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Go to the Page LIst for a full listing of pages and their status
All material © Adrian Fletcher 2000-08 - The contents may not be reproduced without permission - Adrian Fletcher can be contacted at afletch at paradoxplace dot com
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CIAO ADRIANO
8 DAYS IN TUSCANY AND UMBRIA THE 2007 DOM PARADOX A TOUR FOR NICK (DOM P'S SON) AND JACQUI October / November 2007
Nick (27) - the last of Dom P's three children to visit the heaven he has uncovered in Italy with the help of his mate Gregory Page. Studio Paradox is at present a bit disorganized, but photos from the cameras of the Dom and Nick will appear to illustrate the words below .......
Back to Ciao Adriano Italy Overview
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TOUR ITINERARY |
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Wednesday 31 October - a couple of Chianti classico photos then across to Assisi and Gubbio, following in the steps of San Francesco
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Castellina-in-Chianti and Environs
On the first day we wake up to the view from Gregory's Castellina Appartamento (right).
South of Castellina - Godenano and Lilliano landscapes (near Castellina, with San Gimignano on the horizon).
Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli (below Assisi) and the Porziuncola Chapel where Saint Francis (1182 - 1226 (44)) started out and died. Assisi - Saint Francis’ tomb, the Lower Basilica and museum, the Upper Basilica and the town of Assisi.
Gubbio – the tiny painted Franciscan church (originally built in the 700s) of the Vittorino, where the Gubbians beat a large Arab force (hence the name), and later where San Francesco talked a wolf out of his people eating habits, and where tonight (31 October) an eve of Ognissanti service conducted by the Friar was in progress (and we were just in time for the collection).
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View from Gregory's Appartamento
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Origo family and village cemetery - La Foce - Ognissanti 2007
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After fried eggs garnished with shaved tartufo bianco for breakfast, it's down to Orvieto in Gregory’s comfortable Volvo SUV.
Outside the Duomo there is a bone chilling wind, and inside the nave is full of light and people there for the Ognissanti service.
There are views of the city from the hills above on the way to Civita (Bagnoregio) – isolated medieval time warp town in north Lazio, which was the birthplace of the great Franciscan San Bonaventura (1221 - 1274 (53)).
Ognissanti fish lunch at Ristorante Da Rita in Montefiascone, near Lake Bolsena.
Bolsena town, in whose church the Miracle of Bolsena happened, then north on the Via Cassia (also known as the Via Roma and the Via Francigena by pilgrims travelling from Canterbury to Rome or back), to the hilltop robber baron castle of Radicófani (and its cemetery full of Ognisanti flowers and people).
NE to Sarteana, then west along a long dirt road to the cemetery and villa of La Foce, home to Iris Origo (“War in Val d’Orcia”).
Back to Castellina via Montepulciano (with Sangallo's luminous Chiesa della Madonna di San Biagio Greek cross church at the base of the hill) and Pienza (the home town of Pope Pius II - Aeneus Sylvius Piccolomini (1405-1464 (59)).
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Friday 2 November - the only non-Italian tourists in Siena
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South on the via Chiantigiana to the hamlet of Fonterútoli (best wine in Chianti) then Siena – delightfully packed with Italians on this de facto long weekend.
The Duomo buildings. The Baptistery under the east end of the duomo. The Duomo itself including uncovered narrative pavements (kept protected under boards for most of the year), and the Piccolomini Library with it's cycle of huge fresco panels by Pinturicchio (c1452 - 1513 (61)) depicting scenes from the life of the Sienese humanist Pope Pius II (Aeneus Sylvius Piccolomini (1405-1464 (59)) and including a self portrait of the artist and Rafaello. The Opera (museum) in the east aisle of the otherwise uncompleted nave of the enormous "new Duomo" which was stopped dead in nits tracks by the 1348 Black Death, with the Duccio (Duccio di Buoninsegna - (1260 - 1319 (59)) Occulus window and his masterpiece – the “Maestà” altar paintings, then a climb up the “new (1348) façade” witha sweeping 360 degree view over the medieval town and the surrounding vineyards, olive groves and cypress trees.
Lunch at "La Finestra" behind the Palazzo Pubblico.
The Campo and Palazzo Pubblico, whose elegant tower was completed in the year of the Black Death - 1348 - after which Siena, unlike Florence, never regained its momentum. The tower is named after the first bellringer Mangiaguadagni ("he who eats all he earns") and at 88m or 286ft is second only to Venice's tower as the highest in Italy (but, unlike Venice, Siena's tower has never collapsed!).
Inside the Palazzo Pubblico, in the great hall is Guido Riccio da Fogliano by the pre-Renaissance Sienese painter Simone Martini (1284 - 1344 (60)) - the first major secular painting since the end of the Roman Empire over 800 years earlier. In the council room, overlooking the wise heads of the Council of Nine who ran this very successful early city republic, are frescos depicting scenes of the consequences of Good and Bad Government, with the Court of the Common Good in the middle. They were painted by Ambrogio Lorenzetti (1278 - 1348 (70)), a Sienese contemporary of Martini who died in the Black Death along with 60% of Siena's population.
Walk out of town to the car park past the floodlit façade of the Monte dei Paschi bank, clutching a bag of Ricciarelli (soft honey and almond biscuits) bought on the way from Nanninis.
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The floodlit facade of the Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena
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Looking down on the little church of San Giusto in Sálcio, just south of Radda-in-Chianti
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Castellina market & walkabout (including the Torre).
Chianti's vineyards, hills, towns and churches. San Giusto in Sálcio, Radda, Volpaia, drive west along the ridge road (Vignamaggio, the mansion where the Mona Lisa was maybe born, in a valley on the right), around Panzano (at the centre of the ancient caldera), Rignana (farm house restaurant), around Badia a Passignano (Vallombrosan Abbey), and lastly the Val d’Elsa (the sweeping Valley of the River Elsa) from the San Donato ridge.
