One Realization That Leads to Another

Today is the Feast of Epiphany, according to Western Christians. According to Wikipedia, the feast day commemorates not only the arrival of the Magi in Bethlehem, but the “revelation of God the Son as a human being in Jesus Christ.” I’ll buy the Magi’s arrival; it’s the manifestation of God part that stretches the date’s credibility. Not that there is anything wrong with it. It just isn’t for me.

The same Wikipedia page has a link to the page for “Epiphany (feeling).” Which credits James Joyce for possibly coining the usage of epiphany to mean “an experience of sudden and striking realization.” His stories in The Dubliners all involve characters coming to some realization that alters their view of themselves or the world around them. It is conceivable that large doses of beer and whiskey may have had something to do with those “striking realizations.” Interestingly, for me, anyway, the author of this particular page also equates William Burroughs’ Naked Lunch as a terminology of epiphany, as well. How do Christians feel about having a word so closely associated with the first big feast day of the year secularly implying “drug-influenced state(s)” and beer-soaked revelations? Then again, the Magi brought gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Frankincense and myrrh are both popular for use in incense, and we know who burns most of the incense, don’t we? Let’s just say many of us stop “burning incense” when we get out of college.

Perhaps, in a related vein, back in 1974, Tom Scholz was burning incense when he had an epiphany in his basement in 1974, and the song “More Than a Feeling” manifested itself in his mind. Boston, my favorite band EVER, released the song on their 1976 debut. I am certainly not trying to equate Tom Scholz with the Son of God. Nor am I implying that “More Than a Feeling” is a song of anything more than mild musical significance. It just happens to be where my mind took me on this particular intellectual exercise.

Maybe more significantly, today is also the birthday of Jeanne d’Arc, according to some sources. Being an inveterate skeptic, I suspect that her birthday is more than likely not on January 6. It just seems too coincidental that the day that the (arguably) second most famous Christian martyr (sorry John, the Baptist) was born on the same day as the manifestation of the first most famous martyr as a human being. Then again, if one negates the manifestation of the Son of God thing (see paragraph one), Joanie’s birthday is a bit easier to swallow. At any rate, Joan was a fascinating young woman--most likely delusional, but fascinating nonetheless. And without her inspiring and tragic tale, we would not have one of the most beautiful silent films ever (The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)) nor one of the best-known Smiths songs (“Big Mouth Strikes Again”). Granted one might argue that the Smiths couldn’t have written that song without the invention of the Walkman, either. You might also argue that they might have written the song even without the allusion to Joan (or a Walkman), but that just wouldn’t be the same song, would it. At any rate, wouldn't it be sad if the Smiths were most well-known simply for "Girlfriend in a Coma." Seriously.

Most unfortunately, however, today is the final day of Winter Break for kiddos in this neck of the woods. Tomorrow, we will be back to shaping young minds. And I hope to find more time to keep up with this blog, albeit with a new focus. Instead of Central Standard's traditional, unfocused, hard to maintain ramble from random thought to random thought, I hope to focus on today's tone of edification and the loose division of fact and opinion to create a regular discussion of topical current and historical events.  If anyone has any ideas for topics, leave a shout in the comments.

Thanks for stopping by!

A Rose by Any Other Name

"Chiara," according to everyone's favorite fact checking site, Wikipedia, is an Italian word meaning "clear."  There are several people with this word as a first or last name, and "Chiara" even forms a morpheme of the Italian surname Chiaramonte, a noble Sicilian family who claim descent from Charlemagne.

I tell you all this because a pair of encounters with said word in this morning's Lincoln Journal Star sent me a-searching for some information on this word.  The two usages, both as proper nouns, referred to apparently different things, and, I was certain, different ideas, and, being the curious life-long learner that I am (and having the power of the Interwebs at my fingertips), I did a little researching.

First, my initial encounters.  Ironically, perhaps, both of my encounters with the word occurred in the "fluff" section of the paper, "The (402)."  I believe I have mentioned this section before, so I will spare you my rail on that particular section's ridiculous name.  However, in the "At a Glance" feature, on page F2, where some events are listed and written about briefly, a headline reads: "Walk to conquer Chiara is at Holmes Lake Park."  The article explains that a fundraiser walk will be held "in an effort to bring awareness and funds to Chiara malformation."

