Florence

I haven’t blogged in quite a long time!  Things have kept on being busy in Venice during Dr. Cooper’s stay.  She gave me an introduction to using the Archivio di Stato, which was ridiculous, and truly brought home to me why people come to study on 1 or 2 year fellowships, because it takes an incredibly long time just to locate and request the right boxes of documents, let alone trying to decipher them! I set myself the task of transcribing Jacopo Tintoretto’s will, which came in a box full of other wills by the same notary, Antonio Brinis.  Luckily, Antonio had pretty good handwriting.  Still, there was plenty of places I had to leave blank because I couldn’t figure out either what the handwriting actually said, or if it was some kind of shorthand, what it stood for.  Then after I did that I started reading some of the other wills (which were organized not by date but by first name of the testator, which I only cottoned on to after wondering “was every woman named Elena and Elisabetta in the late 16^th century??); I quickly realized how formulaic they were.  The name of the testator, the name of their father and, if a woman, their husband, the place where they met with the notary, some expressions of religious sentiment, then any specific bequests plus the division of estates among heirs (often with second-, third- and even fourth-string heirs in case people have died, more of a concern then than now), and then the closing with witnesses.  The formulaic nature is actually extremely helpful because then you know what to expect of a particular will, even if you’re having trouble making out some words; for example, in Tintoretto’s I couldn’t make out this word that came after “being of good health and,” but realized after looking at another that the word was “intellect.”

The content of these wills was in general uninteresting.  Tintoretto’s of course was fascinating, since he left all of his property to his beloved wife Faustina--with admonitions to his children to obey her, and giving her authority to cut them out of her own will if they didn’t—except for all the things of his profession, which he left to his son Domenico, who would carry on the family workshop into the 17^th century. There was also a clause stating that Domenico would finish all of Jacopo’s unfinished commissions in the manner of his father, just as he had long been accustomed to doing during his father’s life to great honor—very interesting from the perspective of thinking about workshop practice and a painter’s personal ‘brand’.  Meanwhile, in a woman’s will, she left various pieces of jewelry to female relatives, only to add a later codicil retracting the gift of a pearl necklace—I had hoped there would be a gossipy reason, like ‘Madonna Elisabetta is a ho, she’s not getting my jewelry’ but it just said ‘the pearls are no longer in the house.’ Another aspect I was having trouble understanding at first was the closing; there aren’t really paragraph breaks or anything, so one minute they’ll be talking about executors and the next something about hospitals and pious places, and it took me a while to figure out that the notary was required (it’s stated in the will) to ask the testator if he or she wanted to leave money to religious institutions or the poor (even if they had already specified such earlier).  The responses are generally formulaic but one woman just wrote (I’d like to think, snarkily) “I have already left what I wanted to leave.”  In other words, quit hounding me, asshole.

I have learned a number of things from my archive experience—I love the feel of the soft paper, for one thing!  I read somewhere that paper in the early modern period wasn’t made from wood pulp but rather cloth, which may explain why it feels soft and not dry and crack-y.  That’s not to say it’s not dry and crumbly around the edges, of course.  Rae was amazed when I told her you don’t have to use ggloves to handle these 500-year old documents—it surprised me too, honestly.  I mean, you’re obviously supposed to handle it delicately and not touch the actual ink, but when you sit down with a giant busta or box and open it up (once you’ve managed to prie open all the strings tying the box together, and then the strings wrapped around the bundle inside; I actually couldn’t get the interior knot open, so I had to slide the loop of string off and hope I could reaffix it later), little bits of edges and things are cracking all over the place.  I also learned that the archives are very hot in summer.  The archive was once part of the Frari monastery complex, and the reading room was a refectory or chapel or something; one giant room, with no open windows or fans (lest the documents get the dreaded colpo d’aria, perhaps—Italians have a fanatical terror of drafts of air), so by afternoon all the hot air is just pressing down on you.  It was pretty awful.  I don’t think I could ever come here to do serious work in summer.  We went for lunch to a place across the street, Bar L’archivio, because they have a cold rice salad dish that Dr. Cooper can actually eat (celiac s have such a terrible time in Italy, it’s sad), and met a bunch of other scholars, including one, Allison Sherman, who is close to my age and just received her degree a couple of years ago.  She explained to me how she was so depressed her first six months of research that she used to buy a Twix from the vending machine every day, and eat it in the bathroom while she cried her eyes out before going back to the reading room.  Other people at the table nodded.  I was a bit apprehensive!

Jasmine and Nick came up to Venice for a couple of days this week.  We met up with a guy, Giancarlo, with whom Dr. Cooper and I had toured San Pietro in Castello, and who had been a classmate of Jasmine’s during the Venice Duke program (and the fact that I never got to participate in that because it lost funding is extra depressing after having seen all the connections Jasmine was able to make there); he’s working at a brand new institution, the Studium Marcianum, and was able to give us a tour.  It had an amazing view from the Zattere toward the Giudecca.  After lunch I ran some errands, including locating a real Italian hardware store with multiple floors (Rata, in Salizzada S. Lio, in case I forget in the future) to buy new earbuds (Carla had told me I should find a music store to buy them in, but Giancarlo disagreed and I decided to trust the native, who was right).  I also wanted to visit the single gluten-free shop in Venice, off Strada Nuova, but of course I hadn’t written down the actual address, just briefly glanced at the Google map, so I had to call Carla to look it up for me, and then of course when I find it, it’s closed for the afternoon break!  Even when I came back at 4 when it reopened, nothing! I had to camp out in what was basically an alley for 20 minutes until the shopkeeper showed up, but I was able to get her some nice amaretti cookies as a gift, so it was worth it.  She’s been so wonderful this whole time.

In the evening Jasmine had invited all of her friends in Venice to meet for a spritz, and I joined.  Four prosecchi later, we headed to meet Dr. Cooper and Tim for dinner, where of course more prosecco was waiting!  It was a fun dinner.  Jasmine observed later that my relationship with Coop has definitely reached a new level when I’m openly joking about how much I’ve had to drink, and I laughed and told her how Dr. Cooper advised that I sell my extra oxycontin pills for money!  Dr. Cooper has told me that there’s a difference in rapport just being together off campus, like in Princeton, and it’s even more different in Italy.  Needless to say, I’m loving it. 

Wednesday I went down to Florence with Jasmine to stay with our friend Suzanne.  Now, every Venetian I told that I was going to Florence had an expression of horror, “why would you do that?”  Carla has told me that Florence can be the hottest place in the peninsula in the summer, because it just bakes in the valley, and I believe her—getting off the train was like getting walloped in the face by a wall of heat.  Dry heat, to be fair, but heat all the same, 95 degrees every day. You’re basically forced to follow the shadows and avoid all but the most necessary exposure  to sun—you don’t cross the piazza, you walk around the perimeter under the loggias, in other words.  Jasmine and I took a taxi from the station to Borgo San Iacopo in Oltrarno where Suzanne’s apartment is.  This place was magnificent, first and foremost because of the air conditioning, set to a chilly 22-24 degrees, vs 36-38 outside.  Totally redone (entirely with IKEA furnishings and accoutrements, haha), with a microwave (rare in this country) and even an ice machine (which I would never have expected; I thought it was a breadmaker).  There was a comfy pullout couch for us to share, and a lofted bedroom and bathroom above that was really nice, double sinks and everything.  Of course, Suzanne paid through the nose for this luxury—2400 euro per month, and she stayed 6 weeks.  Jasmine and I were so grateful to her that we got to stay there!  Naturally the first thing we did on Wednesday was go to the grocery store for food and wine.  We ended up drinking three bottles, and time literally flew; it was 5pm and then suddenly it was 8:30, time for our skype date with our friend Cate, who showed us her baby bump—she’s having a boy!

