Ellen Abroad: Duomos All Around

Well! Thanks to Anna’s unfailing kindness, I got my camera battery all charged up, and I’m ready to share with you the pretty incredible weekend I had. I guess I should start with the trip to the Florence Duomo, though, even though that happened on Thursday.

I. Duomo, Dome-o, Donatello

We really started by looking at the exterior of the Baptistry—specifically the doors designed by Pisano (you know, that guy whose sculptures I already posted from Siena) and Ghiberti. The two doors on either side of the Baptistry have that same recurring quatrefoil pattern I mentioned earlier (but misspelled). The two artists had to squish their designs into these little decorative shapes, so Pisano’s are pretty plain looking, but Ghiberti does some interesting things with perspective. Each side tells a story. Pisano’s doors show the life of John the Baptist with eight panels of different virtues on the bottom.

Here’s a detail of John the Baptist being laid to rest (after his head’s been reattached). He just suggests that they’re in a church with the shorthand of architectural forms on top. Whatever, I guess it works.

This floral stuff goes all around the outside of the door, and it was made by Pisano’s son. It’s really amazing. The little putti (decorative babies—no joke) are on both corners, and there are women on the bottom in relief holding up the foliage.

Ghiberti’s doors on the other side are the famed ones he competed against Brunelleschi for. The theme is the life of Christ.

In these two panels, Ghiberti shows the scenes from an angle, rather than straight on. It gives the panels a little more life and dimension. On the left is Christ chasing the people out of the temple, and then on the right is the calling of St. Peter.

This one is Christ entering Jerusalem. I just like the donkey. Heh…

There is, of course, a third set of doors. I didn’t take a picture of them, since the ones that are up are not the real thing! We got to see the actual panels in the Duomo Museum, but I’ll post them later on. They’re separated to be cleaned, but once the last three panels are finished, they’re going to reassemble the doors and put them… somewhere. Anyway, since it was a nice day, I finally got a decent shot of the outside of the Baptistry! I guess you can see the gold doors from here.

Then we went in the Duomo! It’s not as decorative as some of the cathedrals I’ve been in, but everything looks very crisp. And it’s enormous. (There’s Caitlin, my room mate, admiring the ribvaults.) The floor is a really elaborate pattern, and they actually took the marble from the façade of the old cathedral they tore down when they built the Duomo.

I have a lot of shots of the interior, but they are all pretty blurry. I mean, first of all, you really can’t capture the feeling of the inside of a cathedral like this with film. My wide-angle lens makes it pretty close to the real thing, but it’s still not IT. On a better day I’ll go in and get some pictures with more lighting. I did get a good one of the dome, though. It’s an elaborate Last Judgment scene (my favorite!). The damned are on the bottom of the dome being eaten by all sorts of cool demons, and the saved are higher up. There’s Jesus in the middle (with a big hole by his head, I have no idea why). And way at the top of the dome are some saints or angels or something (I wasn’t paying 100% attention), but they’re painted in perspective. It’s really cool—I don’t know if you can see it on this photo though.

We exited out the side of the building, and I took some pictures of the façade. The building is literally too big to photograph in one piece, though, so you’ll have to construct it in your mind. (Don’t worry—I’ll post the front at the end! I’m saving the best for last.)

The Duomo Museum is behind the cathedral next to a bunch of really touristy shops. I had no idea what I was about to see inside—two of the most famous pieces of art I remember studying in art history…! But let me first share this awesome Nanni di Banco sculpture of St. Luke. I decided that even though Donatello is amazing, Nanni di Banco is seriously undercelebrated. (Sorry about the weird cropping. I took it off-kilter and had to tilt the photo, and in doing so lopped off a third of the sculpture.)

This sculpture was made for the façade, which was to have all four evangelists. They moved them inside with most of the rest of the original works on the façade. Anyway, the people who commissioned the four evangelists got Donatello, Nanni di Banco and some other artist whose name I can’t recall at the moment to each do one, and the winner would get to do the fourth. Nobody won, since the patron got impatient and just hired somebody else to do the fourth. Nanni and Donatello enjoyed success after this project because of the advancements in sculpture they employed, but the other two artists never worked in Florence again. You can see a little better in Donatello’s what exactly it was that they were doing—by elongating the torso and neck, the sculpture looks perfectly in proportion from below (since these were going to be placed high above, people would naturally be looking up at them). The other two artists used conventional proportions, so their evangelists look squished. Here’s Donatello’s St. John. (He even covered the exaggerated neck with a long beard—always thinking!)

We went through a couple rooms looking at reliquaries and little altarpieces, then walked up a short flight of stairs only to encounter THIS unbelievably famous sculpture—one of Michelangelo’s last works that remains unfinished. It’s a deposition scene, but the top figure is actually a self-portrait. Nobody knows why, but Michelangelo smashed Jesus’s left leg and never completed the project. He probably wouldn’t be real excited about seeing it on prominent display—but I was!

Now, you won’t believe this, but up just another short flight of stairs I came face to face with THIS sculpture! It’s Donatello’s Mary Magdalene, made out of wood and terra cotta. I remember liking this one a lot because it’s so rough and uncharacteristic of the Renaissance. She’s so emaciated and wiry, and her hair suit is a matted tangle that looks like it’s almost part of her.

