Siena Duomo

The Siena Duomo is surely one of the greatest of cathedrals; Wagner said it was 
the most inspiring buidling he had ever seen and based the stage design of 
Parsifal's Temple of the Holy Grail on it; of course, he really didn't travel all that 
much

Facade

Interior; even with hundreds or thousands of visitors, it is one of those buildings
 that fascinates

Ceiling of the Piccolomini Library, one of several side chapels

The Library celebrates the life of Pope Pius II and is covered 
with Pinturrichio's giant 1509 frescoes

Michaelangelo's sculptures of Peter (above), Paul, Gregory,
and Pius, are almost lost among all the other masterpieces

One of Siena's more notable features is the prominence of in-laid marble scenes 
all over the main floor; here, the slaughter of the innocents; elsewhere, a dozen 
Sibylls; and more biblical scenes

The 13th century pulpit, by Pisano and the father/son team of 
Arnolfo and Giovanni di Cambio

Detail: damnation (of course)

Ceiling; the effect of the light is very different from, say, 
Chartres, but no less engaging

Altar

In a chapel on the south side, four Bernini sculptures, 
including his exquisite St. Jerome

Dome

Closer up

The nave is lined with busts of all the popes, into the 13th century (the pattern 
repeats, however)...

Siena

All the guidebooks say that if you're going to fall in love with Italy, it will probably be in Siena. There are a number of other towns and cities where that could happen, not to mention the countryside and coasts, and the Alps, but I'd agree that Siena is a pretty good candidate. It is certainly one of our favorite places and especially its duomo. We drove the blue roads to Siena from Arezzo, enjoying the hilly countryside, found our camper-stop (at length), and spent the rest of the day in town. And then the next day too before departing for San Jimmie-Johnnie and Volterra.

Siena's famous Piazza del Campo

And its Palazzo Publico

In the Palazzo Pubblico museum, a quick and clandestine shot

of part of Lorezetti's great classic, The Effects of Good

Government; Rachel and Will note; there is also the Effects

of Bad Government, and also a fairly famous Maesta among

the other treasures

From the Palazzo's balcony, looking out over a small part

of the city; note color

And up at the great tower

Moving right along, and after a lot of searching for a museum

that turned out to be closed for renovation, we are now in the

Piazza del Duomo, about to enter the Santa Maria della Scala

complex, the city's hospital and social services agency in

Renaissance times; noted, as fitting a republic, for taking

responsibility for the welfare of its citizens; it is now a giant

museum

In its Sala dei Pellegrinao, one of Domenico di Bartolo's

dozen or so giant (secular!) wall murals depicting the good

works of the hospital; note the fat priest with nothing to do but

hear a confession...

The building burrows several stories down into the tufa,

dug out by Etruscans, and there displays its extensive Etruscan

collection

As I have already observed, the Etruscans did some nice metal

work, but little else besides dying into these little sarcophagi,

which all look pretty much the same; to me

Well, evidently they ate well, even without
pasta and tomato sauce and gelato

Speaking of which, mountains of gelato...

And cute pasta for the American college

students

Arezzo Art

In the Santa Maria della Pieve, Pietro Lorenzetti's 14th century polyptych

In an arcade, a copy of the 5th century BCE Etruscan chimaera that is Arezzo's emblem; 
I am now given to wondering what Missoula's emblem is? I think it must be the flying pig 
seen on Rockin' Rudy's t-shirts; I hope so 

Not all art in Arezzo is medieval or Renaissance; there is much contemporary 
work of interest; above is a massive sculpture scene done by Sara Bolzano and 
Nicola Zamboni, two Bolognese artists

Up closer

But the big draw in this town, as it would be in any town, is 
Piero della Francesa's Legend of the True Cross, on a dozen 
or so large panels in the chancel; you have to pay extra to 
get in the chancel, and the paintings are relatively high up,
but you are very close; time limit in the chancel is 30 minuti

There is of course a no pix policy in the chancel; and of course we had to snap a 
few; we have been reading about and hearing about this cycle for some time

A bit more; the legend itself, as Medieval Christians imagined it, is nearly as 
interesting as the 15th century representation; the wood for the True Cross, 
you see, grew from a tree that grew from a seed planted in the mouth of Adam 
when he was buried; Abel--no--Cain, had run back to the Garden of Eden to 
collect three such seeds...three, not two, not four, but three, from the...you 
guessed it...Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil...