The article further states that Chiara is "a neurological condition in which the brain descends out of the  skull and puts pressure on the spine." Really?  That actually happens to people? Their brains fall out of their skulls.  Why?  How?  It sounds like an awful condition.  Of course, it is, I thought to myself. Why else would they need to raise funds or awareness? Nobody would be interested in a Stubbed Toe 5K, would they?  Who would pay $25 to race in a Pretty Bad Stomach Flu Fun Run?  We only tie up our Mizunos for big causes, like cancer, muscular dystrophy, or chiara, to name just a few.

As I turned the page, I found on F4 a review of a recent chamber music performance: "Chiara members open Sheldon Friends season."  I have heard of this Chiara Quartet, two men and two women, who are well-known in the chamber music circles.  They have made many appearances here in the Lincoln area, always to great acclaim.  But this review, published so close to and on the same day as the fundraiser walk, stoked my inquisitiveness.  I needed to make sure that these chamber players weren't being highly insensitive, naming themselves after a neurological condition suffered by "about 300,000 people in the United States."

And, so, I was led to the Wikipedia, where I find listings for celebrities named Chiara, saints and singers, physicists and attorneys. I find the names of churches and a "religious complex" (don't you mean a "church?").  And, I find links to the aforementioned "Chiaramonte" and a pair of words that are homophones of "chiara," itself.  What I don't find is any mention of any neurological condition.  I had to search the Google a bit more to find any discussion of dropped brain syndrome (an alternate, totally rad, name I have given to the condition, myself), but I did find some information about the condition that affects more people in the US than live in Barbados.

(Interestingly, the website Researching Virtual Initiatives in Education, on their page "All Countries by Population," divides countries using "'scientific' nomenclature." For instance, a country with at least 1000 million people is a "kilostate;" a country with at least 0.3 million but less than 1 million is a "tridecistate" (also known as a minicountry); a country with less than 0.01 million people, a picocountry, is a "millistate." There are also "centistates" and "hectostates," orthocountries, nanocountries, and gigacountries.  Another bit of information learned on this random research project.)

But, back to "chiara."  I learned a lot in the several minutes I spent researching this little mystery, but I was left with a few questions. First, I wondered where the quartet came upon their name?  Is it a tribute to a person, or a place (most likely a church)?  I also wondered if they were even aware of their close association with a leaking skull?  But, more importantly, I wondered how, if the Chiara fundraising initiative was sophisticated enough to organize multiple events such as this weekend's 5K walk, they were unable to draft as valuable a PR tool as a Wikipedia page? Because, when you think about it, not everybody is going to be as dogged a researcher as I have been today.  If people don't get their wiki-fix on the first search, right at the top, they'll go right back to looking for topless pictures of Ryan (Hey, girl) Gosling.  And, if you're trying to drum up support for a disease or a condition, you have to do one of two things: make sure a lot of people suffer from it (i.e., cancer) or that a lot of people know about it (i.e., muscular dystrophy).

Finally, if I were in a string quartet, and I found out it was named after a neurological condition that can lead to deafness, dizziness, double vision, eye pain, headaches, and spasticity (I did not make this word up), I might just change my name to Cancer.

   

Tidbits

I've little to say except to divest myself of two bits that struck me as funny/curious yesterday.

First, while out running a few errands, I found myself at a light behind a Chrysler 300. A nice car, I guess. It looks luxury model-y. The curious thing, to me, was that the car had a license plate border that read "BMW of Lincoln." Really? That doesn't jibe, does it? I mean, if you are going to sport a "BMW of Lincoln" border on your plates, shouldn't you be driving something other than a Chrysler? You know, like, what, a BMW or something? I decided to take a cue from the dude in this vehicle and went right out and put a "Lamborghini of Ceresco" border on my Honda!

