Siena: La Citta’ di Duccio / & / San Gimignamo: La citta’ di gelato

19mar08

Hi all!

Miraculously I have some free time this week between my Italian class (my old professor is back) and my Leonardo seminar.  Seems I have a LOT to do before the end othe semester which is not creeping up on me, but hurtling towards me like… I don’t know, something fast. It’s like that scene from Indiana Jones… the end of the semester and all this work hurtling towards me like that huge boulder. But there’s no trap door! I have to write all these papers and give all these presentations! Ahhh!

…. But since the boulder of work is a little ways off yet (these are the lame metaphors you get when you’re running on very little sleep), here is a very belated post about my weekend trips to Siena and Milan.  I have a lot more images up in my Google Photos thingy, so you should look there. These are literally the highlights because, I’m sorry to say, I don’t remember them super well and I want to get more down about Amsterdam and London sooner rather than later!  But first, Italia…

Siena

Siena is a really pretty, quiet, lovely little medieval city an hour or two from Florence. Vassar has a summer program there… So I got AJ to give me a tour since he spent last summer there!  Sadly his favorite gelaterie were closed BUT we did have some awesome pizza and even awesomer (?) RICIARELLI which are my faaavorite cookies of all tiiiime. They’re from Siena so of course the Sienese have the best ones!

A close up of the bell tower in Siena

DUCCIO’S MAESTAAAAA!!
I’m sorry it’s dark. I sort of took pictures surreptitiously because I wasn’t sure if it was allowed or not. AHH It was beautiful.

Other panels…

This is the view of the main piazza from the top of the museum where Duccio’s Maesta is. It’s a gorgeous view!  In the summer, all the townspeople gather in it and sit and spend their evenings chatting there. It’s a slanted piazza, so you can sit on it quite comfortably; there isn’t anything like it, really, in Florence. It’s also divided (don’t know if you can see it in the picture, maybe if you click and zoom in) into 9 (I think it’s 9) different “slices” that symbolize each of the nine different neighborhoods of Siena.  It’s also where the famous Palio takes place. The Palio of Siena is a Really BIG Deal, capital B-G-D, because all the neighborhoods compete in a 90-second horse race around the piazza.  Iti s cutthroat and people talk about it and prepare for it for the entire year. And once you choose a neighborhood to support you cannot switch or else they will probably kill you or at least beat you up if they hear you’re  switching sides. And the winning neighborhood gets bragging rights and general decrees of awesomeness for the entire rest of the year. (My dear Vassar kids who went to Siena, correct me if any of this is wrong!)  Here is a huge list of videos on Youtube of the 2007 Palio.  Here’s another fun fact: That Palio, the 2007 one, is going to be in the next James Bond film!! As are all my wonderful Vassar-Seina-friends!!!! More luckily, they actually were mere feet from Daniel Craig himself. How AWESOME is that!?! ..Aaand to conclude the Palio is clearly a very important cultural institution for Italy and the Sienese.

The Siena Duomo (Cathedral) is quite ornate…

As you can see!
Also, as AJ’s unofficial blog replacement writer, I feel the need to write that this is his favorite duomo in all of Italy. Which I respect but must say I prefer a different duomo… which you will have the pleasure of seeing in the next post…

The stripey inside of Siena’s cathedral

Restorers at work! Cooool!  The darker spots on the marble floor, you can just make them out in the photo, are where they were painting the marble.  Being a big art geek, naturally I took pictures of them doing it.

Here are two more cool things we did in Siena at the Palazzo Pubblico……

1. We heard a super famous art historian, Gordon Moran (I think!), talk about the controversy about this weird Simone Martini fresco in the Palazzo Pubblico. It’s a very famous fresco, and a very famous controversy,  which you can read more about here although I’m not totally positive that’s the best source, just a webpage Google came up with. I don’t have my notes with me so I’ll have to add to this later (yeah I took notes so what!), but it was really interesting to hear about how they discovered this fresco, how there is probably more to be found, but how a lot of people don’t want it further investigated, because it’s very likely that the famous artist (Simone Martini) did not actually paint the fresco that they’re saying he did… very interesting indeed… Will add to this!

2. We saw the GOOD GOVERNMENT AND BAD GOVERNMENT FRESCOS BY THE LORENZETTI BROS.  We also saw Simone Martini’s Maestaaaa! Eeeek! So stunningly beautiful and huge.  And the government frescos — oh, simply incredible…

San Gimignamo

It’s a super small town, but I think their logo is so cute. San GimignAMO. Amo=means I love. CUTE.

It’s a very peaceful, quiet town… this is the well in the tiny main piazza… Just across the way is the best gelato in all of Italy. It’s true, they won a prize last summer. …But it was closed. For winter. But I blame riposo/naptime anyway… winter is really just a long riposo, right? It’s all riposo’s fault!  I bet I would have liked San Crispino better anyway. So there San Gimignamo!

Its little gardens certainly are pretty though, even if their gelaterie aren’t open.

 Next up: MILANO…And LOTS of Leonardo…

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