Day 22- Ahhhh Roma!

(Originally posted on July 3rd on my facebook page.)

day 20-something (I forget)

Try to get in a quick one from the hotel lobby, since our room wi-fi is a bit spotty. After a lot of soul, er...web, searching, we decided to stay in our lil' stinky room near S. Maria Maggiore. it's a very convenient spot for setting out for any part of the city, and the weather is great so we can leave the windows open. 

One of my very favorite Roman era frescos from the Villa della Farnesina.  I used the frieze as a model for part of a room I did a few years ago.

First thing today we headed over to the Palazzo Massimo, which has the creme de la creme of antique Roman artifacts and especially, drum roll please, fresco murals from the Villa della Farnesina, an all time high in wall decoration that was dug up from the back yard of the Villa Farnesina (Raphael's decoration) on the banks of the Tiber. Excellent way to start the day!

The Baths of Diocletian were turned into a church by Michelangelo, who wisely preserved the original arched windows, which have been copied many times over including at Grand Central Station in New York.

We got some picnic supplies and ate in a little parklet across the street from the S. Maria degli Angeli, which is built in the ruins of the Baths of Diocletian, converted to a church by Michelangelo. After we walked through those spaces, which also inspired Penn Central and Grand Central stations in New York, we walked down to the Capitoline Museums, another Michelangelo remodel. Great collection of various stuff in a gorgeous setting, and we had a coffee there on the terrace, which gives a fine view of town looking west. Funny how when you can see the landscape without the buildings in the way, it seems smaller. Kind of like when you look at the foundations of a house it always seems smaller than when it is built.

Michelangelo created these crazy Ionic capitals for the Campidoglio buildings.  They are so cartoony, both in shape and in the faces he used as fleurons.

The foundations of the archaic Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus have been enclosed in the museum now, and it includes some good displays on the early settlement of the Capitoline hill. Really amazing to walk on paving that was in place 2500 years ago!

Artist's rendering of the Capitoline hill when the Temple of Jupiter Optimus was built- 500 BCE.

Those museums connect to the Tabularium, a space under the Palazzo Senatorio, that was a treasury of sorts (and later a prison) but has a fab view of the Forum from above and behind. It also has a section of the entablature of the Temple of Vespasian, which is probably the most detailed ornamental stone work anywhere in the world. Really cool to see it up close.

Unbelievably fine sculpting of the entablature which once graced the top of the Temple of Vespasian in the Roman Forum, now protected in the basement of the Palazzo Senatorio. How they were able to do work this fine on a large temple is beyond me. 

As the sun was getting low, we decided to walk to a Tibetan restaurant Marianne had read about. Went past the Colosseum at dusk, past the park where the Domus Aurea (closed because of water problems) and then up to the very pleasant Via Merulana where we had a great vegetarian meal. 

Beer shrine in the Tibetan restaurant.

Back to the hotel, with gelati of course! It seemed like they had done something to alleviate the stench of the first day. Like I say, a fine cheese! 

Duomo di Ferrara 2013

Just posted a new set of photos from the Duomo di Ferrara, which has some very nice grisaille work inside and some good marble reference shots. Enjoy!

Photos of Caffe Florian in Venice

Just posted a nice new set of photos of the Caffe Florian in Venice today on Flickr (link here)

Caffe Florian opened its doors in 1720, making it one of the oldest coffee houses in all of Europe. It is located on the Piazza San Marco, on the ground floor below the Museo Correr. Its many rooms are painted on walls and ceilings with some very nice ornamental work, mostly from the 19th century. They don't mind if you poke your head in to look around and take a photo or two, though its worth the price of a (12 Euro!) coffee to sit where Lord Byron, Casanova, Goethe and Marcel Proust have all sat and sipped.

Villa Valmarana ai Nani photoset up on Flickr!

New set of photos up from the Villa Valmarana ai Nani, a lovely retreat outside Vicenza that features fresco work by Giambattista Tiepolo and his son Giandomenico, each with their own style. Giambattista was more drawn to mythological subjects and a grand style, whereas Giandomenico was more about genre subjects and exotic locales. Both very talented artists, but father was probably a bit superior in his inventions. Giandomenico did many studies and drawings, and he has a curious wandering line that I happen to like also. For more  words on the day I took the photos, go here.

Detail of a dog from Giambattista Tiepolo's fresco in the main house. For the rest of the photo set, click here

Museo Correr photo set up on Flickr

Just posted a big old hunk of photos of the Museo Correr in Venice today. 137 High Res shots of mostly the interiors. Had to be sneaky or there would have been a lot more!

Ornamental detail from the Coffee Shop area.

Day 21- Rocky Road to Rome

(originally posted on facebook 7/1/13)

I guess we're having a little hotel karma today- after all these great ones we landed in a stinker in Rome. The location's not bad, it's nice and quiet and near the train station, which means it is very central to everything, but it literally stinks. Cigarettes and sewer gas, mmmmm... We're trying to figure out if it's worth moving or just buy some incense. Or take up smoking.

 After checking in here we decided to go down to the Forum (start from the bottom up). But of course we immediately sidetracked into the Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome's oldest church dedicated to Mary, the core of which was built in 431 using columns that were salvaged from an even older Roman building. Amazing how even after all the great stuff we've seen for the last 3 weeks, this is yet another level.

Beautiful marbles in the area below the altar at Santa Maria Maggiore

We cruised down the dirty and urban Ave Cavour to the Forum area, where there was some kind of demonstration going on with riot police at the ready and loudspeakers blaring. Nevertheless, managed to take in a bit of Trajan's Forum and the marketplace behind it, and then to be dazzled by the ever so imperial Vittoriano Monument, which pretty much defines the word monumental, being a very large pile of bronze, gilding, and white marble statuary right in the middle of Rome.

Confrontation between paraders for immigrant rights vs polizia in front of the Vittorio Emmanuele monument. All ended peacefully, thankfully.

We then wiggled our way by the Teatro Marcellus and the Porta Ottaviana to the Campo dei Fiori area to go to our friends Darius and Erica's house where we outlined some possible visits for the next few days. Then a nice evening walk back to our smelly little hovel, where I drew for a while and Marianne searched for an alternate location.

The Great Temple of Rome, down near the Tiber, was built in 1904 on the site of the former Ghetto of Rome.

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.