Artistic Irony

I wrote an entry on February 27, 2006 about the trip we had just taken to Verona and Padua, and about visiting the Basilica of St. Anthony in the latter city. Now, two years later, I'm trying to read a bunch of books by the Rutgers professors I will be meeting next week, and one of them is about the sculptural decoration of the chapel in the basilica that held his body--a ground-breaking series of nine monumental marble friezes that line the chapel's walls, which at the time of their creation were unlike anything else that had been done in Italy since Roman times. I was in that chapel, walking right below those friezes, but I didn't look up. I didn't even know they were there! It was dark and crowded, there was a Mass going on behind us, and I was so taken by the devotional offerings to St. Anthony (my mother's preferred intercessor for all lost items) that I never even shot a glance around the rest of the room. And so I missed my chance to check out a really unique set of sculptures...all I can say is, ARGH.