Return To Scrovegni Chapel, 2019

Our plan was to return P to her parents in Venice for their week there, allowing us a day in Padua and then three days at a campground outside Venice, mostly for P to enjoy the pool and playground, but also to permit a day's reconnaissance in the Watery City.

But first, Padua, and the Scrovegni Chapel. We visited the Chapel first in 2011, part of our art history lessons of that year. The Chapel, aka the Arena Chapel, is Ground Zero for the origins of Renaissance art: here, in 1303-1305, Giotto did his signature work, a chapel's worth of frescoes on the life of Mary, Jesus, et al., that every succeeding Renaissance artist of note came to study. It's another of those fascinating intersections of history, art, and literature. The Scrovegnis were notorious usurers, and Dante had already written of their damnation in the Inferno. But the Scrovegnis, incredibly wealthy, fought back, hoping to procure churchly, if not heavenly favor by building a special chapel on their estate (formerly, way back when, the Roman Arena) and commissioning Giotto to see to its interior.

Fine. Very early Renaissance art. Frescoes. Halos. Blood and gore. Sweetness and light. How do you think you're going to get a second grader through this? You ask. Well, she's an extraordinary 7 year old, well-read, by any standard, respectful and thoughtful. She knows the stuff she's seeing is of surpassing significance, even if she doesn't get it all. (Who does?) Her parents have seen to her having sufficient background to understand a great deal of it, providing her with a kids' Bible and answering her questions. (P devours anything there is to read, so the kids' Bible was no problem: just more interesting stories, like the classical myths she's already devoured (with a name like Penelope, you're going to want to know about classical myths)). Anyhow, she's a delight, and the 15 minutes in the Arena Chapel, preceded, helpfully, by a 15 minute video, was a snap. She even knows the attributes of some of the saints and apostles and can spot them very readily.

The day started with a tram ride from the sosta into town and the very door of
the Chapel; we arrived an hour or more early and spent it in the adjoining public
park where P found a class of youngsters her age on recess; her Italian is not so
good, but, happily, these kids were studying English!

Interior of the Padua city museum complex that houses the Chapel

Scrovegni Chapel; consecrated 1305 or so

Now inside, looking abaft; only small parties are allowed for 15 minutes; but,
nowadays, fotos are permitted; the stern, west end, is the Judgment

The Inferno, closer-up; here one can see at least some similarity with Buffalmacco's
later Inferno

The boring bits: Paradise

Back to Hell; detail

Ditto

Ditto again; eternal ouch!

Looking forward now to the altar, etc.; despite my preoccupation with Hell,
now you can see that most of the Chapel consists of these side panels, depicting
the lives of Mary, Jesus, et al,, plus, in the lowest register, on the port side, the
7 vices, and on the starboard, the 7 virtues; we'll get to them

Muy famoso, and personal favorite, the betrayal Kiss 

Last Supper

Judas' very light halo treatment

Floor-up starboard view; coronation of Mary, up high

Lamentation

Ascension

Touchy topic for the Scrovegnis: throwing the money-changers out of the Temple

Altar and sculpture

Deposition

OK, so it's a bit out of order; my presentation, that is

The Vices and Virtues are monochrome; Envy

Too many carbs

And a Parthian shot the guard let me linger to get

Remaining walls of the Arena; the city museum complex has a huge collection
of mostly Venetian paintings, 16th-17th century which we breezed through; we
were ready to move on to Venice

Happy Pre-8th Birthday!

Penelope's 8th birthday would occur while she was in Venice with her parents, but she wanted to do a pre-birthday celebration with us during our week together in northern Italy. Having already bought her gift in Florence, we were happy to oblige. It all occurred on a travel day, from Pisa, past Florence, to Padua and our next cultural experience.

