Happy Fourth of July!! A year ago today I was shocked and awed by the decorative work I saw at the Villa Torlonia, an exquisite house in Rome that has been painstakingly restored since the 1970's. Very fine, very high quality workmanship throughout the house. It housed Mussolini during the war and then afterwards the Allied command. 

Nice Red White and Blue celebration on the walls of the Villa Torlonia in Rome.

Day 15 and 16- Say Goodnight, Florence

Back to being able to post as of tonight in our new spot in Salsomaggiore. I accidentally used up Erling and Lynne's whole internet capacity when I uploaded the last post, so I hope you read it! And looked at all the pictures!

View at breakfast from Lynne and Erling's place.

Marianne made it back without a hitch (as you may or may not know, we fly on standby tickets, making every move non-warranted.) She found her way to the Palazzo degli Artisti unassisted, for which she gets major kudos on navigation. After coming in at about 11 am, she was willing to head out with us to go peek at the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi, a large townhouse built for Cosimo Medici starting in 1444. The house has two great courtyards and a number of well painted rooms, including the recently restored Magi Chapel, painted by Bennozzo Gozzoli in 1459. There is also a very cool dining room with painted mirrors and a large allegorical ceiling in it, but it was holding some kind of meeting, so we couldn't look in.

You might be crabby too if you had a big block of stone balanced on your head for 500 years!

The day was kind of short- did some errand running, ate with Lynne and Erling at a place that had gluten free pizza (yay!) and went back to the flat where everyone passed out after watching some pretty good lightning. Next day was Monday, when many things are closed around here, but we thought we had a couple of destinations going, only to find that they were both actually closed also. We stuck our noses in to see the Pontormo Deposition at Santa Felicita, then decided to attempt the bus ride to Poggio a Caiano, where there is a very large Medici Villa that has a famous lunette by Pontormo also. 

cluster of hands in Pontormo's Deposition at Santa Felicita

By the time we got out there we were starving, and a nice English woman who worked at the ticket office told us where we could get lunch in the back room of a pasticceria down the street. Always nice when you get away from the major tourist centers in Italy; prices are lower and people are a lot more relaxed. They don't speak as much English either, so you have to be ready for that, but they're generally pretty patient. 

Entry to the Medici Villa at Poggio a Caiano. Magnificent place!

After filling our bellies with lovely soup, pasta, and salad, we headed back up the little hill (Poggio means "knoll") we headed into the park surrounding the house. Everything there is totally free, which was a nice surprise, and we had it all to ourselves again. The house is a magnificent chunk sitting on this knoll, still surrounded by the gardens that were remade when the Italian monarchy took up residence here in the 19th century. We entered through the ground floor into a hall, the ceiling of which had some of the most convincing trompe l'oeil work I've ever seen. Say what you will about 19th century decorative work, when they got it right, it was superior, especially the trompe l'oeil. 

Lousy photo taken through the window of the entry hall ceiling. Completely trompe l'oeil ornament!

We then entered the billiard room, which I had seen in pics before, but had forgotten about. An absolutely drop dead gorgeous trellis ceiling (also 19th century) with all kinds of realistic looking flowers and a complex structure that looks like woven bamboo. I was dying to take some photos of it, but since we were the only ones there, it would have been impossible to get away with it. Behind that was a couple of rooms that had originally been used by Bianca Capello, Francesco de Medici's mistress and wife, that had been repainted with some exquisite ornamental work. 

Quirky ornamental work from 1865

We were then led upstairs to the main floor (the piano nobile) where there is a mix of both Renaissance and 19th century work. The villa was built up by Lorenzo de Medici in the late 1400s, and occupied by the Medici for about 100 years. Francesco and Bianca both died there in 1579, under somewhat suspicious circumstances. It was either malaria, or arsenic. There are only two big rooms left from this period, everything else having been remodeled when Vittorio Emanuele II lived there in the middle of the 1800s. 

Pontormo's end wall was much larger than i had imagined- the bottom of it is almost 20 feet off the ground.

Fortunately they saved the grand reception room with it's murals by Andrea del Sarto and the magnificent end wall by Pontormo, which was much bigger than i had expected from the photos I'd seen. By this time, the guards were distracted and I had a a chance to take a few pics of the place, and then we went out and cruised the slightly overgrown garden accompanied by a friendly tortoise shell cat. They had an orangerie full of dozens of citrus trees all laden with fruit. Wish ours would do that!

This little guy followed us all through the garden. Must have been bored in the off season!