 I was definitely feeling the effects of the wine when I woke up in the morning, no headache, just kind of dizzy before I had some tea.  I got to talk to Sean briefly, since he’s returned to his night owl ways and was going to bed when I was waking up.  The three of us went to Palazzo Pitti, which was awesome even if it was too hot to go into the Boboli Gardens.  After lunch Jasmine and I tried to go to Ognissanti, but it was inexplicably closed; we did make it to Sta Felicita before splitting up so Jasmine could go meet her undergrad advisor for a drink.  I went over to the thrift store by S. Lorenzo where I bought my coats to see if there was anything interesting, but no luck; likewise at the Paperback exchange.  That night we had dinner with Dr. Hall as well as Dr. Kline, another faculty member who we included only at Dr. Hall’s request, because he’s been weird in the past, but it turned out to be really fun (and Dr. Hall’s treat!) at Mamma Gina’s, downstairs from Suzanne’s place—this restaurant is enough of an institution that Dr. Hall said “oh, Mamma Gina’s!  My Mercedes was keyed outside of this place in 1963.”  Think about that statement. Haha. I had a delicious tagliata di manzo over arugula, and there was lots of wine, so I woke up yesterday morning with a throat like a smoker’s!  More tea cured that, too.

Yesterday was a pretty full day. Suzanne and I tried to go to SS. Annunziata to see Vasari’s painting of himself as Saint Luke, but were thwarted once again, arriving right as a Mass began.  We had lunch at a Greek place on Via San Gallo that I always looked at when I lived there but never went into; I had an insalata greca which came, as hoped, with a big ol’ block of feta on top!  Then Suzanne went off to meet Dr. Kline to take the bus to Villa I Tatti, which is Harvard’s research institute in the hills outside Florence.  It was the private villa of one of the most famous 20^th century art historian/connoisseurs, Bernard Berenson, who donated it to Harvard in his will.  Dr. Hall has been doing research there since the 60s, and is welcome as a former fellowship-holder (ex-borsista; a ‘borsa’ is a purse). The night before we floated the idea of Dr. Hall taking Suzanne and Dr. Kline to I Tatti—I did the floating, not on Kline’s behalf but on Suzanne’s.  Dr. Hall is not an involved advisor at the best of times, and Suzanne had told us she was worried Dr. Hall had written her off entirely.  Suzanne came into the master’s program in 2005, and because she has a mortgage, and a graphic design business, and usually at least two other jobs, she’s only now prepping for prelims for the fall.  There’s not a lot of appreciation among the faculty for how hard it is to do grad school without a fellowship.  I mean, I can hardly talk, since I had one, but I can imagine, and I give Suzanne credit for having to work so hard, but all Dr. Hall sees is that she’s not moving forward with the “real work.”  Anyway, Jasmine and I were trying to do for Suzanne’s exam panic what my friends did for me at RSA, and also encourage to put herself forward with Dr. Hall.  Hence the I Tatti idea, from which I excluded myself voluntarily when it became clear that Dr. Hall felt awkward about introducing even two random people into the center (it’s not like a walk-in library, more like an exclusive yacht club).  It turns out I apparently earned major brownie points with her for gracefully bowing out, though, go me!  And she promised me that the next time we’re in Florence together she’ll take me to get a card (Dr. Kline and Suzanne got registered and got reader cards, which are valid forever and hence like gold).

While she was off doing that, I went on a lovely tour of some sights, including San Lorenzo, the New Sacristy, Santa Croce (that Bronzino!!), and Casa Buonarroti, where I’d never been before.  Dr. Hall had emailed Suzanne in the morning about a possible dinner, and Suzanne had promised to call me when she got there, so as I’m walking home around 5 I thought it was odd I hadn’t heard.  I was hungry, so I stopped at the store, and as I’m finally walking into the blissfully cold apartment, she calls me on Dr. Hall’s cell, as hers had died.  They wanted me to come join them, but I needed to get to I Tatti by 6:15. That meant I had to catch the 5:50 bus from Piazza San Marco, clear on the other side of town, and it was 5:15, I was sweaty and gross and kinda tired.  But Suzanne didn’t want to be left to have dinner with Dr Kline and Dr. Hall’s creepy husband, so I said I’d try to make it.  I wound up taking a cab, because there was no way I could have walked in time, and caught the Settignano bus 2 minutes before it left.  So all was well, and Gerry picked us all up in the car from I Tatti and whisked us over to Maiano, where we sipped white wine on the balcony/patio of the apartment they’re renting, on this property with amazing views over the valley and an Olympic-sized pool (and dear god, how I wanted to dive in).  Then we had dinner at some restaurant up the hill where the food was delicious and the wine (and then limoncello, and then grappa for the men) flowed freely.  Dr. Hall and Gerry treated us once again, which was very nice of them, and we really had an awesome time, which more than made up for the serious hassle it was trying to get up there.  I nearly melted into a puddle of sweat on the bus, which was NOT air conditioned, and the whole way I was grumpily like “stupid dr hall, why do we have to have dinner there, argghhh.”  She even gave us a ride back to the city after dinner, since the buses had stopped running already (Suzanne and I had privately worried earlier that Gerry, who is tacitly understood as an alcoholic, was going to offer to drive us, and what we would say if he did.  Dr. Hall on the other hand, assured us she was ok to drive, but then said ‘and anyway, I’m one of those rare people who drives just beautifully when they’re intoxicated’ and we though, oh Christ…).  Then Suzanne and I strolled from Piazza San Marco, past Palazzo Vecchio, and over the Ponte Vecchio to her apartment.  It was a fabulous night.

I’ve spent so long writing this that we’re already in Padua!  We’ll be in Venice in 20 minutes.  It’s supposed to be in the 90s there too, and I doubt it’s dry like Florence.  Tonight is Dr. Cooper’s last night, and I’m having dinner with her, Tim, and Richard Schofield and his wife—and then tomorrow I’m on my own again!

