parapet it was so loud!) We thought about how many different costumes you might have seen looking down from that tower over the years since it was built in the 13th century.

on top of the Torre del Moro

Wow- this post is getting really long, but you said you liked it! 

Ok- here's the frosting on the cake, and then I'll shut up. After the tower, we walked down the main street to check out the opera theater, which we had seen signs for. The lobby looked really promising, with ornament that looked a lot like the stuff at the neo-classical palazzo we'd been in earlier. Paid the two euro to visit and the disinterested barmaid sort of said- "it's over there, help yourselves" (of course she said it in Italian, so it sounded much more romantic, but bored nonetheless.) We had the place totally to ourselves and discovered not only a great main ceiling and stage curtain, but also 3 or 4 banquet rooms that were spectacularly painted with all kinds of fabulous ornament. Yet another unexpected dazzler.

Spectacular interior of the Teatro Mancinelli

440 new pics today, that should be enough. See ya! 

PS- in case you can't get enough of this stuff (you must be really bored at work!) I'll probably post another one just about the art over on art+works.