The Road Goes Ever On

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Milan's Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, 2011

Next we visited Milan's oldest museum, the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, noted for its Titians, Veronese, Carravaggio, for us especially its Breughels, the cartoon of Rafael's School of Athens, and, lastly, the largest collection of Leonardo's notebooks, the Codex Atlanticus.

First the silly bits: in this Adoration of the Magi, by Rene Sance,1527, note the
ultra-realism, namely, the dog pissing on the post

All through European painting, the convention is always to represent John the
Baptist, even as a new-born, in his skins; here he is as a toddler in skins

An Adoration with a band in the background; Rene Sance, 1527

Serious now: a Botticelli

Very serious: the cartoon of Rafael's School of Athens; the School of Athens is
in the Rafael Rooms of the Vatican, which we saw in March and of which I took
about 50 fotos; before doing a big fresco, the master would do a full-size charcoal

drawing of the piece, called a cartoon

Up closer

Cardinal Borromeo, the founder of the Pinacoteca, was an admirer of Breughel
and acquired a number of the latter's works; here are a few...

Winter scene (probably with an Adoration or Ascension tucked in somewhere)

Lion's Den

One of B's allegorical works

Another of Caravaggio's Fruit

Much else in the museum, but these gold copies of Hadrian's
Column and Anthony's (Marcus) Column impressed us

As is well known, Leonardo's Last Supper began deteriorating as the paint dried
(L used an experimental technique, not real fresco) and two copies were made,
by his assistants, within a few years of the original; this is one, snapped quickly
while the guard was talking on the phone; why didn't we go see the real Last
Supper? You ask; fact is, we didn't plan two months ahead to get reservations....

Finally, in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, among the thousands of incunibles and
other stuff, an impressive exhibition from the Codex Atlanticus, the largest
collection of Leonardo's notebooks; it's impossible not to be supremely impressed...

Milan Cathedral

I wanted to go to Milan, since we had never been there before. It is Italy's second largest city, its financial and communications center, home to the great cathedral, galleria, La Scala, and the Pinoteca Ambrosiana, all of which we wanted to see. Happily, all these are located a few steps from each other, and we were able to do everything we wanted, even some shopping, and then move on. We camped the night before on a quiet street in a suburban business park, then the next day parked at the water-park adjacent to the one Milan campground (which we judged too expensive to justify an overnight) and took a combination of bus and metro into the city center.

Milan's great cathedral, begun in 1386, more or less finished in the 1800s; said
to be the largest Gothic cathedral; 4th largest in Christendom; super-duper
flamboyant Gothic; unlike so many others, this puppy is all marble; intended to

accommodate all of Milan's 15th century population, 40,000; seen across Piazza
del Duomo

3500 sculptures are said to adorn its exterior

Nice gargoyles

Nice martydom sculptures

Inside the feeling is one of great expanse and volume; the piers are enormous;
the feeling of expanse is hindered, however, by all the paintings hanging around
like so much wash

The windows range in age from 1405 to the 20th century
and are in very good condition; this is the oldest one

Vicki reading a window

Flight to Egypt

Annunciation

Sculpture of the flayed St. Bartholomew; I hope the model
was well-paid

One of the three huge apse windows; 19th century copies
of the originals

Some of the original inlaid marble floor, differentially worn
by centuries of thousands of feet of the devout and tour buses

Chapel

Altar and apse; Baroque; note the little red light at the top
near the ceiling

X marks the spot; under the red light is where they keep
The Relic, a True Nail of the True Cross, brought back from
the Holy Land by Constantine's mom, St. Helen, who must
have needed a small fleet to haul back all the religious loot
attributed to her; remember, it was her boy's Edict of Milan
that legalized Christianity

Mantua

Our next stop was Mantua, primarily to meet friends/fellow travelers Kathy and Rick Howe, but also to see the Ducal Palace there and the works of Mantegna. We found Kathy and Rick at the appointed camperstop, by the Lake Inferioure. A heat-wave was underway, temps in the mid-90s, with Alaska-style mosquitoes swarming outside. So we stayed inside, testing the limits of our AC, and tasting a variety of wines and cheeses. Next morning Kathy and Vicki and I did the ducal palace while Rick dealt (successfully) with their Italian internet provider.

Much of the distance from Bolzano south toward Mantua is a great valley--
a gorge I would call it, with high walls on either side, but a mile or more wide
in most places--very heavily planted in grapes, very big-time Italian wine
country; anyhow, above is one of several castles along the route, this one
perched high atop a huge pinnacle

Wine in capsules; Bardolino, Valpolicella, Lambrusco...

Not the great stuff, but we had to stop anyway at a place called appropriately Dulce,
to pick up a few souvenirs

In the ducal palace, Pisanello's unfinished Arthurian frescoes

Ditto

Mantegna's portrait of the Gonzaga family; note obligatory dwarf

Remains of an intriguing Mantegna allegory

The trompe l'oeil oculus is one of the earliest, and certainly the first to show the
putti and others looking down from the heavens

Next we strolled Mantua's weekly market, in its three connected central piazzas,
certainly one of the largest we have seen in Italy

Rick and Kathy and a very, very rare shot: side-by-side American campers in Europe!

And us

Fun On The Federico Augusto Trail

The next day I did the loop trail around the Sasso Lungo group. Well, technically, half-way around, with a ride to the col between Sasso Lungo and Sasso Piatto, an exciting descent down unadvertised snow and scree slopes, and then a race to the down-hill chairlift, which closed at 5PM. Another stress-test.

The general idea: walk around the three in the middle there, after taking the
cable car to Alpe di Siusi and then a chair- lift up to Williamshut, then a
cable-coffin to the col, then back down and to Williamshut and the chairlift,
which runs only between 9 and 5

On the chairlift: don't rock the boat

Ever-present parasails

Determined dad: toddler on his back, infant in carriage; mom is just ahead on
the trail, waiting to assist over a rough patch

The lift up to the col between the two peaks; the "cabins" large enough for one
person to stand...

View from the col: Sella Pass, a previous campsite

Snow-draped Marmolada, highest in the Dolomites

Other side of the col: looking up the snow slope; crampons
and an ice axe would have been handy

Ditto; I did have a chance to practice my scree-glissade technique

The Italian Alpine Club maintains some beautiful refuges
in the area

A welcome sight, the chairlift back down to Alpe di Siusi, which I made with
17 minutes to spare

By the time I was back down in the "meadow," the entire massif was covered
in cloud, and I was glad not to have spent the night up there

Alpe di Siusi

We drove on, through Castelrosso, to Alpe di Siusi, one of the Dolomites' major summer and winter playgrounds. Alpe di Siusi is featured as Europe's largest alpine meadow. This I very much doubt: Alpe di Siusi is covered with deep ravines, hills, etc. Meadows are supposed to be sort of flat. Whatever. It is a beautiful place, with hiking trails everywhere and cable-car access to the higher elevations. When we found out the major cable-car company allowed over-night parking in its lot, we decided to stay 2 nights.