Before embarking for Padua, we stopped at the Pisa Carrefours for an extended
shopping session at a really large ipersupermercato; above, meter-long sausages

Funny tomatoes; it was to be a foodie sort of day, which is fine because P is
quite a foodie

For lunch, grandpa's puttanesca tapas

For P and grandma, chicken cordon bleu (a new favorite)

For birthday dinner, steak, mushrooms and spinach

Trying the mushrooms (she likes it! she likes it!)

And the spinach (ditto); garlic helps everything

Grand-parental dessert

Birthday girl dessert

And, after a candle and singing, opening the present

A silver bracelet with charms from Italian cities; happy birthday, Sweet P!

Pisa, Other Bits

From Cimaterie we moved on to other parts of the Field of Miracles...

Helpful model; the cimaterie is the rectangular building

Facade of the cathedral

Sculpture detail

One of the oldest around, Pisan Romanesque

Coffered ceiling

Another Pisano pulpit

Hellish detail

Swirling dome

Pancake-eater; I mean Pantokrator

Klimt Queen of Heaven

Annunzio

Abaft the beam view to stern

Alas, our tickets did not include the Baptistry, which was OK since we'd already
had plenty of excitement for the day

Recycling of building materials

Our tickets did include the museum, so we had a look at the various synopia,
this of Aquinas' universe (OK, I know I have posted this before)

And others

Fortunately, P was off watching the video on the repair of the leaning tower and
so was not exposed to this exposure

Pisa, The Cimaterie, And Buffalmacco

After lunch we still had more of the Field of Miracles to do. My favorite place there is the cemetery and its giant and very old Buffalmacco fresco cycle. Penelope, turning eight years old, is not keen on cemeteries, but relented when we explained, well, it was really more of a museum than a cemetery (sort of true) and conditionally approved her proposal that we celebrate her impending birthday while on our little trip (we would not be with her on the actual day). The cemetery is a huge old building around a courtyard. It's all indoors, sort of, and thus the survival of some very old and important frescoes. Chief among these are Buffalmacco's Judgement and Triumph of Death. They date from the 1330s, when Buffalmacco was active. He was a generation younger than Giotto, though obviously influenced by him; and Dante; a contemporary of Petrarch and Boccacio. Vasari wrote of him two centuries later, although none of the works he attributes to Buffalmacco have survived.

What I find so durned innerestin' is the intersections of intellectual history, art, literature, etc. The Triumph of Death theme is from Petrarch, I've read. Buffalmacco, a bit of a prankster as well as a painter, figures in three of  the Decameron's stories. In the Triumph, Buffalmacco depicts 10 (count 'em) young persons off in the countryside, avoiding the city. The frescoes were done a decade before the Black Death. Coincidence? I don't think so. Anyhow, it's fun to wonder about such apparent interactions between writers and artists. Nothing should be very surprising since they were all Renaissance persons, so to speak, with multiple interests, and that Florence, Pisa, and other parts of the story are not very far apart. But I digress.

I should add that all these work are on the enormous side, 12x30 feet, I'd guess;
this one concerns hermits and the various attractions of asceticism...

The Inferno part of the Judgment; we'll visit the Scrovegni Chapel in a few days
and see the similarities between Buffalmacco's hell and Giotto's

Hot tub detail

Interesting digestive tract

Less lurid part of Judgement

Part of Triumph of Death; the 10 young people are in the lower right; did
Boccacio get his idea from this?!

Other part: it's just too damned big!

Vasari thought Buffalmacco's habit of inserting text into the paintings was a cheap
trick; a child of his age, methinks

Aerial combat in the Battle for Souls

Judgment detail

Interior courtyard of Cimaterie; original soil from the Holy Land, courtesy of
St. Helen, Constantine's mom

Leonardo of Pisa is still there; I tried to interest P in the
Fibonacci numbers, but she needs a bit more math...

She also does not know who Casper the Friendly Ghost is

Other assorted huge very old frescoes throughout the building

Thus

Helpful model of the universe, according to Aquinas; it's a Dominican sort of
place; but a wonderful place