Quick Update

I haven’t updated in some time!  Dr. Cooper is here now, so my social life has had a few more events in it.  Unfortunately I totally missed a book presentation that would have given me the chance to have dinner with Deborah Howard, an awesome architectural historian.  The next day, though, I attended a short conference at the Accademia on Giorgione which included the keynote speaker, Lionello Puppi, departing early in a huff because his ego hadn’t been accommodated properly.  Dr. Cooper introduced me to Piero Lucchi, head of the Correr library, who now makes slightly awkward small talk when he sees me (literally, the weather), and we had dinner with Debra Pincus and this girl Susannah who just finished her degree at Princeton.  Tuesday I had a delicious dinner at Algiubagio with Dr. Cooper and Bernard Aikema, after being embarrassed in an impromptu connoisseurship exam in his apartment.  On Wednesday, Susannah and I met up on S. Giorgio the other day so she could show me the Cini, including the fantastic replica painting of Veronese’s Feast at Cana, placed in the refectory from which Napoleon’s men stole the original and carted it off to Paris, never to return.  We also had a drink with more friends of hers, including Alison Sherman, a student of Peter Humfrey, and this expat Jill Weinreich who is very nice.  Yesterday I met Elena Svalduz, a friend of Dr. Cooper’s who works at the University of Padua; we tagged along with some students working on the Visualizing Venice project.  Later we went to IUAV where I met Donatella Calabi, along with two other women, Ludovica and Elisabetta, whose last names I need to discover, since Elisabetta has apparently worked on Titian and offered to introduce me to Augusto Gentili, but Dr. Cooper didn’t know her last name either.  Elena offered to meet with me when I go back to Padua, which I’ll be doing to scope out the Scuola del Santo again—it’s been batted around as a possible topic.  I’m not overly enthusiastic about it, mostly because I’m not sure what new directions I could take with it, but other people certainly seemed interested, so we’ll see.  I’m pretty much happy to have any kind of direction at all right now.   

I visited Vicenza last week, which so far has been my favorite place I've visited!  I'd never been there before.  Palladio's Teatro Olimpico was so awesome, monumentality packed into a pretty small space, that I just sort of sat there and stared around for a while, briefly wishing I worked on Palladio but not really.  I also walked 45 minutes out of town to see his Villa Rotonda, situated on a beautiful hillside. As usual, it would have been better if I'd had someone to share it with, but it was still good.

Carla was also here over the weekend, together with her mom on Saturday.  We actually had a drink with Dr. Cooper and her husband, which was only slightly surreal, my best friend sipping a spritz in my advisor's apartment!  We had a super-expensive drink on the terrace of Hotel Danieli with Carla's mother.  Mostly we wandered around the city, slowly, for two and a half days; it would have been more fun if we'd had distinct plans, but Carla's not that into churches and she's done most everything else there is to do.  However, it is a sincere luxury to be able to sit in a piazza with your friend, a bag of potato chips, and a bunch of mini bottles of not-even-chilled prosecco from the grocery store, with corks that pop so loudly that you frighten the little asian girl trying to take artful pictures of pigeons.  That's good stuff right there.

Villa Barbaro and Elsewhere

I left Venice early yesterday morning to avoid the naval festival that brought the Italian president to town last night (despite the promise of sailors in dress whites, even).  I took a regional train to a town north of Venice called Montebelluno, and then a bus to a very small town called Maser.  Once again there was the issue of how to figure out exactly when to push the button to request a stop.  This time I did ask the driver, who turned out to be of no help; I asked how many stops to Maser and he just said "un bel po'" which means "a good bit", and then even though there were only a handful of people on the bus definitely didn't deign to indicate when we were passing the Maser stop.  I mean I know he doesn't have to, but seriously, I just asked you ten minutes ago and am clearly not from around here!  But I hit the button and the next stop was mercifully shortly down the road.  Plus I passed a sign indicating a place selling local cherries, which I purchased a whole sack of on my  way back.

Maser is where Marcantonio and Daniele Barbaro commissioned Andrea Palladio to build first Villa Maser and later the adjacent Tempietto (which is a tiny central-plan church that's like a mini-Pantheon).  The villa was frescoed by Paolo Veronese and has stuccoes by Alessandro Vittoria, so basically it's a triumvirate of major artists working in Venice in the second half of the century.  It's still a private residence like most of Palladio's villas, so you can only go in the central frescoed rooms. (I caught sight of who I think was the current owner with her many lapdogs on the lawn of one of the side wings).  The villa is pretty stunnning and the frescoes are awesome, even if the rooms are smaller than what I'd imagined from illustrations.  I was particularly impressed by how light and airy it was, with a good breeze coming in from all the interconnected rooms and passageways.  Sadly, its being a private residence also meant you couldn't go onto the grounds, the majestic sloping entryway overlooking the landscape or the nymphaeum in the back.  Also, since the terrazzo floors are original, you have to put on these giant slippers and basically glide around, which was super weird!

There's also a carriage museum included in the ticket, in a small subsidiary building hidden up on the hill behind a villa.  My grandpa would have loved it, especially the big 16-seater mail coach that apparently traveled at 13 kph.  There were more types of carriages than I ever knew existed, from little 'lady's carriages' from France to ones specifically designed for hunting, plus a tiny Sicilian 'goat cart'.  Afterward, since there were a couple of hours to kill before another bus would come through, I went to the adjacent winery to do a wine tasting.  I learned from past mistakes and brought a book (Emma) this time, so I had something to do.  I tasted an awesome Prosecco, a white that was meh, and a good red made from the villa's grapes that was called, of course, Andrea Palladio.  I also learned that in Italy they give you chips and not crackers for a tasting, and I shamelessly ate them all.  Then I went and got my giant sack of cherries, which are pretty good, and apparently came from a mile away, but she would only sell me a kilo, not a half, so I got to carry them around the rest of the day.

Because of the capricious weather and unreliable meteorology, I've spent a lot of time hauling my umbrella around when I didn't need to.  I took it to Padua and Verona and it never rained.  Naturally, the time I look at the weather report and see rain maybe in late afternoon so I can leave it at home....nope. It's amazing how one's vim and vigor for adventure can be tamed by cold rain when one a) lacks umbrella and b) sleeves (it was also supposed to be in the upper 70s, but MORE LIES).  Thus, when I made it to Bassano del Grappa, home city of the Bassano family of artists, I basically took a few photos of their famous wooden bridge, designed by Palladio, ate lunch, and took a train back to Venice.  I mean, I still got home at like 6m after leaving at 8am, so it was a longish day, but I had had a list of things to do in Bassano--the civic museum, the grappa museum, a nature walk along the river--none of which I did, because I was cold, slightly damp, and unenthused by the prospect of walking on more wet cobblestones and trying to keep underneath the side eaves of buildings.  It wasn't even raining that hard, it was just the kind of situation where you suddenly want very much to be at home in something comfortable drinking tea.  Ironically, Venice was enjoying a beautiful evening of clear skies when I returned, naturally.

Other things I did this week: spent an afternoon talking only in Italian with Marsha, a girl I met at Middlebury who is also a PhD art history student; awkwardly stalked Gino Benzoni in the Correr library while unsuccessfully hoping he'll try to talk to me again; drank prosecco in an outdoor cafe, waiting for Debra Pincus' 5:30 lecture at the Ateneo Veneto, only to discover, at 5:30, that it was actually at the Instituto Veneto, several campi away; got yelled at by a very angry Italian woman for like an entire minute on the train for having put my feet up on the seats; grumbled to myself about how America does basically everything better except for the produce.  Also, fine, cheese, but I can't even try the ten thousand kinds of cheeses for sale at the grocery store because they all come pre-cut in these massive wedges, and though I'm sure I could eat that much cheese on my own, I know I should not.  It's my good fortune that they were out of feta today because I totally looked for it, good intentions be damned!