And a bit more; well, it's a long and actually interesting 
legend, more about how works the religious mind and 
organization than anything else, and involving 
Constantine, the Queen of Sheba, Solomon, a Jew, and, 
of course, Constantine's mom, St. Helen; and quite a few 
miracles and revelations, along the way, none of which 
are scriptural; much of it from The Golden Legend; 
anyhow, Francesca's fresco cycle is on the web in 
several places, most notably www.wga.hu/tours/arezzo/

In the San Domenico church, Cimabue's memorable 
crucifix; in Franciscan churches of the era, these were 
always over-sized, hung right over the altar, and tilted
--in your face--toward the onlooker

I couldn't resist this martyrdom scene, but at least in part because 
it is of the very famous painted/glazed sculpture idiom whose 
name I  unfortunately can not remember just at the moment
[Luca della Robbia]

Proof that Italians have been talking with their hands at least since the 1300s

And, finally, in the Duomo, in a corner almost buried behind 
some bishop's grandiose tomb, Francesca's serene Magdalen

After straining to see the Magdalen, I had just turned to Vicki 
and commented that this was the darkest cathedral we had 
ever been in, yet with so much to see...and, then, near the exit

door, I saw it, the Divine Illumination Machine [DIM]; we 
have seen these throughout Italy; pop in a half-euro and the 
scultpure/painting/whatever you want to see gets a minute of 
two of decent light; I always position myself for the photo opp 
and then say to Vicki, by the machine with coin,  in stage 
whisper, "Let there be light"; in the Arezzo Duomo, the

DIM costs a whopping (so to speak) 2 euros; but it lights up 
the entire nave, including the beautiful ceiling... 

Thus

And thus; some of the best color I have ever seen in a church; best 2 euros thus 
far spent on holy ground...

Arezzo

We drove on to Arezzo, another hill town, famous for its continuing wealth as well as its great medieval and Renaissance art and architecture. What attracted us in particular was Piero della Francesca's 15th century Legend of the Holy Cross, one of the greatest of Italian frescoes (which is saying something), but there was plenty more to see. Arezzo is a bit off the usual tourist circuit. Despite abundant facilities, parking, a free camper-stop two blocks from the wall, excellent signage all over, we saw rather few tourists, no tour buses nor tour bus groups, and liked Arezzo so well we stayed two days and nights. I'll divide my posts between the city and its architecture and its art.

Among the abundant facilities and amenities, a

succession of scala mobili, escalators, takes

you from the parking lot up to the old city, in

the shade, too

The very large mostly 13th-15th century duomo, to which

we'll return for some art and illumination

The Francesca church, 13th century, not the

first church we have or will see with an

unfinished west facade; they built from the

chancel back through the nave, and typically

got to the facade last, often when funds had

given out or tastes had changed

Inside the Francesca, another vast but austere

Gothic church; we'll return in the next post for a

look at the frescoes that occupy most all of the

chancel

Santa Maria della Pieva, 13th-15th century,

one view of the Romanesque facade and huge

campanile

East side of Santa Maria della Pieve, which

fronts onto the Grande Piazza

And the Grande Piazza

The facade and campanile again; the latter with 40 bays

Interior; another huge church

Arezzo's public library, a beautiful old Renaissance palazzo

bearing the Medici coat of arms as well as many others

Next door, Petrach's house, where they're

doing some remodeling

House of Vasari, painter, architect, writer, Renaissance Man,

whose 1530 Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors,

and Architects makes him, some say, the first art historian

Interior of San Domenico, another 13th century Gothic

church, very austere, but home of Cimabue's Crucifix

Cortona

Cortona is the hill town made famous, well, somewhat famous, in Frances Mayes' Under the Tuscan Sun. We had both read the book--a very decent exercise in creative non-fiction--and seen the movie, which bore only the least passing similarity to the book. Anyhow, from Assisi we drove up to Cortona, passing from beautiful Umbria to beautiful Tuscany, hoping to take in some of the extolled Tuscan sun, atmosphere, ambience, etc. Alas, the parking situation at Cortona is dreadful. There were a dozen or more spaces alloted for campers, but nearly all were filled with tiny little local sedans. Even the bus parking lot was grid-locked. There really wasn't anything in Cortona on our must-see list, so we drove down the hill a bit, parked at a turn-out, and I hiked back up to see the one thing of interest, namely, the Etruscan gates. Probably not worth the hike.

Downtown Cortona from uptown

Tuscan countryside, and a finger of Lake Trasimeno

Gridlock; and the car parking was worse

The Etruscan Gates

My sentiment exactly; we drove on to Arezzo