In the same span of ten minutes, I was listening to the sports radio talk shows. The comedian/actor/whatever Jay Mohr was sitting in for professional grumbler Jim Rome. In one of his rambly bits, Mohr was discussing the late M Jackson's memorial service. He pondered (I paraphrase): "Why did the casket look like a chafing dish?" I found this amusing and somewhat true. Did you see this monstrosity of gold and general opulence? Honestly, Jacko's casket outdid the sepulchre of many a Renaissance pope. And those dude's knew how to spend some church money on ornament. A chafing dish! And, a very expensive, ornate, gaudy chafing dish, at that. You are NOT going to keep a trough of instant potatoes warm in that chafing dish, let me tell you.

Vatican City and The Tour de Churches (A Very Long Italian Story, Part the Last)

First, my apologies for the abrupt hiatus that this long story took on Thursday last, but an impromptu trip west took us away from our computer for a few days. Now, we are back, prepared to finish this tale, update all on the goings on since our return (pasta making!) and to tell the tale of our recent westering.

Second, I am surprised that no one called me on the fact that I referred to the Pantheon as the Parthenon in my last post. Boo to all of us. The Parthenon is in Greece.

Our last installment will cover the last two days of our Italian tour, a visit to Vatican City on Monday, and a whirlwind of churches on Tuesday. The departure on Wednesday was a bit of an adventure, also; maybe we'll make that an Epilogue.

The Vatican tour began, as all our Roman days did, at the bakery, sipping espresso and eating pastries (why would we want to leave?). From there, we hopped on the Metro and were quickly deposited on the other side of the Tiber, just a short walk from Vatican City.

St. Peter's Basilica and the Vatican Museum were our main objectives on this day. We crossed the long sun-drenched piazza outside the Basilica and entered the dark church. It was big and ornate, as you might expect. Turning each corner seemed to reveal a pope interred in a glass sarcophagus, and most walls held beautiful replicas of Renaissance paintings done in mosaic. You could hardly tell they were mosaics, they were so exquisitely done.

Of course, the biggest draw, for me, was Michelangelo's Pieta, which occupies a small chapel near the Holy Door (which is only opened during Jubilee years (four times each century). As I stood there, gazing through the glass partition at yet another Michelangelo masterpiece, a couple came up next to me, jostling through the crowd. The woman, shorter than the man, stood on tiptoes, but still could not see.

"What is it?" she asked the man.

"Eh, it's just a scuplture," he said, as they walked away.

Just a sculpture? Some people.

We proceeded down into the crypt of the Basilica, where the tombs of many ancient popes are located. It is interesting to see whose tomb is simple and whose is ornate (by order of their own "living will").

From the crypts, we headed a few blocks down the main drag to have some pizza, then walked back to the museum. We had about three hours to tour the museum, which contains so much art and so many artifacts that it takes several days to really see everything. We headed right for the Sistine Chapel. The chapel itself was beautiful, amazing, breathtaking. The experience of getting there and being there, which is similar (I imagine) to being herded like a steer through some passage ways and then corralled, was not so wonderful.

We then whizzed our way through some of the paintings (good stuff), before heading back home to get ready for dinner at a little place called Pasqualia's (I think). Dinner was okay, but the real treat of the evening was the after dinner walk we took through the heart of Rome, from Campo del Fiori to the Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps. It was such a different experience seeing these famous sights under the moon light.

The next day, after a final stop at the bakery, where Monkey felt like a regular when she exchanged some greetings with one of the counter girls, we made a tour of nine churches. From Santa Maria Maggiore, with its early Renaissance mosaics, to St. Peter in Chains, with its Moses by Michelangelo and its relics of St. Peter, we made our way. Next, we visited San Clemente, where underground excavations reveal the structure and artifacts of a thousand year-old place of worship (but, we got there too late to visit the archaeological area), then proceeded to San Giovanni in Laterno, the basilica of Rome.

San Giovanni seems to want to rival St. Peter's Basilica (the basilica of Vatican City), but, it just can't (and it shouldn't try). One of the oddest things I witnessed on the whole trip was a crowd of people standing near the altar, throwing coins at (what might have been) a tomb covered with Plexiglas. Never did figure out what that was all about.