Verona

My trip to Verona, although tiring, was much more enjoyable than Padua's the day before.  I caught an 11am train (although that makes it sound so simple, when first I have to walk over to catch the bus into town, and then take a 45-minute vaporetto ride to the train station!) which got me there a bit after 1. Things did not look immediately positive, since the train/bus station in any city is usually unpleasant and depressing looking.

Aside: it was surprising how many non-white people there were at the bus stop, both African and South-east Asian, more than I've ever seen in Italy before in one place.  From reading the newspaper I've gleaned that African immigrants, in particular, are more integrated into the communities in this area, versus Venice, for example, where you will only see them on the streets selling knock-off bags. One of the books we read at Middlebury was the memoirs of a Senegalese guy named Pap Khouma, who was part of the first wave of the so-called "vucumpras" in the 1970s-80s. "Vucumpra" is a derogatory nickname for Africans, drawn from the way they say "Vuoi comprare?" or "You want to buy?".  My teacher told us it was an incredibly offensive term, and yet I saw it in a headline of the Corriere della Sera, one of the many signs of Italy's casual racism.  Let's not even start with something I read yesterday, about a member of the Lega Nord (a racist, xenophobic, yet influential political party that wants the northern, wealthier, whiter part of Italy to secede and become "Padania") who wrote on facebook in regards to an woman (an Italian citizen but of Indian descent) who was murdered by her husband for being "too Italian" (ie, she wore jeans and had a perfect Tuscan accent) and her body thrown in the river Po; this guy wrote something about how dare they pollute the Po, and would they like it if he went to the Ganges and threw in a cow's body?  Oh boy.  Even people inside Lega Nord are calling for his expulsion--not because they disagree with his sentiments, undoubtedly, but because it looks bad for a party that tries to insist it's totes NOT racist.

Anyway, close parenthesis, as the Italians say!  After waiting 15 minutes or so, the bus I wanted, that would take me to the somewhat distant church of San Zeno, finally showed up.  My foolish mistake was not asking the bus driver exactly where I should get off.  I figured since it was on the sign, it would be a prominent enough stop that other people would be getting off or something.  Wrong.  This is what I hate about using buses; if you're not familiar with where you're going it's not easy to figure it out, since you generally only see the sign on the bus stop as you're moving past it.  Again, I should have asked, but I didn't.  I was getting a little concerned, though, because this bus was clearly not in the center anymore, and I'm thinking "uh oh, I'm going to wind up getting off in some back corner of the city where everything will be closed because it's Sunday ahhh" when I caught sight of a big church.  I decided to assume it was San Zeno, signaled for the next stop, and backtracked.  It was!  Outside there was some kind of tournament going on.  The players were all kids, and the game, well I have no idea what it was, but it involved whacking a whittled wooden peg with a longer wooden stick so that the peg flew through the air (I got this much from watching the kids on the steps of the church, but in the tournament proper they seemed to be doing this in teams).  There was a woodcarving station where some men were helping young boys whittle their own pegs, and the *crack* of the wood impacting was all around.  Not everyone plays baseball I guess!

San Zeno is a gigantic Romanesque church with some cool frescoes inside, though I was there for the altarpiece by Mantegna (once again, though, stymied by a rope preventing you from going up on the dais).  From there I followed a road back into town to Castelvecchio, a huge fortress that houses the civic museum.  This was a waste of 6 euro, both because the art was meh and because there was a guard in literally EVERY room of the museum, all of them young, in uniforms even, and since I was practically the only person there, they followed me around.  It was awful.  The rooms were large and silent except for wooden floors that creaked, so I'd be looking at something and just hear the creak that meant a guard was staring at my back.  It was super awkward, and hard to enjoy the art when I knew there was someone watching me.  Finally I gave up on the last several rooms o the museum--the Renaissance and Baroque rooms no less--and just left.  So irritating.  I also wanted to snap at these people, but this is how you know you're not fluent, when you can't come up with cutting comments to people on the spot. Sigh.

My next stop was the Torre dei Lamberti, the tallest tower in the city with 368 steps.  It really wasn't a hard climb, since the stairs were modern; in contrast, Florence's campanile has 440 steps and tiny pie-slice medieval stone steps that you think you're going to fall down at any moment, and the view from the top was pretty awesome.  Coming back down I decided to race the elevator, and wouldn't you know it actually felt like it took me longer to go down than it did to go up?  I did hit the bottom about three seconds before the elevator did, though, so that made me feel pretty good.  After that I was hungry, since it was about 4, so I finally did what I'd been dreading since I reached this country: I ate lunch alone.  In order to do this, though I had to hunt for someplace that wasn't super-dark and empty with a single waiter lurking on duty, cause that just seemed awful.  I finally found a place that had a terrace over the Adige river, looking at the Roman theater on the other side.  Of course, it turned out to be just as awkward as I'd expected, because there were just a bunch of couples eating out there, one of which was making out.  Did I mention that Italians don't eat alone?  Anna Clara told us this last summer.  They don't understand that someone people enjoy eating alone, it's totally foreign to them.  I enjoy it, but not in public, and not when you're the only one who's sitting by yourself!  I had myself a glass of prosecco and then made Carla call me to keep to me company, haha.  Definitely a benefit of having an Italian cell phone.

After lunch I climbed to Castel San Pietro, the other highest point in the city, but found that to be full of PDA-ing couples too.  Argh. I swear people in this country give you a funny look if you're by yourself.  Well, by yourself without a canine companion, anyway.  After that I walked to the Roman arena, but opted not to go in, since Carla and I might come back here to see an opera in July.  I managed to lose my second bus ticket somehow, so I walked the 2km back to the station, where I had to wait over an hour anyway for a regional train by to Venice.  I got on a vaporetto around nine, just as the sun had set and the moon was coming out; by the time I got to the Lido it was quite dark.  Venice may look dreamy by moonlight but there's nothing less relaxing that the roar of a vaporetto engine in your ears, let me tell you!

So after my two days of adventure I decided to take it easy today.  I got up, went jogging, showered (and was surprised when the cleaning lady showed up a day early--I'm glad I was already in the bathroom because I have totally walked around topless in here!!), went downtown to buy groceries, drank tea, and blogged.  Tonight I'm meeting a girl from Middlebury at 6 for an unfashionably early dinner--she's a PhD student at Johns Hopkins.  It's interesting because we've never actually spoken in English, even on the phone today we spoke Italian. She's actually doing the higher level of the Midd program this summer, so I think she's going to want to speak Italian all night, which is fine.  It's just nice to have dinner plans with someone my age!!  Plus later I can walk around and enjoy Venice at night before I head home.

Padua

I had quite a busy weekend in the Shakespearean cities of Padua and Verona.  I visited both with Meredith, Carla, and Anna six years ago, and this was my first return.  One was definitely worth the visit, but the other not so much.