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Porta Romana, Last Supper (1514) by Franciabigio (1482 - 1526 (44)) in the nearby ex-Convento e Chiesa di San Giusto della Calza.
Ognissanti Church on the Arno River (fresco by Domenico Ghirlandaio featuring a young Amerigo Vespucci (1454 - 1512 (58)) the Ognissanti parishioner after whom the Americas were named), SS Trinita Church (distant unlit frescos by Domenico Ghirlandaio (1449 - 1494 (45)) in the scaffolded Sassetti Chapel), Santa Croce (Franciscan Church - as in the other churches, limited access because of Sunday services).
Fun pizza lunch at Il Gatto & La Volpe (behind the Bargello) - staff photos by Nick.
Baptistery east doors by Lorenzo Ghiberti (1378 - 1455 (77)) (the Baptistery itself is closed for mosaic restoration). The Duomo (including Uccello’s (1397 - 1475 (78)) clock face and his huge equestrian fresco portrait of Sir John Hawkwood ("Giovanni Acuto" Condottiere, 1320 - 1394 (74)), and an iconic fresco "portrait" of Dante (1265 - 1321 (56)). The newly reopened Church of Orsanmichele, outside which several of the most memorable Renaissance statues first appeared.
Uffizi queue (2 hours) & Gallery (1 hour then it closed - but the A tour guide ensured that what needed to be seen was!). Photo opportunity - a floodlit Ponte Vecchio (right).
A tub of gelato from the Castellina five-ways ice cream shop - the best.
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 The Ponte Vecchio - the only one of Florence's old bridges to survive WW II |
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Monday 5 November - San Gimignano and San Galgano
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The Cistercian Abbey of San Galgano in the late afternoon November sun
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A day exploring the medieval streets and towers of San Gimignano.
Lunch - La Mandragola (San Gimignano).
Late afternoon drive to the Eremo (Hermitage) where San Galgano - Galgano Guidotti (1148 - 1181 (33)) - reformed high living Sienese knight - built a twig hut, plunged his sword into a rock (where it still is), and died of dank cold.
Below the Eremo, the sun is setting on the facade and chapter house of the large Cistercian Abbey of San Galgano which started life in 1181 perched beside the hermitage on the hill, but things became a bit cramped and prone to slippage, and the lads naturally graduated down the hill to the boggy field below, because draining swamps was what Cistercians did. Then between 1224 and 1288 they built their monastery, including the first Gothic (abbey) church in Italy, now a roofless but well kept ruin.
The Abbey of San Galgano was a daughter house of Casamari (south of Rome and stilll an active Cistercian abbey), which in turn was a daughter of Saint Bernard's Clairvaux in Burgundy. It was Tuscany's first full on Gothic church, and later a model for Siena Cathedral. These were also a later breed of Cistercians - organizers of trade fairs (their site was the last overnight stop before Siena), managers of the Sienese treasury and engineers for its public works, and smelters of iron.
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The oldest and purest ensemble of Romanesque church architecture in Tuscany.
Climb the Leaning Tower.
Lunch at Trattoria della Faggiola.
The Duomo (built between 1063 and 1150) - including the discovery of a large a mosaic of the Annunciation, and the Baptistery (including the discovery of some monthly activity roundels).
Dinner at Flavio’s restaurant – La Peghera di Baccio – in Radda-in-Chianti.
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Wednesday 7 November - Florence (north)
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The Florence meat and produce markets.
San Marco – Fra Angelico (1395 - 1455 (60)) and Fra Bartolomeo (1473 - 1517 (43)) paintings and frescos, frescoed Friars’ Cells (especially the Annunciation in Cell 3). Portrait of Giralomo Savanorola ((1452-1598 (46)) who was a friar then Prior here for over a decade, and for a short time the ruler of Florence, before being executed by hanging then burning in the Piazza della Signora, Florence, on 23 May 1498 as a fitting encore to his earlier bonfire of the vanities in the same place. Michelozzo’s (1396 - 1472 (76)) beautiful slender columned library (Europe’s first public library). And in the refectory / bookshop a large Last Supper fresco by "the Last Supper painter" Domenico Ghirlandaio (1449 - 1494 (45)).
Piazza della SS Annunziata and the façade of the Brunelleschi (1377 - 1446 (69))architected Spedale degli Innocenti (Foundling Hospital) – the first distinctively Renaissance façade and building. Brunelleschi was the architect of the dome of Florence's Duomo - built without internal support, and still the largest masonry dome in existence.
Palazzo Medici-Riccardi (originally by Michelozzo and sadly closed on Wednesdays).
Lunch at Trattoria Mario.
Santa Maria Novella (Dominican). Masaccio’s (1400 - 1428 (28)) groundbreaking "Trinita" fresco, now over 600 years' old. Huge fresco cycles in the east end of the church by Giotto, Ghirlandaio and others - also an Annunciation. The convent buildings with the huge convent chapter house (Eleanor of Toledo's "Spanish Chapel") but the best part out of bounds because the Carabiniere "own" it. Sadly, the façade, the only worthwhile facade of the four major Florence churches, is still under scaffolding.
San Miniato church and sweeping views of Florence in the late afternoon sun.
A Chianti sunset to remember.
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Castellina is located near the "i" of "Chianti"
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Go to the Page LIst for a full listing of pages and their status
All material © Adrian Fletcher 2000-08 - The contents may not be reproduced without permission - Adrian Fletcher can be contacted at afletch at paradoxplace dot com
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