Back to town on the bus and had our last dinner with Lynne and Erling at the incredible palazzo, watching the ever changing Florentine sky do light shows on the Duomo and the Campanile. I'll leave off here, since I can't seem to finish a sentence any more. Tomorrow I'll tell you about today and yesterday. 

Dinner with a view!

Day 7- The Ides of March!

Beware! Today may make you so tired that you have to post the next day!

Started out the day with coffee with our friend Erica (fellow blogger-read it at http://ericafirpo.com/moscerina/)  with her daughter Xanthe at the Palazzo Braschi. Erica's the one who lent us her flat while she and her family were up north scouting the wilds of Saint Moritz for a review. Tough job! Actually, we had already gotten a coffee rush going at our new B&B, which left us refreshed after a nice quiet night (actually still as a tomb- it's weird to be in the middle of town and have it be so quiet!) Our new host is a chatty and friendly Roman woman named Michela who runs this two room place and served us a nice breakfast. You can find her rooms at http://unpostoaroma.eu/?lang=en.  It's a great bargain, recently redone, in a central locale close to the Piazza Navona and Campo de Fiori.

Xanthe models the latest in Roman fashions! Oversized is IN!

After quick coffees, we headed to the nearby Largo Argentina, which is a modern transport hub and cat sanctuary, but a also a cluster of 4 republican era temples that were located near the Theater of Pompey, where Julius Caesar was actually killed. There, a historical group was reenacting the event, which we only caught the tail end of, though we did get to see the costumes, which was fun for Xanthe. Chatted at their flat for a little, then Marianne and I walked up to visit the Vatican museums, always a favorite spot for me. 

Erica, Xanthe, Brutus and Marianne. Et tu?

Spent quite a while in the Hall of Maps there, four hundred feet of ornamental bliss! There is not a square inch of that hall that has not been lovingly caressed with a paint brush! They're still working on some kind of exterior renovation with scaffolding that covers a significant portion of the interior, but there is nevertheless many square feet of things to look at, even if you skip over the main narrative panels as I mostly do. The maps are exquisite- with all kinds of fascinating details, from sea monsters to landscapes, with beautiful legend cartouches interesting insets showing what the cities looked like at the time (1580's roughly.) I could easily spend a month in this room just perusing and copying things- it is so rich!

Just a little mascheron in the gigantic Hall of Maps at the Vatican, yet look at how skillfully it is painted.  Not one square inch of this room is wasted!

But we had to move on, so we went through Raphael's Stanze (rooms) with their amazing images of artists, philosophers, and religious images, and the earlier rooms by Pinturicchio, painted for the notorious Borgia pope Alexander VI in the late 1400's. These are interesting to me as one of the first places that grottesca work is seen after the uncovering of Nero's palace, the Domus Aurea, in about 1490. They also have intricate majolica tile floors and 500 year old graffiti that is all over if you look closely at the walls. 

Pinturicchio's ceiling in one of the Borgia apartments is a very early example of modern use of grottesca ornament, inspired by the uncovering of the Domus Aurea

Then we entered the holy of holies, the Sistine Chapel. This is the third time I have visited this room, and it just gets better each time. It was a tad less crowded this time of year, though the guards are still doing their "Shhhhhh!" act and shouting "no photos!". I usually don't shoot in there, as there are very good books that have wonderful details of most of it, but someone had asked me to try to shoot the painted curtains that run around the room, so i took a handful of those, and got scolded accordingly. There is no doubt that this room is one of the great wonders of the world in so many ways, and the fact that Michelangelo was able to pull it off in four years (at age 33!) is enough to make any artist walk away from their brushes!

After the Sistine, the rest of the museum is a denouement, but there are still some real treats. The room of the Aldobrandini Wedding, which has a small collection of Roman fresco panels and mosaics, is a stand out. The panels of landscapes based on Homer's Odyssey are remarkably atmospheric for their time, and the room itself has panels by Guido Reni on the ceiling that are also outstanding. The Sistine Library, which was recently closed off to the public, has yet more amazing grottesca work. 

Naturally, I am completely pooped after this experience, but I agreed to go inside St Peter's on our way back to our place. Again, as always, it is an uncanny experience. Michelangelo's Pieta is so moving! The way Mary's left hand releases the body on her lap, and seems to be forming the expression of "why?" is absolutely wrenching! Michelangelo had such an uncanny ability to get inside of the emotions we portray through our body language, in a way that is both natural and artistic. Right as we got there a ceremony  at the main altar was wrapping up, we just barely caught some of the smoke and singing, and Marianne swears she saw the Pope (and JFK, and Elvis) on the little balcony, even though everyone we talked to said it was just a regular Saturday evening service. We had a good laugh about it as we ambled away on our way home.