After a Friday that concluded in rather desultory fashion (I discovered there is a limit of six books you can request per day at the Marciana, which is kinda ridiculous), I headed out early on Saturday to go to Padua, which is only 20 minutes away if you're on the fast train, but closer to an hour if you take the regional (which costs a third as much).  Guess which I picked?  I got into town a little before 11:30, which was fairly good timing, as it gave me time to visit both the Santo and the Scuola del Santo (to which Titian contributed three frescoes in his younger years).  I went to the Scuola first, because I had been worried it might be closed; June 2 is a national holiday celebrating the republic in Italy, and several of the sites I wanted to see weren't open.  But open it was, and I had the room to myself for maybe 15 minutes, which was really cool.  Then I went into the Santo, the formal name of which is the Basilica di Sant'Antonio, but it's such a famous pilgrimage shrine that it's known simply as the Santo.  Saint Anthony was Portuguese, if memory serves, but he died not far from Padua, and the townsfolk seized the opportunity to get his body; he was holy enough in life that everyone must have expected he'd be made a saint, which he was.  (Having the relics of an important saint meant big money from pilgrims, so this was a blend of market savvy and religious fervor, as so often happened back in the day)

Anyway the basilica itself is massive, Gothic and imposing.  Donatello left not only the statue of Gattamelata, the first Renaissance equestrian bronze, in the piazza outside, he sculpted the bronze reliefs and statues for the altar.  Unfortunately, as in almost any church that's still in use, you're never allowed to go up onto the altar to get a closer look.  In fact, both  of my visits to the Santo have been during a Mass.  Typically in Italian churches there's a sign saying that visits are suspended during services, but the Santo is a true pilgrimage church.  One of the innovations of Gothic architecture was the ambulatory, which, as the name sugests, allowed you to walk around the perimeter of the church without going into the nave; in this way you could visit the small chapels radiating behind the altar (usually filled with relics) without disturbing worshippers.  That's exactly how it still works in the Santo today; you file in and head either left toward his chapel or right toward the cloister.

The Chapel of Saint Anthony is a Renaissance marvel in white marble, with nine panels in relief by some of the greatest sculptors working in the area: Tullio Lombardo, Giulio Campagnola, and Jacopo Sansovino.  These panels were what I came to see, but the focal point for everyone else is the altar containing the saint's body. A line passes by the box where you're invited to leave your offerings of candles (you can buy them outside in the square, from tiny votives to massive 30-euro monsters), then the displays of votive offerings and thousands of photographs of loved ones left by pilgrims, and then goes behind the altar, where everyone passes their hand over the green stone of the rear slab.  Some people kiss it; the woman in front of me did so and then stood with her forehead and palms against it for several minutes.  You see people on crutches or in wheelchairs, parents bringing in sick or disabled children--they really believe that proximity to the saint will help them and their loved ones.  From the anthropological point of view these kinds of rituals are fascinating, but from the subjective standpoint of a non-believer I find them kind of sad. Do they feel disappointed, when their loved ones aren't cured?  I wavered on whether I should touch the slab, too (when in Rome) but I didn't.  If nothing else--germs.

Unfortunately for those pilgrims hoping to get up close and personal with Anthony's relics (I remember his voicebox being among the items on display in jeweled reliquaries), the ambulatory behind the altar was closed. I read later in the paper that it's because they're constructing an earthquake-proof tunnel for pilgrims.    Some pieces of fresco actually fell down during the last round of quakes. Fresco is seriously at risk during earthquakes; most famously, at the Basilica of St Francis at Assisi, the earthquake of 1995 or 1997 sent the frescoes that are usually assigned to Giotto crashing to the floor (there's actually video of it happening in a massive cloud of dust).  They've been reconstructed, but still. (More on this in a moment)

Since the relics were out, I skirted back around to visit the cloister, but before I reached it I got scolded by a rather corpulent priest, who said "Miss, cover yourself, please!"  Now, I was wearing a top with sleeves that covered my shoulders.  I've always understood that to be the rule: no bare knees or shoulders for either gender.  There were guards at the door and they didn't say anything to me, but apparently this priest found my bare arms unseemly.  It annoyed me, part of me wanted to say something sharp, but it's also his house, not mine, so whatever.  I put on my sweater.  The woman next to me, though, was wearing a sleeveless top, and he ordered her to leave the church--then complained to a nearby guard why the ones at the door weren't doing their job!  I was luckier than her anyway.

 It was warm in Padua, and kind of muggy, even though it was also overcast.  I hauled my umbrella along both days because rainstorms were predicted, but nary a drop. When the sun came out it was quite hot.  Luckily the Paduan streets are full of covered loggias, and it's striking the temperature difference when you're underneath one.  The air even seems less humid.  It's interesting to note these particular characteristics in various cities.  Neither Verona nor Florence, for example, have such a great quantity of loggias.  One of the things I recall most fondly about Florence, for example, was that they tended to build buildings with these massive projecting cornices at the top, to the effect that when it rained you stood a pretty good chance of being able to walk on the sidewalk without feeling a drop until you had to cross a street.  Venice has none of these; when it rains, it comes right down.

Padua is the setting for Taming of the Shrew, lines of which I saw etched onto a building in the center of town.  It's also home to one of the oldest universities in Europe.  The university not only boasts a famous botanical garden (they've got plants that have been alive since the 16th century!) but also the surgical theater that hosted the Renaissance anatomist Vesalius.  Both were closed, which sucked.  You definitely get the sense of it being a university town, though, namely in the graffiti on everything, much of it communism-related (including one: "communism you are everything I want, nothing more"--what do these kids think happened in the USSR, exactly?) and also against TAV, the planned high-speed rail line that clearly has people up in arms.  I didn't find Padua particularly attractive, really, and there wasn't all that much to do.  I didn't feel like paying 13 euro just to have 15 minutes in the Arena chapel (been there), and I found myself wandering aimlessly during that terrible afternoon period where everything seems to be closed except for cafes.  I was tempted to just find one and sit down for a glass of wine, but I wanted to have something to read first, so I found myself in Feltrinelli, where I bought a copy of Emma in Italian.  But then I couldn't find a cafe that was a) open, b) welcoming-looking and c) not already full of large groups of loud people.  No vino for me.

My last stop was the church of the Eremitani, next to the Arena chapel.  Inside there's a chapel frescoed by Andrea Mantegna--or rather, the remains of the frescoes, since the altar-end of the church was destroyed by an American bombing in 1944.  There are pictures on the walls of the nave, and it's pretty incredible--it's just a gaping hole.  During the 1990s, an effort began to piece Mantegna's frescoes together again from the pieces that survived.  What they've done is pretty cool; basically the walls are overlaid with a faint, black and white reproduction of the paintings as they were originally, and then the surviving fragments have been grafted onto it.  It's amazing that they were able to reconstruct this, even if there are huge portions missing but then again, that's the work my friend Agnes is doing right now somewhere in the Egyptian desert!

All in all, Padua was kind of unimpressive.  This is undoubtedly due in part to the unpleasant weather and the number of sites I couldn't visit due to the holiday, but also the city itself just isn't very appealing.  Boo to Padua!