The Pantheon was next, but only to have a slice of pizza on the steps, before we toured San Luigi dei Francesi. This church, built by French Catholics, contains a statue of Jean d'Arc, some intense baroque architecture, and three typically awe-inspiring Carravagio's depicting scenes from the life of St. Matthew. This might have been my favorite church of the day.

Church number seven was San Ignazio, a Jesuit church with some uninteresting trompe l'oeil frescoes on the ceiling, and a strange wooden model of a "world church" or some such fantastic toothpick idea. It's possible that our poor assessment of San Ignazio was due to the next church we visited, Chiesa del Gesu, whose baroque ceiling included a spectacular fresco of the Last Judgement that made it appear (in a very Michelangelo sort of way) as if people were actually falling from the ceiling.

Our last church was Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, the only Gothic church in Rome. Here, we viewed the remainder of the remains of St. Catherine of Siena (remember, her head and thumb are in San Dominico in Siena), as well as one last Michelangelo, a marble Jesus carrying the cross with bronze accents. A very realistic and human-looking Jesus, but then, what DO you expect from Michelangelo?

After our marathon of churches, we were ready for some fine fare, which we enjoyed at a little place near Santa Maria Maggiore. Our last meal in Rome was definitely our favorite. A fine way to finish up before a 3 am wake up call to catch a taxi to the airport to begin our long journey home.

Heads, Thumbs, and Wood-fired Pizza (A Very Long Italian Sory, Part Eleven)

Our next long drive took us northwest, to the Renaissance rival of Firenze, Siena. The drive, on a sort of state highway-type road, was a bit frustrating (as are many a drive on state highway-type roads), since the road was two lanes, and many large trucks were also heading toward Siena. We spent a lot of time behind trucks. Now, the traffic laws in Italy are more suggestions, I think, than actual "laws." And the ones that apply to passing on the highways and byways seem even less than suggestions. The typical Italian driver (it seems) does not know what tailgating is, or, if he or she does, he or she does not recognize it as a hazardous driving activity. In addition, the typical Italian driver (it seems) does not trouble himself or herself with waiting for a straight section of road with good visibility before passing. Their cars, after all, are relatively small, so, perhaps the drivers assume that they need little space in which to execute the passing maneuver. In all fairness, even the most harrowing example of disregard for the personal safety of self and others was executed successfully, but, this sort of positive reinforcement of negative behaviors must catch up with the typical Italian driver on occasion. Yet, we saw no evidence of this. I was able to distill my traffic observations into the overarching principle of Italian driving: when in doubt, speed up. This also led to a corollary: never brake. If you can remember these two rules of Italian driving, then you are well on your way to a successful Tuscan road trip!

Once we arrived in Siena, we discovered that this was no little Tuscan town. We had so much trouble figuring out where we were (not a very good map of Siena) and then finding a parking space, that we may as well have been in an international metropolis, like Rome or Paris. But, after (I kid you not) about an hour and a half of driving around the winding streets of Siena, with the occasional unanticipated 180 degree turn (which is not a U-turn, it's an intersection that sends your car not on a new track 90 degrees opposed to your previous track, but, somehow manages to spin your car in such a way that you begin travelling in the opposite direction from which you were just travelling (It's not magic, by the way, it's just a screwy street layout.)) we found a parking spot, that another random old woman (not the same one from Montalcino) assured us was legal.

There are a lot of old people in Italy. Not that there aren't any young people, but, it seemed like there were more older folk than one typically sees on an American street. I wonder two things about this: one, is it actually true, or was I simply somehow more attune to the "ancient" in a country that has been in the throes of some form of civilization for 2000 years (and left ample evidence of it behind); and, two, why might that be?

The former wonderment needs no discussion. It may be true, it may not. I don't see how it could be demonstrated one way or the other, so , let it be. The latter, however, is an interesting thing to ponder, maybe. Are there more old people in Italy, or are they more active, or more public? Or, do young people just age amazingly quickly in Italy, and the preponderance of the aged was merely a preponderance of thirty year-olds with graying hair, poor posture, and a penchant for brown suits and patterned mid-length dresses? Now that I have begun this discourse, I find that this is an unsolvable mystery, as well, so, let us move on.

