A Spiritual Experience and Flashbacks to Catholic School (A Very Long Italian Story, Part Eight)

After a breakfast whose best part was the pastoral view outside the window, we hopped in the Punto and headed generally west to Montalcino, a tiny town famous as the center of a small region of Sienna Province that produces Brunello, perhaps one of the finest wines of Italy. Unfortunately for us, as one of Italy’s finest wines, Brunello is also really expensive. Like, arm and leg expensive. So, needless to say, Monkey and I did not sample any Brunello on our trip. We did enjoy a bottle or two of Brunello’s much more affordable cousin, Rosso di Montalcino. It is also excellent, at a quarter the price.

Arriving in Montalcino, we parked the car in a pay-as-you-go lot outside of the central district and prepared to hike up the slope to the main piazza. As we got out of the car, an older woman came over and pointed to a small lot just below the sparsely populated lot we had just pulled into.

“No pay,” she said, as she gestured.

“No pay? No biglietti?” I asked, using my ultra-limited Italian language skills, yet looking to be sure.

“Si,” she replied, “tutto il giorno.”

“Grazie,” we replied and pulled the car down into the lower lot.

First, we sought out the Tourism Office, where we secured a map of the regions wineries. This map was especially helpful: it helped us locate the restaurant where we had one of the best meals we’ve ever had, and it explained some of the differences between the regions wines. For instance, one of the greatest differences between Brunello and Rosso di Montalcino is that Brunello is not sold until six years after the grapes are harvested. It ages for a lot longer and is made from a very tiny percentage of the variety. The Rosso, on the other hand, is sold about a year after harvest, having aged for six months in a barrel and six months in the bottle. The cheapest of the Montalcino wines, Montalcino alla Box, is boiled for an hour and aged for one week in a plastic barrel before being packaged and served in quart containers that look like soy milk containers. (Okay, that’s not true.)

Anyhoo, we walked around Montalcino for a little while, hitting the cathedral and the Fortezza, home of a winery (imagine that). It’s a beautiful little town, but we had some more driving to do, so, after a spell on a town bench, watching the crowds go by, and a gander at the view from the parapets of the Fortezza, we headed a bit further south to visit Abbe Sant’Antimo.

Sant’Antimo is a 12th century church that is home to a small order of monks who have refurbished and maintained the church and the grounds. One of the most wondrous things about the abbey is that the monks, in the ancient tradition, pray six times a day (Lodi, Terza Messa, Sesta, Nona, Vespro, and Compieta). Their prayers are done in the (also ancient) manner of Gregorian chanting. We were fortunate enough to have timed our visit with a session of chanting. As I have mentioned before, I am not a religious person at all, but the experience of the chanting was the closest to a spiritual experience I may have ever had.

Inside this dark, cool church (in the middle of a June day), the first sense that is affected after the sight adjustment, is the olfactory, as the heavy sense of clove-like incense warms your nose. As you sit and listen to the chanting, it is next to impossible not to fall into a sort of meditative state. It is soothing, and, like meditation, centering, in a way. I did not see the cleansing flames of the Almighty in my mind’s eye, nor was I visited by the spirit of Saint Joan, but, for a short time, I was granted a sense of peace that I treasured. The analytic side of me later (not much later—more like ten seconds after I opened my eyes) considered how understandable it was that this Catholicism was so powerful in the Dark Ages. A world that was nothing if not brutal could be made sense of and kept at bay by the ceremony and dogma. If I spent all day gathering slop in the 800s, I’d have rushed to church six times a day, too. And we haven’t even begun to discuss the eight-foot crucifix or other devotional art in that context.

But, I digress, perhaps.

Of course, as my reverie was happening, Monkey was watching a scene of ignorant tourism unfold right in front of us. Apparently, despite the best efforts of multiple multilingual signs asking that there be no photography or video during prayer, a couple in front of us was doing just that. A very tall monk rose from his seat in the choir, approached the couple, snapped his fingers loudly (I heard it, but I had my head down), and, as the couple looked at him, sternly waved his finger. The couple ceased recording. Monkey said she had flashbacks to Catholic school.