Misc Observations

The newspaper that I purchase is the Corriere della Sera, which I consider the best only because I know Dr. Cooper gets it delivered at home in the US (how much that possibly costs I have no idea).  It costs about $1.50; I can’t recall at the moment what the NYTimes costs right now, but it might be the same. I was surprised to realize is that the newspaper is full of color: all the (very plentiful) photos are in color, and there are colored borders and titles.  That must be ridiculously expensive to print—only the front page of most of our newspapers are ever in color.  Also, their use of photographs often amuses me.  They illustrate even when no illustration is needed at all; for example, they’ll throw a picture of a Renaissance painting into an article on family relationships or something.  Any individual who is named in an article seems to get a photograph, but it doesn’t need to be one taken recently, or in any way formal.  They often choose really random photos of people, too.  Today’s paper had an article on how the premier, Monti, suggested in half-jest that maybe soccer should be abolished for 2-3 years, after the breaking of a huge corruption scandal.  The article was accompanied by not one, not two, but three successive snaps of the premier in the act of combing his hair. WTF?  More apropos was a candid photo of a banker who was just arrested for corruption—he’s near a pool, from the lounge chairs, but in a suit, and holding up his hands in a “not me” gesture!

Italy has an aging population, as is well known, but the Lido, especially, is full of the olds.  It’s like Venice’s retirement community or something. What amazes me about them is how active they are—you always see old people walking (slowly) around; they might be using canes and walking at a glacial pace, but they’re out there and doing their grocery shopping.  You do of course see some people in wheelchairs (I saw some nurses wheeling a whole fleet of them down a promenade by the water, three wheelchairs abreast), but I still marvel when I think of Sean’s grandmother, sitting in front of her TV all day, in comparison with these people.  Obviously there are many factors of difference—there’s somewhere within walking distance here, for one thing, which is not really the case in New Haven, but on a larger scale I think there’s just a different cultural expectation of what it means to be old here.  The Italians, while nurturing a healthy respect for their elders, seem to continue to expect them to function in ways that I think we simply don’t.  Elevators? Handicapped ramps?  Grocery home delivery and take-out food?  In your dreams.  Venice is one of the least-accessible cities I’ve ever seen, what with its ten thousand tiny bridges (not that it stops the hordes of people with baby carriages, brave souls), and yet there are old people everywhere.  I’ve read that the way your body ages is a reflection of how you conceptualize getting old—if you think old age means decline and weakness, you will be weaker even if there’s nothing wrong with you.  I think we infantilize old people and they react accordingly.  I wonder if there’s any way to make our society more like theirs, without of course ripping out all the accessibility features and telling the handicapped ‘too bad, learn to walk’?

Finally, a word on tourists. Yes, I am one myself, but I don’t stop abruptly in the middle of a very crowded, very small bridge to take a photo of me and my five friends while everyone else tries not to crash into me.  That is so annoying, and it seems to happen every five steps!  Argh.  It really is a pleasure to come back to the Lido every afternoon.  It may be less ancient but it’s certainly got room to breathe.

Primo Passo

Today was my first day using the Marciana.  It is a complex process trying to get a book in this place.  First of all you can’t bring a bag in (theft), so you lock your bag in a locker and take the key.  Then you’re supposed to swipe your card with the portiere in a glass both—except I didn’t know this part, and even though I’d marched in and out all day without a problem, once in the afternoon she yelled at me for not having swiped.  See, this is where the lady who gives you your card should probably have given me this info, but no.  Once inside the huge reading room, which is basically a courtyard in the center of the Zecca or mint (the glassed roof is three stories up), you find a spot at one of the huge wooden tables and attempt to discreetly plug in your netbook with the giant white converter plug attached (see, even my laptop marks me as an outsider!).  To request a book, you have to fill out a slip that includes the Marciana’s private call number system. You can submit two slips at a time, with your card, to the correct office (I was looking for ‘modern books’), and then check back to pick them up within a half an hour. Some of these books, the most general ones, are in the reading room in large stacks, but I didn’t know that till I tried to turn in a request; luckily the lady in this office was nice to me (even though she complained about my handwriting at first because I wrote too small, and I don’t put a slash through my 7s--my 7s don’t look like 1s, but theirs seem to) and explained it.  

It’s not really quiet in there, despite it being a library—it’s so big, there are so many people, and the sounds of doors closing, books being dropped, chairs being scraped, etc made me happy for my earplugs.  Lots of university students go there to do work, and they seemed to be filling half of the seats.  Dr. Cooper suggested another smaller library as student-friendly, and I might check that out next week, but I feel like I shouldn’t abandon the Marciana after only one day.

The biggest problem for me seems to be food, especially lunch. My breakfast is a crusty roll with jam and some blood orange juice, but I always get hungry mid-morning.  I’ve been making these little sandwiches to bring with me for lunch with pesto, mozzarella and prosciutto but while delicious, they are both tiny and unhealthy (though to be fair my entire diet here, despite plentiful consumption of fruit and veggies, is pretty high in saturated fat; there’s a block of feta in the fridge I was nibbling before dinner.  It’s just so good!!).  Today I went out to my locker midmorning, ate a handful of almonds (they don’t salt them here, alas), and then came back out to eat my little sandwich like an hour later, sitting on the steps.  I should mention that the Marciana is in  St. Mark’s square, so when you come out of the entrance you’re under the very crowded loggia with all the over-priced cafes.  I think Harry’s Bar, a favorite haunt of Hemingway’s, is the one directly adjacent to the Marciana entrance; the sounds of their four-piece orchestra playing that “buonasera signorina, kiss me goodnight” song accompanied my lunch!  The problem was that I both got restless and peckish around 2:30 in the afternoon.  I stuck my laptop in a locker and took the key (which I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to do) and went for an hour-long jaunt, during which time I ate a slice of pizza—and that was only because the French bakery I found yesterday had put away their croissants already, it being unfashionably late in the day to eat one (I actually heard—and understood—a barista making fun of someone who had ordered a cappuccino in the afternoon the other day!)

So clearly I need to work on my lunch-bringing skills.  At home I would bring a jam sandwich (no peanut butter for me), a banana, and some granola bars.  There are some granola bars in the grocery store, but they’re not cheap, and don’t look particularly tasty, not like my delicious oatmeal raisin ones at home.  Sandwich bread does exist here, but it’s in these tiny, square loaves that contain the whitest and most processed-looking bread you’ve ever seen; I used it in Florence, but only to toast in a frying pan in the mornings.  You can certainly buy big loaves and cut your own, but the downside of zero preservatives means their bread goes hard super-fast, and I doubt I’d be able to finish a loaf quickly enough. I did finally buy some bananas today, at least.  I hadn’t before because they just seem so prosaic to eat here, when there are such delicious oranges and other fruits; alas, the banana not only travels well in the purse, but makes much less mess than an orange.  What I really need to do is acquire some Tupperware so I can bring pasta, like I saw a woman doing today, sitting in the Marciana foyer on the base of one of the 16^th century statues, calmly eating her lunch. Where does one buy the Tupperware?  Not in the grocery store.  Possibly Schlecker, which is kind of like a giant (German) CVS, though it also sells some food (and wine, of course).  Anyway, the food odyssey will continue. 