Siena. A lovely town, really. We will spend some part of tomorrow here, as well. Our first stop today was a church (go figure), San Domenico, which holds a few creepy relics of Saint Catherine of Siena (a local virgin who lured the pope to Rome (I am guessing not by using here feminine guile, but then, who knows...)). The town is big on Cathy, and her home is still standing and open for visits (however, nearly every square inch of it has been remodeled into a chapel (Here's the chapel where she received her stigmata! Here's the chapel where she cooked the polenta! Here's the chapel where she used the chamber pot!). San Domenico, which dates from the 13th century, is proud of its connection to Catherine. Here in this church, she made her vows of chastity (I think), and, while her body is interred in Rome (where we will catch up with her later), the Catholic church decided it would be only right for the church of Catherine's beginnings as a saint to have her head and her thumb, which are proudly on display in her chapel (along with the scourge that she used to use to purify herself each day--you think it's easy being a saint?). It's reassuring, I must imagine, to the devotees of Catherine to see her, eight hundred years after removing the "mortal coil," to be grinning at them and giving them a detached thumbs up (And we thought "Buddy Christ" was just irreverent comedy? Truth = stranger than Kevin Smith).

Moving on, there is also the Piazza del Campo, a massive and beautiful, semi-circular town plaza, with the Fonte Gaia as its shining white centerpiece, and the Duomo of Siena. Apparently the medieval and Renaissance competition between Siena and Firenze was fierce, and, more than once, the rivalry descended into a shooting war. That spirit of rivalry is clear in the edifices of the respective towns. The piazzas, the Duomos, within them one can see how each city tried to outdo the other. In the long run, posterity recognizes Firenze as the center of the Renaissance world in Italy, and, with the Uffizi, the Bargello, and the Accademia, Firenze has many of the greatest hits of the 1300s-1600s within their ancient walls, but Siena is a hell of a town. You take away Firenze's museums, and I think Siena is the better of the two. It's larger, it's somewhat prettier...I think I liked it a bit better than Firenze (just on a town-wise basis). Anyway, Siena was cool.

We had to get going after a while, because we were meeting some folks outside another little town about a half an hour north of Siena. Monkey's yoga teachers from Columbia were finishing a week-long retreat in Tuscany, and they had invited us to dinner, wood-fired pizza. So, we left our hard-won parking space, and headed still more north to Monterigionni, a tiny walled town. A few hundred yards north of there, we turned off onto a gravel road and proceeded to the farmhouse where the festivities were to be held. The matron of the farmhouse was not aware that we were coming, but, as she ushered us into the porch yard, she summed up the quintessential Italian attitude (if you ask me), "Whatever."

It was a great pleasure to see some acquaintances in our travels, and even more enjoyable that they were folks that we don't see very often. The pizza was fabulous (especially the rosemary and olive oil), the wine flowed, and, as the sun set low on the horizon, we sadly made our goodbyes, and headed safely to our distant home away from home.

This Way to the Best Meal Ever (A Very Long Italian Story, Part Ten)

I remember that the day I am about to write about is a Tuesday, so, if my calculations are correct, we still have over a week to go. As we are now relaying part ten, two things have already or are about to occur. The first, that this is the longest "Very Long" story I have told (there have been two others), and, after this installment, I can no longer count the number of the part in Italian (eleven is tricky, for me).

On this fine Tuesday, we headed north, first to a nearby former abbey, known as Sant'Anna in Camprena. Only a few kilometers from our vacation house, this abbey was a location for the film The English Patient. This explains why there are pictures of Ralph Fiennes eating in the restaurant where we had dinner in Pienza. The main attraction of the 14th century abbey, however, which is currently very nice-looking B&B, is a small room off the courtyard that contains five-hundred-year-old frescoes by Il Sodoma. The grounds are attractive, as well, and the proprietors of the inn are kind enough to allow visitors to wander the grounds during posted hours.