We really enjoyed this abbey. The building was ancient and unique, the grounds were beautiful, and the experience of the chanting was one of those “living museum” type of experiences that was also meaningful in a way that I never expected it to be. Perhaps, had my religious experiences as a youth been more filled with the type of mystery and mysticism that I experienced in this church, I might have a different view of religion and cosmology.

After leaving the abbey, we stopped by the winery/restaurant Poggio Antico, to make reservations for a few days hence. Then, we stopped back at the casa, since we had to drive right by, anyway, for a short pause before heading further west to Montepulciano, another hill town, in a different region known for its top of the line wine, Vino Nobile. This also we did not sample, but, we did have the affordable relation of Vino Nobile, Rosso di Montepulciano. The winner, in our book, the Rosso di Montalcino!

Montepulciano was a hard spot to get into. We had to drive past it twice before we figured out how to get where we wanted to go, but, we did. Montepulciano is a bit bigger than Montalcino, and they have a few more churches and other views and sights, but, overall, each town is beautiful in its own right. We picked up some things in Montepulciano (some pici and a boar sauce, and some fresh pecorino di Pienza) and headed back to our HQ to employ the amenity of the tiny kitchen.

Dinner was a success, and we completed the evening by finishing our bottle of wine on the veranda, watching the sun set over the swimming pool and the amber hillsides outside our door.

Goin' Up the Country (A Very Long Italian Story, Part Seven)

I'm goin' up the country, babe don't you want to go?

I'm goin' up the country, babe don't you want to go?

I'm goin' to some place where I've never been before.

--Canned Heat, "Goin' Up the Country"

Our jumping off day greeted us with showers. We had a light breakfast, settled our bill with Bruno (Ciao, Bruno!), and rolled our bags down to the river to rent our car for the journey south. We got a little wet, as we walked and navigated our way to the rental place, but, it was a minor inconvenience. The paper work for the rental was finished quickly, and in a flash our Fiat Punto was waiting for us outside.

Once we figured out how to get the car into reverse (a tricky little “lift up” trigger), we followed our directions out of Firenze. We only had to back track once. The streets there are crazy. they go in all kinds of directions, they change names in a heartbeat and without warning, and every round about and piazza can send you hurtling off in the exact opposite direction that you wish to go. But, we managed to get out of town and on to the autostrade, which is a lot like the New Jersey Turnpike (except that all the signs are in Italian (and metric)).

We had a really good map that we brought along and good directions from the vacation house in Pienza, so, after a few showers and a couple of hours, we were rolling up on our home base for the next week. The vacation house only took check-ins after 4pm, so, we had about three hours to kill. We explored the town of Pienza (which is about two kilometers from our HQ).

It is a quintessential Renaissance Italian town. This is most likely due to the fact that the town was planned out during the Renaissance by Pope Pius II, who had been born there when the town was known as Corsigliano, and he was known as Enea Silvio Piccolomini. It is clearly planned out, as the center

of town is the Piazza Borgia (the village square), around which sit the cathedral and the Palazzo Comunale (town hall). The main street stretches from each end of the piazza, the cathedral overlooks the slope of the hill on which the town is set and the valley below, and the palazzo's loggia squarely faces the cathedral. The positioning of the cathedral, however, is proving troublesome after five hundred years, as the effects of gravity are pulling the apse and the naves of the cathedral into the valley. The church is still a viable structure, but the cracks are clearly visible both inside and outside the cathedral, and the parola sulla via (word on the street) is that nothing seems to be arresting the inevitable downward movement of the building. In addition, the town also still has its older, back-when-we-used-to-be-just-plain-old-Corsigliano-home-of-Silvio-Piccolomini-not-Pienza-birthplace-of-the-pope church, Chiesa di San Francesco, which contains some 14th century frescos of the life of Saint Fancis, a wicked cool altar, and a chapel of Mary with some very interesting artwork.