Step One

Today I made the first step toward being scholarly, by registering at the national library, the Museo Correr, and the state archives.  It’s pretty intimidating, these grandiose reading rooms full of serious-looking university students and grey-headed researchers poring over these massive books, and me feeling like I have a neon sign over my head that says AMERICAN.  I went to the Marciana library first, and luckily Dr. Cooper had told me the name of a friend who works in the manuscript room, because the woman who gave me my library card told me nada and was quite unfriendly looking.  This woman, Betty, chatted with me for 20 or 30 minutes and explained how everything worked; like at the NY public library, you can’t go in the stacks, you have to submit a request for the books you want.  They still have card catalogs, though a lot of material is online.  There are separate offices for modern books (1850-onward), old books, and a separate wing for manuscripts.  I’m sure I’m going to make a thousand mistakes!  My goal for the week is 30 hours.  It’s going to rain for five days, so I feel like this will not be a super difficult goal to achieve!!

Roman Holiday

So I’m back from my Roman holiday!  My train was somewhat delayed in Rome, the cause of which, it turned out, was another earthquake near Ferrara, 5.8, which was followed later by another only slightly weaker one.  All the trains had to be shut down in the north to make sure that everything was stable.  I heard on the radio about one small village where something like 70 percent of the buildings had been destroyed.  The woman next to me on the train in Rome had a tablet and pulled up a video of the quake; it was only a moment, but how violent it seemed!  Obviously in Rome we didn’t feel anything, but when I got home Elsa said it set the chandelier to shaking.

I was kind of grumpy about taking the slow inter-city train back instead of the fast, new, but very expensive train I’d taken down, but I actually enjoyed the return voyage much more.  I’d mixed up the IC and Regional trains in my head; the Regionals are the most busted and rather unpleasant to travel on, if memory serves, while the IC trains are the ones I remember best, with individual compartments of six seats each.  Of course, you used to be able to choose your seat, where now it was assigned, and my ticket was also just a text message on my phone--so the times, they are definitely a-changing.  The fast train was more annoying because everyone was so noisy; it’s an open carriage, and I seemed to be sitting in the car marked ALL-AMERICAN TOURIST CARRIAGE because there seriously seemed to be maybe a handful of Italians in the whole place.  The people I was sitting with were quite nice adults, but just behind us were a passel of Florida college girls who carried out conversations at super high volume for most of the way, including one girl who took it upon herself to read Rick Steeves aloud to the assembled company “Ok, so, he says the Colosseum was built by the Roman emperors as an amphitheater—we DEF have to go there, guys—and there were gladiatorial fights and….”  Obviously you’d be even more screwed if you got stuck with the lot of them on the IC train in your compartment, but I was lucky.  Everyone was chatty about the earthquake, though, of course. 

As the train made its way north there were fewer passengers; after Bologna just me, a guy, and a woman who had had so much plastic surgery on her face, she looked like a milder version of Jocelyn Wildenstein from Dlisted.  I had to try so hard not to stare at first—she had the massive implanted cheeks, and the tightened, upturned eyes, and she even had the surgical tape or whatever around her eyes, indicating a recent procedure!!  It was pretty hideous, but she turned out to be extremely friendly and chatty, and not an Italian by origin but a Russian who moved here 12 years ago to forget an old flame (this is the kind of conversation you can get into on public transit; with very little prompting you get the story of nights spent weeping over lost love, or, as on the bus in Rome yesterday, with absolutely NO prompting you get a diatribe from an old lady about how times have changed since she was young—pizza everywhere!!), which undoubtedly explains why I had an easier time understanding her than the Italian guy, who got off at Padua, so it was just the two of us until Mestre.  She complimented my Italian, but I have been humbled enough to know that it is not great.  Carla says the accent will take you further than knowing the proper pronunciation of the words, but that’s not something they just teach you, you know?  Anyway, the ride was pleasant.  I had been assigned the window seat, which was perfect, and brought along a bag of snacks plus my recent acquisition of il Grande Gatsby, which I would have finished if I hadn’t started talking to the woman (who, in another display of how these conversations go, wished me a florid farewell before getting off the train, telling me I was beautiful and to have luck in everything)

My time in Rome with Carla was really great.  I feel like I did both a great deal and nothing at all!  I haven’t been there in three years, so I really enjoyed re-familiarizing myself with the city, and I had a wonderful time revisiting certain key places I loved.  There was a certain lack of planning; I didn’t remember to look into booking a Borghese ticket until it was too late and they were sold out, which was probably my biggest regret.  Also I did not expect 60-degree freezing rain in Rome, like yesterday; had I brought my single pair of jeans?  Nope!  Carla and I went to the Protestant cemetery, although the place didn’t strike her with the same kind of evocative melancholy that it does me (she enjoyed making friends, or attempting to do so, with the cats who live in the sanctuary there).  We had a theological discussion underneath S. Niccolo in Carcere, checking out the Roman road and ruins that underlie part of the church structure.  We also visited Sant’Ivo on Sunday, the only day it’s open; took the bus yesterday in the rain to the distant mausoleum of Santa Costanza; and saw the Tintoretto show, where she patiently listened to all of my hard-won knowledge from exams.  There was also just a goddamn ton of walking, which is wonderful in the Roman sun!

Things have changed; things have stayed the same.  The Euro-cent Paradise was still there on Via Ripetta, for example (always a good place to grab a bottle of water), and so is the gelato place on Largo Argentina, where the vanilla has figs in it, apparently, which might explain why it tastes deliciously different than others.  The cost of the metro has gone up to 1.50; construction is in evidence on Line C, but Carla, with all the cynicism of a native, swears it’ll never happen.  The guided tour I once got at S. Niccolo in Carcere is now self-guided with a pamphlet and some wall panels, which was a bit less exciting.  The Pan di Stelle cookies of which Sara was always such a fan didn’t taste the same as I remembered (I bought a bag for the train, ate two, and blech!), and neither did…drumroll…Diet Coke, of which I had my first sips in going on two and a half years, when Carla and I had lunch at, of all places, yes, a McDonalds.  It was cold, rainy, and we were both starving when we got back from Santa Costanza, and the bus dropped you off right in front.  Sue me.  Hamburger and fries (this being Europe you have to pay .20 per ketchup packet, though).  I can’t even remember the last time I ate in a McDonalds (I’d like to say it might be as far back as when I was in Florence, because I went in there from time to time for a soft serve, for which I got weird cravings for some reason).  Anyway, I didn’t get a drink, but Carla got a diet coke, and I had two sips.  It was so gross!  It tasted like Pepsi, it was so sweet.  Granted, this was the fountain version of what is already, according to Carla, a hyper-sweetened variant of our acidic Diet Coke, but still.  If I was expecting any emotional reunion between myself and the once-beloved nectar, I was sorely mistaken.

The other part of our time together involved food and alcohol, both in large quantities.  Carla and I are both prodigious snackers and a terrible influence on each other.  We watched the Avengers, and not only had I eaten a bag of chips earlier, we managed to split an entire block of feta plus a box of tomatoes between us!  Granted that was dinner (instead of the chicken and potatoes we’d bought; Carla made that last night), but still.  Bad influences.  One of us gets up to get something to nibble on, and the other says oh hey, you can just bring that over here. We also drank a lot of wine—I took it upon myself to revisit the Trionfale market, where we shopped when I was here three years ago, and brought back a huge bottle of the vat wine (3 euro and it was delicious); we drank that plus at least two other bottles, plus whatever we drank out at dinner.  It was a lot. 

