An Exciting Week!

Hello, all!

So this was quite a week!  Monday was a relatively normal day up until dinner, which was in our Program Director's apartment!  Professor Doll (the Program Director) made us a delicious "red soup" (i.e. all the ingredients were red, like red onion, red pepper, etc.) and his wife, Sharona (no singing, please), made us a Middle Eastern salad.  Dinner was not only delicious, but very fun.  We all talked and played with the three Doll children (they got very into a game of tag where one of the program girls was always "it"), and just generally got to know each other and our professors better.

So after that, we had a relatively normal Tuesday, until we were informed at lunch that that night at dinner we were invited to wear masks and join in on a karaoke night to celebrate Mardi Gras!  That afternoon, we all prepared masks to wear that night, and especially considering that there were really not many art materials, we created some really impressive works of art!  But that might just have been the result of about least 16 art majors...  :)

When we got to the restaurant, our Italian host Mauro was thrilled with our masks, and even more thrilled when he managed to convince a number of us to sing English karaoke!  At the end of the night, he even facilitated a mini dance party and some of his Italian customers joined in!  Our art history professor said the next day that he was really happy with that night; I believe he called it "truly wholesome fun."

Wednesday was the only really normal day all week, because we actually didn't have classes Thursday because we went to Arezzo and Siena.  We went walking everywhere, and we definitely felt it by the end of the day!  At Arezzo we saw Piero della Francesca's Legend of the Holy Cross, which was a fantastic, beautiful, complicated fresco depicting the Catholic legend about the cross on which Jesus was crucified.  It is beautifully painted, and completely original in its use of the space.

We then booked it in our vans to Siena and traipsed up a huge hill to Il Campo, the piazza in front of the Sienese town hall, which is an absolutely gorgeous building.  While there we saw the chamber where the Council of Nine would meet about town matters, and frescoed there is an Allegory of Good and Bad Government.  It's not a particularly beautifully painted fresco, but it's very interesting in composition and in its statement about government.  From there we went to see the outside of the Siena Duomo (it's a little expensive to enter as a tourist).  This is one of the most beautiful buildings I've yet seen here in Italy.  The façade of the building is fantastic and gorgeous and complex in both its construction and in its theological statements.

After that we headed to an Olivetan Benedictine monastery to see Sodoma and Signorelli's Scenes from the Life of Saint Benedict.  The monastery was absolutely beautiful, set up in the hills outside of Siena and with the most gorgeous view ever.  It's all hills and trees and rivers and exposed clay hills and valleys...  Truly a gorgeous sight. The actual monastery itself was beautiful; the church was beautiful and the frescoes truly masterpieces, and the monastery itself is architecturally beautiful.  Once we had completely exhausted the Scenes from the Life of Saint Benedict, we headed back up toward our vans, admiring the beautiful view the whole time.

The drive down to the autostrada (highway) was amazing.  We managed to leave the monastery not too long before sunset, and the view from the ridge of a string of hills just past the monastery overlooking vineyards and olive orchards (and even a castle!) was stunning.

Friday was our excursion to Florence (Firenze in Italiano).  We woke up pretty early in order to leave our monastero by 7:15am, and get to our train by 7:45.  However, we'd accidentally been given tickets for the train at 8:05am, so we had to wait a while longer than we anticipated.  It took over 2 hours for us to get to Florence, and then it was a mad dash to another monastery.  This monastery, however, has been converted into a museum, the Museo San Marco.  The Museo San Marco holds one of the largest collections of works by the early Renaissance painter Fra Angelico (the Angelic Brother, a friar who was supposed to be so spiritual that his paintings were themselves infused with some of his spirituality).  These frescoes don't have the more technical aspects of some of the later Renaissance painters (like anatomically correct bodies and perfect perspective), but they are theologically interesting (for example, a painting in a monk's cell that visually describes the ways in which Jesus was abused just before his crucifixion) and even moving.  His painting of Christ's crucifixion in the Chapter House of the monastery is interesting, as he gives the saints faces particular attention, and they are quite beautiful and convey quite a bit of emotion.

From the Museo San Marco, we walked down the street to the Palazzo di Medici, or the Medici palace.  Many of you may have heard of the Medici family, as they were a very prominent, very wealthy Florentine family during the Renaissance, and very powerful as well.  In their family chapel is a gorgeous fresco depicting the Journey of the Magi to the birth of Christ (which is over the altar), and is quite a work!  Almost every inch of the fresco is covered in animals, complicated landscape, and a mass of people processing with the three kings, some of which bear strikingly suspicious resemblances to various important Florentine citizens of the day.