After a few hours in town, we headed over to Casa Bertuzzi, but we arrived at 3:30. The office was locked, as the proprietors were enjoying siesta time, a common practice in Italy (we had to wait until 2:15 for the cathedral to reopen in Pienza). So, we napped in the car until 4, checked in, and settled ourselves at the casa before we headed back to Pienza for dinner at Latte di Luna.

This small town restaurant was a great place to eat. The prices were considerably cheaper than in Firenze, and the food was as good (or better) than any place we had dined thus far. We enjoyed the traditional Tuscan pasta, pici, with two different ragus. Excellent. Monkey had started with a bean and bread soup, and I enjoyed some sausage with a really tasty plate of white beans in oil. Everything was wonderful. Again, we stopped for gelatto, at a little store at the entrance to the central district, where we also lunched on foccacia that day. It was acceptable gelatto.

A long day of travelling left us with a head of steam for a good sleep. Tomorrow, we planned to head west, then east, to the wine making centers of Montalcino and Montepulciano.

Little David, Big Gardens (A Very Long Italian Story, Part Six)

We started our final day in Firenze at the Bargello, another museum of note. Housed in another old palace, this museum is home to sculptures, sculptures, and more sculptures. Perhaps the most important piece at the Bargello is Donatello’s David. Different in every way to Michelangelo’s, Donatello’s sculpture is bronze, about five feet high, and portrays David as a more traditional, slight, boy. The smaller David still has an air of confidence about him, but the earlier Donatello possesses little of the majestic awe that Michelangelo’s seventeen-foot masterpiece does.

Another difference between the big David and the little David: the little David was being restored while we were there, so all we got to see was the statue, face down on a bench, behind a fence that protected that separated the restoration from the general museum-going population. Of course, they were making a big deal about the restoration, with video displays, and pamphlets, and a museum worker answering questions behind the fence, and, it was unusual to actually see them doing the restoration (which consisted, as far as we could see on that particular day, of dripping some weak acid on a tiny portion of the bronze and then rubbing it with a Dremel (yes, Anon AMVB, a Dremel)) right there on the museum floor, but, I really would have liked to seen the thing upright and on display…oh well, I guess we’ll just have to go back.

Our exit from the Bargello was delayed by a short downpour, which we watched from the balcony that overlooked the courtyard, but after that was over, we headed out in search of a suitable lunch facility.

We snagged a couple of foccacia sandwiches at a nearby bar, and then decided to head up to Santa Croce, former home to Fra Angelico and Savanorola. The monastery is loaded with Angelico frescoes that are, so we heard, remarkable. However, Santa Croce closes at 2pm. We got there at 2:20. So, not frescoes for us. We wandered around some parts of town where we hadn’t been, and stumbled on a neat little piazza around the art school, then, we decided to head to Boboli Gardens. It was a pretty day, no rain, and we felt like some outdoor activity would be a nice change of pace to our museum overload of the last few days.

The gardens are huge. We covered about a quarter of them in three hours. We also got to check out the porcelain museum (it’s everything you might expect). My favorite part of the gardens was the Isolotta, a large water feature, with sculptures and fountains. We spotted a grey heron (a European relative to the great blue hereon of North America) at the Isolotta, and a lady feeding the hundred cats that wander the gardens on our walk to the Isolotta.

It’s not much of a garden in the way of blooming flowers and such. I guess it’s more of a walking-around-‘cause-your-rich-and-you-got-nothing-to-do-all-day kind of garden (after all, this too was owned by the Medicis, and they were rich, and most of them had little to do all day, I imagine, except the ones that were popes and cardinals and governors and such, but that leaves a big Medici remainder, really). That said, it was one of the most enjoyable parts of our visit to Firenze, most likely because we were outside.

The only disappointment on this leg of our journey was our inability to find the silver museum, which, like the porcelain museum which held a mess o’ Medici porcelain, held a number of shiny Medici services. Monkey really wanted to see the silver museum; however, by the time we found it, it was closed. So, we hoofed it on back to the pad to shower up for dinner at a place we’d read about in the New York Times. I forget what it was called, but it was okay. After one last Florentine gelato, it was back to the B&B to ready ourselves for a big shift in our Italian extravaganza. Tomorrow morning, we were renting a car and driving the Italian countryside!

