Orvieto, 2017

We first visited Orvieto in 2011, mostly for the wine, but fell in love with the town and the great Italian Gothic cathedral there, its architecture, the amazingly well-preserved sculpture on its facade, and the Luca Signorelli frescoes in the New Chapel. We visited again in 2013. I don't think I can much improve on my 2011 and 2013 posts:

http://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2011/05/orvieto-duomo.html
http://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2011/05/orvieto-duomo-reliefs.html
http://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2011/05/orvieto-1.html
http://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2011/05/orvieto-2.html
http://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2013/10/orvieto-cathedral-2013.html
http://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2013/10/orvieto-cathedral-2013.html

but I'll try with some new/improved pix. The wine was just a great as in 2011 and 2013.

Starting with some street scenes

Back in the gorgeous Tuscan countryside; OK, it's Umbria, I know, but Tuscany
also looks like this

Ditto

11th century church we just missed getting to before the mid-day
closing

Orvieto cathedral, a late Italian Gothic, beautiful inside and
out

The nave windows are half alabaster, half stained glass

In the port chapel/transcept

The one celebrating the 13th century "miracle" of the wafer "bleeding" onto the
linen, thereby "proving" the doctrine of transubstantiation; "2, 4,6, 8, time to 
transubstantiate"

Now in the port chapel/transcept, the so-called New Chapel: Signorelli's
Resurrection

And Damnation

"Don't worry, sweetheart, it's gonna be just fine"

The sweetly beautiful ceiling by Fra Angelica

More Signorelli...Heavenly concert

Bad stuff happens...

Including the artist, left, in black, an innocent bystander

An interesting case of gender disinformation

Among the several important Renaissance authors depicted in
the chapel

"Digitus impudicus" the Romans called it

Incredibly beautiful place

Basilica Of St. Francis, 2017

We visited Assisi in 2011, primarily to see the art of the great church, Cimabuie, Lorenzetti, Martini, others, but mostly Giotto's enormous cycle of early 14th century frescoes depicting the life of St. Francis. As in 2011, there is still a "NO FOTOS!" policy, but in 2017, I think I got some better shots, at least in the lower church. The 2011 post is at https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2011/05/st-francis-duomo.html.

We stayed at a nice AgroTourism sosta, 900m from the church

There

The 900m was up a brick Peace path...St. F was
big on peace

Hundreds of names of peace makers

OK, it's not a national museum; rather, a friary and papal
basilica

Outdoor resto; please keep your feet out of the street

Another vertical sort of place, Assisi

"Thou shalt not spill motor oil upon consecrated ground"

Me giving the secret sign

Apse in the lower (non-papal) church; mostly Giotto here,
though lots of Lorenzetti, Cimabuie elsewhere

J. Iscariot

Betrayal (I was playing hide and seek with a guard, snapping
pix from behind pillars, waiting for him to yell at others...one
of whom was a nun who seemed quite flustered at being yelled
at by a civilian

St. F. saving people

In a lower side chapel...still processing this one

Umbrian countryside, from the enormous mostly religious and
not touristy gift shoppe

Now in the upper, papal church, where there are fewer pillars,
etc., to sneak around and hide behind

For pix of the Team Giotto frescoes, see the 2011 post; this
time, we were less impressed...they're so big and so far away;
we prefer the Arena Chapel, definitely, more intimate,
although it's just Giotto and not the whole cavalcade of
late Medieval Italian art

Back in the lower church for a shot of
Cimabuie's portrait of Francis, the oldest and
closest to contemporaneous

Crypt and F's burial

Upper town of Assisi