Visiting with Leo

This weekend past weekend was the field trip for my Leonardo da Vinci class. I had to catch a bus at 6:43am (ugh) to a rainy Florence (this is my third time in Florence, and I’m three for three for rain. I hope someday I can see it in the sunshine). After 3 hours we arrived at the Museo nazionale del Bargello. The exhibit we primarily stopped there to see was, unfortunately, closed (ha, that’s Italy)- we were supposed to see some of Andrea del Verrochio’s work, who was Leonardo da Vinci’s mentor and teacher. Instead ,we got to look around at some Michaelangelo sculptures. Then, we went to the famous Uffizi!! Where we saw three great Leonardo da Vincis: The Baptism of Christ, which was done by Verrochio and Leonardo in Verrochio’s workshop when Leo was still very young. Leonardo painted part of it (if you bother to look it up on the internet, look at the two angels on the left. Leo painted the on the far left and also the landscape behind the angels), and it was so exquisite compared to Verrochio’s work that Verrochio, showed up by his young pupil, decided it was better that he stick to sculpturing. Apparantly Verrochio never picked up a paintbrush again. We also saw Leo’s Annunciation, and his unfinished Adoration of the Kings. Although we were there for Leo, my favorite part of the Uffizi was two paintings by Botticelli in the next room. Botticelli was another prominent painter during Leo’s time who my professor has mentioned a couple times in my Leonardo class. So, I don’t know much about him but in my boredom of my own reading a few weeks ago I wound up flipping through Carly’s Renaissance Art History book and flipped to a page that talked about Botticelli’s two most famous works, the Birth of Venus and Primavera. They are so beautiful- I love the Greek mythology and the interpretations of all the stories. Every painter of the time interpreted it differently.

After the Uffizi, a couple of my classmates and I got lunch and hit up the flea market. I’ve decided that the Florence is definitely my favorite that I’ve seen. It was the first European market I had ever been to in my life, and I have yet to find one that beats it. After shopping, a very nice Polish guy directed us towards the Palazzo Vecchio (means old palace- it still serves as the Town Hall in Florence) where we had to meet the rest of the class, cuz my awful sense of direction got us walking the wrong way. The Palazzo Vecchio was super cool- we had seen pictures of it and it was cool to be inside. On the giant walls is where Michaelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci were commissioned to paint frescoes of two famous battles. The frescoes were barely started, and they were eventually covered up by frescoes by another painter some years later. However, somehow there is proof (dunno how all this high-tech art history detecting equipment works), that what Leo began on the wall of the Battle of Aghiari remains underneath the painting that is on the wall now. The giant room was lined by statues, some by Michaelangelo. I saw another statue that caught my eye immediately, a new favorite along with the one of the opera performer one I saw in the Accademia which I failed to get the name of. This one was a sculpture depicting Florence’s defeat of Pisa, personified. Florence was represented by a woman, and Pisa by a man. And the woman was obviously kicking butt, and the man was begging for mercy. The feminist in me was very satisfied =).

Then we hopped back on the bus and rode 4.5 hours to Milan, where we checked into our very nice hotel in the outskirts of the center. Abbey, Shannon, (girls from my class) and I took the metro into the center, where we met Shannon’s roommates, found a great little restaurant for dinner where I had some spiced gnocchi and traditional Milanese risotto, and later I called Dhana and met her in front of the Duomo! We hung out and walked around the center for about an hour and a half, and it was so great that I got to see her twice in 3 weekends! Then Abbey, Shannon, and I hopped on the metro to get back to the hotel, but I guess we weren’t paying good enough attention and we realized that we were on the wrong line- it forked off the wrong way. We got off as soon as we noticed, tried to run to get on the metro going in the other direction, but it was 12:31 and we had missed the last metro of the night by one minute. So, after walking back and forth down a road and past the same bar like 4 times, we went into a hotel and got a map and some directions from two very nice Italian men and we walked about 10 blocks to the hotel. Once again, none of us were worried and we just saw it as an adventure. It was fun and we just kept laughing at ourselves/our situation, but we were relieved to see the hotel after a 20 minute walk in the very windy cold.

The next morning, we went to a private museum called the Ambriosa and saw one more Leo called A portrait of a musician (a guy with a red hat on, long hair, you might have seen it around …), and work by some Leonardo followers. After that, we walked to the Santa Maria delle Grazie for our long-awaited viewing of The Last Supper. I wasn’t expecting much … I mean I was excited because of all the hype about it, but I hadn’t really heard much of it before this class and I knew it was important because we had to make the reservation 2 months in advance. But after standing in a room to get sterilized, I walked into the barren room and there it was, this enormous, beautiful fresco in front of me. I was breathless for a second, and I don’t really know why. It was just … incredible. And I had no idea it was so large. It’s like, 8ft x 25ft or something like that (I suck at measurements … but you get it … it’s ginormous). But … ahhh. I don’t know how else to describe it. I think part of my surprise was it’s fantastic condition. It recently went through an 11-year cleaning and restoration process, but all the images of it we had seen in class were all from before the cleaning, so I was so taken by the detail, rich colors, and immense clarity. We only got 15 minutes to gaggle at it, but Shannon, Abbey and I all agreed that it was sooo not what we were expecting. I didn’t want to leave after 15 minutes … it wasn’t enough. I am still surprised at my own reaction, especially cuz I’ve never been that much of an art geek but it really was beautiful and I am so lucky that I got the opportunity to see it!

After The Last Supper, we went to the Sforza castle yay!, but this time we went inside and took a look around the museum where we saw a ceiling that Leo painted, and another famous Michaelangelo statue (although I guess it’s not that famous because I forgot the name of it already). Then, it was back on the bus, and a 5.5 hour ride back to Perugia, where I rushed off the bus to go down to the train station to greet MELISSA and my cousin BARI! I won’t go into details, but there was some confusion, lack of communication, and worrying, but after a stressful hour of waiting around the train station wondering where the heck they were, we found each other and it was time to begin our BAM weekend in Italy!!!