And Donatello does awesome feet.

There were more reliquaries in the room with the Mary Magdalene, which thoroughly creeped me out, since there were actual bits of bone and such on prominent display. One had a weird round satchel in the middle of an arrangement of fingers. (Not a sentence you ever expected to read, is it?) Creepy, to say the least. And in the next room over was THIS creepy Donatello sculpture that was originally on the Duomo’s campanile [bell tower]. It was removed and replaced with a replica. I took a picture because I think his expression is so striking!

And at the end, we finally got to see the separated panels of Ghiberti’s doors. These are all Old Testament scenes, but Ghiberti requested to get rid of the quatrefoils and have bigger panels for more detail. This first one is the last scene of Jacob’s story. Ghiberti seems almost more interested in the architecture than the people—it’s amazing what he does with perspective in relief.

This one is the Queen of Sheba meeting King Solomon (I think it’s King Solomon, right?). More architecture!

So afterwards, we walked around the other side of the Duomo, only to come across the façade at the magic hour, and I took a photo worthwhile! The façade is actually a 19th century construction, so there’s not much Renaissance going on, but there are certainly a lot of Gothic influences. In any regard, I think it’s fantastic. (Because the people of Florence couldn’t go on without knowing my opinion, obviously.)

II. Pisa Pisa!

Our trip to Pisa was really just an afternoon adventure, since it only takes an hour to get there by train. (And I seriously can’t get over how ridiculously amazing it is to say that.) Had we stayed there longer, I would have loved to walk the little streets and take photos, but as it was, I only got these two. Pisa is much more quaint than Florence.

On our short walk to the complex, we walked through a small piazza with a statue erected to one of the Medicis—they’re everywhere. (Check out the dolphin under his foot!)

Fortunately, this creepy melted baby fountain is unique.

And a few crooked streets later, the Pisa complex!

Oh and HERE is your precious leaning tower. I’ll have you know it’s much smaller than you'd expect it to be. And it cost 15 Euro to take the stairs to the top. Lame! But seriously, my favorite part about the campanile is that even when they were building it it started to tilt, so instead of starting over, they just built the top levels at an angle to make it appear straighter than it was. And then it tipped some more. (A Nelson "Ha ha" is appropriate, I think.)

And my friends! From left to right: Caitlin (mine), Melissa, Caitlin, Johannah, Hannah, Jen, Arielle. (Jen is the one I split the cab with on our way from the airport. She is exceedingly nice.)

Janet, our teacher, corralled us on the back steps to the cathedral and gave us some background information on the complex. But I couldn’t hear her, so I took pictures of tourists. This one was a chance capture—I wish my camera hadn’t focused on the doors, but it’s a really interesting frame-up.

These guys were the coolest dudes on the complex.

And there were some really awesome gargoyles on the corners of the catherdal!

And Janet also pointed out to us that the Pisans reused marble from Roman structures, so a lot of the pieces have inscriptions that they either made crooked or put in upside down. I told Neil I thought this was the laziest cathedral we’d seen so far. He said I probably couldn’t have done a better job. He’s probably right.

We went inside, and I immediately revoked my declaration of laziness—Pisa’s my favorite cathedral so far. It is the first one we’ve seen with a double aisle. Also, since it’s a Romanesque building, and not quite yet Gothic, the ceiling is flat like a Basilica, and not vaulted. All the coffers were done in gold leaf, so the place glowed.

And as always, here’s the dome! It was painted in the Baroque period, but the subject is the Ascension of Mary.

After the Cathedral, we went into the Basilica, which was an incredible auditory experience. We walked in and Janet started to lecture, but this man walked to the center of the room and asked for quiet. Then he sang one long tone, let it reverberate for a few seconds, and then layered it with other notes. The acoustics were so incredible that the first note he sang lasted throughout his chant, which was about a minute. It could have something to do with the immense unadorned dome.

And me getting all arty again…

After the Basilica we went to the cemetery just next to the complex. It was really beautiful and there was a lot of information—I was just so tired that I didn’t retain all that much of it. I do remember, though, that in World War Two, British or Americans accidentally bombed the cemetery, destroying a lot of the frescoes that hung on the walls (which is why there’s all that exposed brick). What remains of them is now housed in a separate room, but it would have looked really incredible in its original location. You Those are all graves on the floor that were shared by different religious sects. Once someone decayed enough, they would just bury another person on top of them!

In the middle was an open plot of earth that was supposedly all brought back from the holy land. This way, people could rest assured that they would be buried on holy ground.

There were these really intricate Gothic windows along the corridors of the cemetery… so I took a picture…!

Upon leaving, we caught the magic hour yet AGAIN, so I have another fabulous shot of a façade.

We were supposed to go right back to the train, but most of us decided to hang around for a bit. We got gelato at a little stand (that was way overpriced), and then ambled back through the streets, but not before taking some ridiculous pictures with the leaning tower. It’s been my idea for SO LONG to take pictures of people holding up the tower out of context, and finally it is a reality!

Will:

Caitlin (not my room mate):

And here’s a bigger group of us looking somewhat confused. From left to right: Anne, Will, Kelli, Carmen, Johannah, Arielle, Amanda, Tessa, Brittany, Jen.