After breaking for lunch in front of the gargantuan and beautifully ornate Florentine Duomo (check out the picture!), we headed to yet another monastery (you people getting how important all this Catholic stuff is? ;) )to view another frescoed Chapel, the Brancacci Chapel with its frescoed Life of Saint Peter.  While this fresco cycle doesn't flow chronologically, the painter was really emphasizing different parts of Peter's life and making a significant and well-thought-out theological comment.

After that, we headed to the Chiesa Santa Trinita' (Church of the Holy Trinity), to look at the Sasseti family chapel.  Below scenes from the life of Saint Francis is a gorgeous Nativity with the Sasseti's frescoed on either side worshipping the baby Jesus.  In fact, Mr and Mrs Sasseti are buried there in the chapel on either side.

Completely exhausted, we headed back to the train station for our 2 hour 45 minute train ride back to Orvieto.

So you can, I hope, understand how hectic this week was!  :)  And perhaps you'll forgive me for being a tad delinquent about posting an update for all of you...

Ciao! E buon pomeriggio!

Pictures!

So I promised all of you pictures and then reneged at the end of my post!!!  Sorry about that, but the Internet is pretty slow at the monastero, especially since all 24+ people are on at once!

So anyway, I'm at a local café on their free Internet, so here they all are!

Update!

So!  I apologize for not having posted in a while, but I'm just getting oriented her in Orvieto, and now I have several sagas to relay, so hopefully you'll find this more interesting than the average post! :)

Tuesday was a "orienting yourselves to Orvieto" day and we did a tour of the town with the program director showing us all sorts of cool and useful places in town (including the shop where we get styrofoam boxes for shipping wine, so Dad and Auntie Deb, there are bottles coming your way! :) ).

Wednesday was an excursion to the public library in town which houses (according to the locals) one of only two sonically perfect spaces in the country (and, according to the locals, perhaps the world!).  Professor Doll (the program director) had us watch an Italian film made just after World War II and the fall of fascism in Italy.  It was entitled (in English) Bicycle Thieves, and was a very interesting, if depressing, movie.  The director wanted to show what life was like at that time, free of of any softening.  Interestingly enough, the director (as part of this honest effort) hired only non-professional actors.  I recommend this movie if you're looking for an interesting movie to wrestle with, but it's definitely not an easy, fun watch...

Thursday was the dinners at the houses of various Orvietani (the residents of Orvieto) who are all friends of the program.  I and four of my fellow students went to the home of Luca and Elisa (Elisa is the sister of our Italian instructor/cultural guide, Alessandro).  They have three children; Chiara (Clare in English), aged 6, Francesco, aged 3, and Maria, approximately 1 year old.  We arrived at 8pm for dinner (as per usual; they eat dinner late here), and were greeted at the door by all three children and Elisa.  Once we came in and took off our coats, we were immediately grabbed by the children, who gabbed at us in Italian the whole night.  Chiara and Francesco wanted us to play with them, so we hit a balloon back and forth for quite a while before we sat down to a delicious dinner.  The first course was a lasagna (pasta al forno here; order lasagna and they'll give you just the pasta!) and the second was a salad and a chicken and peas dish.  Everything was delicious!  We managed to create an Italian--English--Spanish mixed language that served as the mode of communication for the evening.  Seeing as we've only had one lesson in Italian, we did pretty well!  We did our best to communicate, and since the food was great, we had quite the nice evening!

Fridays we don't have classes, so yesterday we headed out on a hike to the other side of the valley across the other side of town.  Orvieto is a city built into and on top of a cliff, so we had to go down the cliff (they have escalators going up and stairs going down), cross the valley, and head up the hill on the other side to a Capuchin monastery most of the way up the hill.  It was quite a hike up the hill (I use hill since it's not technically a mountain, but most of my fellow Illinois residents would probably call it a mountain), and required several stops, but once we made it even just part of the way up, the view was gorgeous!  Since I forgot to pack my camera in my backpack I packed for the hike, there are no pictures of that (sorry!!!) but since I fully intend on making that trip again, I think I can say in all honesty, pictures of that to come!