St Peter's at dusk

We made a vain attempt to get our phone service in order (it's working now!) and then stopped at a fun little fish restaurant near Largo Argentina where I had my second great octopus dish in as many weeks! Cruised back here and crashed hard. 

Got up for Marianne's last day here (at least for the week- she has to show up at work this week- long story!) and went over to see the interior of Sant'Ivo, Borromini's corkscrew topped church. The interior is elegantly plain (not severe, but unpainted), and then we went to see the inside of the Palazzo Massimo alle Colonne, a beautiful old house that is only open once a year, in celebration of the brief resurrection of one the Massimo family's ancestors. The family still lives in the house, and while we were there they were also receiving a variety of Rome's hoi polloi, including a Cardinal in his red propeller hat, and a woman who was having her hand kissed in a very regal manner. It was dark and cozy.

This fellow was waiting in his period costume to allow us into the Palazzo Massimo alle Colonne. That was the real deal- not a copy.

After that we fixed the phone problem and headed back for a light lunch and computer time so I could keep you up to date.

Palazzo Vecchio photos up on Flickr.com

Just uploaded 126 new photos of (mostly) the interior ornamental painting at the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, taken in June 2013. Enjoy it here

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Day 10- Ferrara is beautiful!

Riding along the town walls in the morning- great way to catch a breeze!

What the heck, might as well make it a habit! Started the day with renting some bikes and heading up to the medieval era walls that go all the way around the town. Beautiful way to start the day! The linden trees are blooming everywhere and they smell almost like jasmine. From the elevated walls you catch little glimpses of the towers and steeples of Ferrara, plus other bits outside the walls. You can circumnavigate the old town in less than an hour, and it's super pleasant. It also has condom machines.

Convenient condom machines near the bike path, because you never know who you might bump into out on your bike

Took in the Palazzina Marfisa d'Este, a lovely old house with period furniture and elaborate grottesca ceilings that are badly in need of a cleaning. Couldn't take many pictures since we were the only ones there and the docents followed us around like bird dogs! Nice to be in a smaller town for less crowds, but this is the flip side of that coin. They also are really serious about their hours; if you're in there at 12:30 and they close at one for lunch, they pretty much breathe on you so you'll leave a bit early. They're probably mostly volunteers, so I get it, but it's not what we're used to and makes you feel a bit unwelcome, especially since we paid 5 Euros to get in.

View from outside of the Palazzina Marfisa d'Este. Since they wouldn't let you take them inside, I took a few from outside. Nyah!

Later went to the Palazzo Schifanoia and the Castello Estense. After all the beautiful maintenance we've seen on the trip it was a bit shocking to see ceilings like this at the Castello. Not through any fault of its caretakers, we learned that this is all damage from the May 2012 earthquakes that occurred in this region. Ferrara was particularly hard hit- the Castello lost part of its tower and a church near the Piazza lost the upper part of its facade. The Palazzo Schifanoia, one of the town's treasures, is still 80% closed, with piles of exterior masonry lying in the courtyard behind. Very sad stuff!

Beautiful plaster entry to the Palazzo Schifanoia.  Most of the interior was closed due to the  2012 earthquake.

So all the tissue paper you see here has been applied to cracks, to keep more plaster from falling off. It is very delicately applied with reversible adhesives that will stay until it can be properly restored. I wonder if they need helpers...hmmmm!

Ceiling in the Castello Estense with paper applied to keep crumbles from falling out of the cracks made by the earthquake in 2012.

In any case, it's nice that they are still open (except for the rooms at Schifanoia) and that they let you look at them even- in their damaged state they are still stunning! This one is called the Hall of games, as the imagery is all based on a 16th century translation of Greek gymnastic exercises as described by Vitruvius in Roman times.The castello has dungeons that were truly chilling, and not just in temperature. Supposedly there was one man in there for 43 years before being released-(shivers!!) 

Went back to our lovely room (I wish I could pack this one up and take it to our other stops- it's really comfy and cheap!) for a lunch of store bought stuff, which is becoming our pattern. Some fresh and roasted veggies, a bit of bread, yummy cheeses-all for about $10.

Hit the bikes again around 5 pm to take in one more Palazzo and get a gelato in the piazza before returning our rides and going back to our cozy cave.