What Would Papa Think? (A Very Long Italian Story, Part Five)

With no prior experience as a European traveler, most of my notions of Europe, for better or worse, come from Ernest Hemingway. The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls—these were my blueprints for Europe. So, in some way, I imagine Firenze, prior to my arrival, as a place firmly stuck in an era of history that was, at least, eighty years ago. I also imagined myself strolling through it, a suave, hardened man of experience, ordering caffe and grappa from a corner bar, and reading the local leftist paper while I smoked away the morning. Other expatriated Americans would come and go, including Monkey, of course, as we whiled away the day until a late supper found us all gathered around a red-checked table in a tiny eatery, loudly debating local, national, and international politics, surrounded by bottles of wine and more grappa, tearing loaves of bread with our hands to sop up the greasy gravy of a local stew. And of course, the days would be brightly lit by a merciless sun, the evenings would seem eternally crepuscular, and the nights would be candlelit.

And, I guess, some of that came to pass. But first, we had a major museum to tour.

Let me pause here to apologize for the dearth of pictures that this entry will contain. Taking pictures in museums and churches, where we spent most of our time in Firenze, is generally frowned upon. Where it is not strictly vietato, use of a flash is clearly not acceptable. Thus, even were we able to take pictures, which we tried to do where we could, the increased exposure times made taking decent pictures difficult for two folks with limited camera skills (i.e., the Monkeys). So, until we get outside (tomorrow, really), the photojournalism is limited at best. Now, back to the show.

The Accademia is not a very big space. I believe it is part of an art institute in Firenze. It has two floors, the second of which is relatively tiny, and contains some really impressive fourteenth century triptychs and polyptichs and other devotional art in all its gilded two-dimensional glory. The first floor, while also not large, does have the irresistibly attractive centerpiece known as David.

Before one reaches David, however, a long hallway is home to other works of Michelangelo, namely, The Slaves, four unfinished pieces intended for the tomb of a megalomaniacal pope. The power of these pieces is undeniable, but, we found it interesting, in overhearing a tour guide discuss the emotional weight of these figures struggling to break out of the unfinished marble, that the interpretation of the pieces hinges on an accident. As far as Monkey and I can discern, the artist had every intention of finishing these figures. If that’s the case, can their unfinished nature be included as part of one’s interpretation of the pieces? It’s an interesting question to ponder, I think, and one that gets to the heart of meaning making and the role of the artist and the observer in that transaction. But enough about these little unfinished blocks of stone: look down the corridor there, and what do you see, looming three times larger than life itself? The anatomical perfection of David, contemplating his task and clearly certain of his victory.

Everyone has seen pictures of this immense (in size and significance) figure, but seeing it in person, as it fills the atrium of this small gallery, being able to circle it and look at it from many angles and in changing light, is an experience that really can not be described. You just have to see it, really. It’s a beautiful thing.

The remainder of the museum’s first floor is exciting enough, with some wonderfully large Renaissance canvases, but after the centerpiece, the rest is nearly just decoration.

After several hours in the Accademia, the pattern from yesterday was repeated, as we rested up for about an hour at the B&B, and then headed to a little place called Ichee ch’e ch’e (or something along those lines, spelling wise), which translates to “whatever is, is,” for dinner. Without reservations, we were seated in the center of the restaurant at a long “family style” table. Let me tell you something: in general, I hate eating “family style” (unless I am, indeed, with my own family, and, even then, I don’t always enjoy it so much, you know?). We were seated next to a couple, who were seated next to a single hippy. It turns out that the couple next to us were on their honeymoon from New York, and the hippy was a freshly minted high school grad from Cali. As we ate, another couple came in and sat next to us. We recognized them from breakfast. They were staying at the same B&B as we were. They were from Minnesota (via Omaha, believe it or not).

So, in true, Hemingwayesque fashion, we passed the eternal twilight around a red-checked table, a small tribe of very temporarily “expatriated” Americans, drinking wine, sopping up gravy and ragu, and debating, if not the future of the recently installed Italian government, at least the merits of nearby gellaterias.

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.