Once we made it up the hill, we headed into the monastery.  I don't think I can really put into words the calm that just swept over all of us just in passing through the threshold of the monastery.  No, it wasn't because we were there and there were no more steep inclines; we had to climb up further to get to the actual buildings.  It was just truly peaceful there.  Interestingly enough, just 50 years ago, this monastery had been uninhabited and in ruins, and the site of lots of witchcraft and kids escaping to do stuff they wouldn't get away with anywhere else.  It was after WWII that an ex-general from the Italian army who'd had a powerful conversion experience and become a Capuchin monk decided to ask the Vatican for permission to rebuild the monastery and exorcise the demons from the area.  He rebuilt the monastery (which is still inhabited by a small number of monks), and is actually a local hero.  The monastery was gorgeous with its view overlooking the entire plateau on which Orvieto sits, and its olive trees, magnolia trees, and simple, beautiful buildings.  I really can't express the peacefulness of that place.  It was a pleasure to be there and just sit and admire God's creation.

After that, we made our way slowly back to Orvieto and the monastero San Paolo and collapsed completely exhausted on our own beds!  We didn't even do anything else all day until we had our scheduled dinner at the Locanda del Lupo!

Some of us went to a candlelight demonstration in the town; the local bishop (for rather convoluted reasons that really only make sense if you're here and are introduced to the culture) is being dismissed for mostly political reasons, and the Orvietani wanted to show their support for the bishop despite what is considered a for sure decision from the Vatican that will be announced tomorrow (Sunday).  The bishop is a dearly loved figure here; he really has made an effort to become part of the lives of the Orvietani, and they really love him for that.  He has actually been a good friend of the Gordon-in-Orvieto program, as well, and we here at the program will feel his loss as well!  So, needless to say, it was a rather emotionally charged atmosphere.  But it was well received by the bishop, and I think the people appreciated the opportunity to show their support for the man who has reinvigorated the spiritual life of the Catholic Church here in Orvieto.

Today was our excursion to Assisi, mostly known nowadays for being the home of St. Francis.  We started at San Damiano, the site of Francis' calling from God to "rebuild His church."  It was a beautiful site, surrounded by olive groves.  Assisi is on the side of a mountain and overlooks a rather sizable plain, and the view from San Damiano overlooked the whole thing.  It was absolutely amazing.

From there we headed past the church of Santa Chiara (St. Clare), another local saint and a contemporary of St. Francis.  I ate my lunch on the steps of what used to be a Roman temple to Minerva!  The clash of contemporary life in a hugely historical setting has fascinated me about this culture!  After lunch we headed into the Basilica of San Francesco (basically, the church created to honor and dedicated to St. Francis).  This is a huge church!  There are two levels to this church; the basilica/church at the top, and another church underneath.  It's still a functioning monastery, and is absolutely beautiful.

I have to go, as we're actually going to dinner early, but I will fill you in on any other important details later!

Buona sera!

P.S.  The photos were taking forever and a day to load, so I'm going to dinner and I'll do it tomorrow.  :) Sorry!

Buona sera! Ciao!

Questions

So a number of you commented on my post!  Thank you! :D  It was great to see!  But several of you had some questions for me, so today I'm just going to answer them, and wait to give you a real post later. :)

So!  There are 24 of us living here in the monastero, which, I believe, means we are full up this semester!  Actually, there are 22 girls and 2 guys...  So we're making an effort to be extra nice to the poor boys.  ;)

Someone asked how the restaurant we eat at (the "Locanda del Lupo") manages to feed us all.  The best answer?  I have no idea!  The chef is fantastic and works hard, and that's all I can figure out. :)  The food is amazing, however!  We usually have 2 courses per meal, but we eat much lighter here than is typical in the States.  Also, pranzo (or lunch) is the big meal of the day, not cena (dinner).

The only two courses of study currently being offered (it can change every semester depending on the students and available professors) are the English track (where we take courses on Dante, poetry, and medieval religious drama) and the Studio Art track (where they'll be offering classes on drawing, painting, and "text and image", the latter of which will be taught by the Wheaton professor Jeremy Botts).

We don't really need public transportation (though it is available) because everyone walks everywhere and there's really no need!  Everything is pretty well within walking distance.

Also, I hope to have more pictures of the town when I next post (and maybe one or two of the Duomo!).  I apologize for not having put up pictures sooner, but every time I walk out, I always forget to grab my camera!  And even when I do have it, I get so caught up in the gorgeous sights that I forget to pull it out! But I promise to make an effort to put up some pictures for you all!

Buona sera!