From Sant'Anna, we drove further north, visiting the very small town of Castelmuzio and then proceeding through the area known as Le Crete to another abbey at Monte Oliveto Maggiore. The skies were a bit gray as we arrived at the abbey, but the rain had held off. Unfortunately, the abbey was on siesta until 3pm, so we headed further north to the town of Asciano.

The drive from Castelmuzio north to Asciano was excellent, the hills revealing spectacular vistas. The only disappointment was the lack of sunshine, which would have made for some beautiful pics. Asciano, itself, however, was not so excellent. We wandered around for a while to kill time, and grabbed some pizza and foccacia for lunch, but the town was, compared to other central Tuscany towns, not very attractive.

Back at the abbey, we entered the grounds over a drawbridge (no longer drawable, it appeared, but still pretty cool), and then had a nice tree-shaded walk to the abbey proper. Within the walls, a small chapel captured our interest, along with a double column of large ants making their way down the trunk of a tree, over about twenty feet of ground, and up the front wall of the chapel, where they disappeared over the edge and onto the roof. Ant prayer services?

The abbey itself was fantastic, its courtyard decorated with more Il Sodoma frescoes of the life of Saint Benedict. While we were there, something like a fire alarm was going off, but, the sexton seemed to be telling everyone that it was just a false alarm, and nobody else seemed too concerned, so, we just made our way through the courtyard. Inside the church, we were treated to another set of monks that were doing their prayers in the manner of Gregorian chant. That was unexpected, and, perhaps due to a different scent of incense, or the ostentatiously baroque architecture of the church, I had nowhere near the same sort of experience here as I had at Sant'Antimo.

We headed back to the pad to get ready for dinner at Poggio Antico, where we had made reservations a few days before. As we sat down to eat, the skies opened up. We sat near a window, watching the rain come down, robbed of the evening view that, according to the maitre d' stretched, on clear days, to the sea. At the restaurant, we noticed that the whole evening, no one else entered the restaurant. We were the only diners. This night, Italy was playing someone for the chance to get to the quarterfinals of the European Cup. Our waiter claimed that that was keeping people home. After further experiences with soccer in Italy, I came to believe him.

At any rate, we enjoyed the attention of the entire restaurant, as we enjoyed what turned out to be, perhaps, the best meal we had ever had. We started off with an excellent Rosso di Montalcino (2006), and were treated to some excellent homemade breads. I greatly enjoyed my primi, a tagliatelle with vegetables, but the high point of the meal, for me, was a dish called peposo, a heavily peppered stew, really, served, in a more modern twist, over pureed potatoes and cream. It was spectacular. Monkey had some excellent dishes, too, a three meat ravioli in brasata and gnochetti with lamb.

The attentions of the wait staff were a nice treat, too, and the maitre d' was such a personable fellow. We spent a good portion of the evening joking and talking with him (mostly in English, of course). Monkey was especially excited, as we left that evening (after the rains, and two hours later), to meet the chef, who was sitting at the front of the restaurant, since, I guess, he only had the two of us to cook for, and we were done.

At the house, we turned on our tiny TV (the first time since we'd arrived in Italy) to see the outcome of the soccer match (il calcio, the Italians call it). Italy had won, and they were going to play in the quarterfinals. That would be Sunday night. We'd be in Rome by then. But first, we were off to Siena in the morning, and a rendezvous that evening with some old friends from CoMo, believe it or not.

The Marauding Pigeons of Firenze (A Very Long Italian Story, Part Four)

An overcast day in Firenze greeted us as we dined on cereal at the B&B. Our host, Bruno, offered us an umbrella, and we took him up on it. We had afternoon reservations for the Accademia Museum, so we decided to fill our morning with more reliquaries and, perhaps, some shopping.

Our first stop was the Chapel of the Medicis, near San Lorenzo. There was a small admission charge, as there seemed to be at every place we went in Firenze (except the Duomo). Inside, the first floor was non-descript, and hard to figure out, since they provide little in the way of interpretive signage or literature, either in English or Italian (or French or German, for that matter). We managed to figure out that we were in a large room that housed the tombs of at least two dozen lesser lights of the Medici clan. And, of course, around the room, in vitrines for display, the gleaming wealth housing the bones of the saints.

Speaking of saints, this trip, among many things, opened Monkey’s and my eyes up to the fact that we don’t know much about the saints of the Catholic church (nominally, our faith of heritage). Granted neither of us are practicing Catholics, and I, myself, am dedicatedly unreligious, maybe even unspiritual (I have been accused of being “dead inside”), but, in our youths, we got quite a bit of schooling and indoctrination in the faith. However, on this trip, it was clear to us that these Italian Catholics are major league players. By comparison, we were, even in our Communion-taking heyday, no better than a traveling squad of barnstormers, playing state fairs for half the gate (okay, maybe a bad sports analogy, but, this is my show).

Case in point: Saint Zenobius. Who? Exactly. But this guy was everywhere. Every church had a fresco, or a polyptych that either took a Zenobian miracle as its subject, or included the man in the line up of admirers of Madonna con Bambino. We had never heard of this guy. This seemed like a huge gap in our knowledge. After all, if the guy cured the blind and raised the dead, and, as we learned, always won the bike in the conversion drive at his grade school, why hadn’t we heard of him? Especially since Italy seemed to be crawling with propaganda celebrating his triumphs. Well, here’s why: it turns out, he is a native of Firenze (born and raised in the 3rd century or so). He’s the patron saint of the town. Another bad sports analogy? St. Zenobius is to Firenze as Cal Ripken is to Baltimore. So, while he IS the Mack Daddy of Firenze, outside of town, he’s just a minor saint. He looks good in a miter, though.

Now, as I said earlier, the Medici Chapel is pretty plain on the first floor. I was surprised by this. We’re talking about one of Firenze’s greatest families, the clan responsible for some of the best (and worst) moments in medieval Italian history, some seriously wealthy folk. What was up with this cement and brick snooze-fest of a chapel? The answer, my friends, was just up that little stairway to the back of the building. Shall we?

At the top of the stairs, Monkey and I walked into a chapel of grand magnificence (you know, not just regular magnificence). Walls, ceilings, floors were all gleaming black marble with colorful inlaid designs and crests and such. The chapel held six tombs of the big name Medicis, and each tomb was more ornate than the last, and, atop each, a larger-than-life marble statue of the deceased. Ostentatious, as well as impressive. Behind the altar, in the sacristy, were a few displays of priestly garb and equipage, as well as a few dozen more reliquaries. But, in another chapel, just down the hall, there was more to see.

Another small chapel, this one in white marble, held the tombs of Lorenzo Medici and his brother Giuliano, each topped with a pair of statues sculpted specifically for the purpose by Michelangelo himself. In all, the four statues represented Dawn, Day, Twilight, and Evening. And with that, this was clearly the Medici-style chapel I expected to see.

Leaving the chapel, we wandered to the steps of the nearby San Lorenzo church, where we planned our lunch strategy: after wandering through the open air market in the piazza, we would peruse the nearby central market and buy some bread and cheese and fruit, and have a little picnic on the steps of the church. This was a great plan that started off without a hitch, as we bought some cherries and some cheese and a loaf of bread, but, as we sat down to eat, we were immediately surrounded by every pigeon in Tuscany. We packed up our stuff in a rush and moved down to a different location, across the street and down a little way from the piazza, but, after only a few moments, the flying rats found us, again. We grabbed our stuff and headed to the museum, not knowing where or how we would eat. (By the way, I don't know why this photo is oriented this way, I've rotated it on my hard drive, but it keeps popping up here in an un-rotated fashion. Any suggestions as to why, technophiles?)

After nibbling on a bit of bread and cheese while standing outside the museum, I decided to walk the remainders of our meal back to the B&B, where it could wait for us when we returned. I didn’t want to have to schlep our groceries through the museum. So, a quick-footed 25 minute round trip brought me back to the Accademia, where we prepared to be awed by the large hands of David.