Other activities included me using her wonderfully fast real internet (sniff!), watching Sense and Sensibility, having dinner with Jasmine and Nick in Testaccio, and going to an boat party on the Tiber—which was not as fun as it sounds. Carla is still quite broken-hearted about Justin.  I didn’t realize just how sad she’s been until I was there, since apparently she feels the need to be much more stiff-upper-lip when we’re on the phone or emailing, so I’m glad we got to spend so much time together and she could talk it out.  I miss Carla already!  And Rome!  Sigh. 

Now I'm listening to a big thunderstorm that is quite literally rattling the windows--those wooden slats that Europeans draw down over the windows to ward off the sun?  Also have a high propensity to rattle with the wind and thunder, I'm learning.  I was watching what I could see of the sky for a bit, and it looked amazing when the lightning lit up the sky (it's not even raining); I so wish I could dash around the corner to see what the lagoon looks like when it's lit up by lightning, but I'm not stupid.  Once the neighborhood was filled with the creaking sounds of other residents lowering the slats, I decided to put mine down too.  Holy crap, there was just a big boom of thunder and that RESOUNDED in my room.  The slats and the window rattled.  First earthquakes now this!  

Auguri!

            Yesterday was our three year wedding anniversary!  Not our finest showing, considering I’m on the other side of the Atlantic from my husband, but he was sweet enough to write me a poem (not sweet enough to do it without jokes, though, hmph)!  As always, it both feels like yesterday and like a lifetime ago. Then again, we've been together for almost seven and a half years--even if, as Sean notes, we've had to be apart for a lot of that time.  Doesn't matter--I'm still the luckiest woman in the world.  :-)

Yesterday morning was not auspicious here; since the forecast promised an afternoon in the upper 70s with perhaps a morning shower, I took my umbrella but wore only a tank top and light sweater (my only shirts with sleeves were still on the drying rack anyway).  It was fine when I left, but an hour or so later the temperature dropped and it started to rain.  Adding insult to injury, I couldn't seem to find the church I was looking for, and wound up having to waste a vaporetto ride going back down the Grand Canal to Rialto so I could cross to the other side (all the guidebooks tell you you can cross on the traghetto, the standing gondolas, and they're marked on the maps and you see the signs at the waterfront, but I've never seen one in action, and waited fruitlessly hoping one would appear at S. Marcuola).  On the plus side, in some back street in S. Polo that I will never find again, I bought a couple of calzonini for lunch, which, as they sound, are mini calzones! Mine were stuffed with cooked peppers and were delicious.  Luckily, the sun came out and it warmed up shortly thereafter, otherwise my day would have been quite depressing indeed.  I found a couple of used bookstores, visited SS. Giovanni e Paolo, and discovered (somehow I had not known this) that the Scuola di S. Marco, attached to the church, is now Venice's hospital. 

Today I'm off to Rome to spend five days with Carla!  This may be the longest stretch we've spent together since I visited her in Florence, and that was four years ago.  Wow. 

I Feel Like Titles Are Going to Become a Problem

So the house is a little more full at present than before, since Joanne, the historian through whom I found the place, is here for a few days before she and Elsa go on a cruise.  I came out of the bathroom after drying my hair to find not only her, but also another woman, Rebecca, who works in18th century literature, in the kitchen with her son--she's another "graduate of Elsa's" as they said, having lived with her a couple times over the years.  They're leaving for a two-week cruise on May 30, so it kinda works out neatly that I'm going to Rome for five days on Thursday--it's not a big place.

This morning I decided to actually try following one of the itineraries in Lorenzetti, the guide suggested by Dr. Cooper that encompasses not only only history and the artistic contents of churches and museums but facades, bridges, points of interest, etc. The book was originally written in the 1930s and updated in the 1960s, so there are occasionally things that have changed, but on the whole it's accurate.  Mostly I did church-hopping, although at one point both my map and his directions were so unclear that I wound up in the city library's courtyard and not the Scuola di S. Giorgio like I'd intended.  I also went to Murano, the island of the glassmakers, briefly in the afternoon, before calling it an early day in favor of trying to go jogging, emphasis on "try."  Ugh.  How unpleasant.  Sean tells me it gets less awful, but I don't know if I'll have any willpower to keep doing it once it gets warm--today was another cool day.

I finally managed to do my scarf Italian-style this morning!  I was kind of proud of myself for that.  One less way I look out of place, which is something I've been weirdly obsessed with on this trip, and I think it's because I'm by myself; when you're with someone else, speaking English, not only is there no hiding your identity, but there's also a sense of safety in numbers that the solo traveler lacks.  Of course, my lack of skinny jeans (preferably with rolled cuffs that are stuffed behind tongues of poofy Nikes), and inability to wear a leather jacket on a warm afternoon in direct sunlight, will never stop marking me as an outsider.  Or, you know, I could just open my mouth and attempt to speak!

I did have brief conversations with two people today.  One was a fruit vendor who was selling, like most other fruit vendors, cherries as ciligie.  I asked him why the first cherries I'd bought here were badoere instead.  At first he had no idea what I was talking about, but when I insisted I'd seen this in Venice, he said it might have something to do with where they're from.  Treviso, the first vendor had said.  Ah!  Badoere is a place near Treviso.  Voila.  Not a Venetian nickname at all like I'd thought.  The other person I talked with was the guy monitoring the scuola of S. Giorgio.  I learned that the scuola still exists today and that you can only join if you're of Dalmatian descent (the scuola was S. Giorgio degli Schiavoni, or St. George of the Slavs).  Kind of like the Masons in doing charity, except they only meet once a year (and no word on elaborate dress-up costumes).

Not Even the Rain

Today was a very wet day.  I really wasn’t prepared for this much cold, rainy weather; I mean, Venice at this time of year is usually already in the upper 70s, but the whole region is having the same weird weather we were having earlier, I guess.  So out I go, wearing no fewer than four layers (tank top, cardigan, hoodie, raincoat, plus a scarf in the morning when it is most chilly—I only brought one of those, too!).  Actually, it wouldn’t be bad at all except for the wind, which really buffets you when you exit into a campo (Venetians call their squares ‘fields’ and not piazzas because they were once grassy) or along a fondamenta (a broad street running along a canal or the open water).  Also, once it began to really rain in earnest in the afternoon, the streets began to become rather waterlogged.  Venice has flagstones and not the cobblestones of many other cities, a fact for which I’m grateful, but there are still plenty of uneven places for water to build up.  Ironically, my feet remained dry (even though my pants were damp) until I was back on the Lido and—I thought—safe, until I accidentally stepped in a big dirty puddle on the sidewalk and kicked muddy water over the tops of my shoes.  Blech.

I realized one reason I’ve probably been so tired lately—I can’t sleep for crap on this tiny mattress.  Not only did I continually wake up, I remembered it later.  Things make more sense now.  I don’t know why I have trouble, though, since, as Sean is always quick to note, I can typically sleep anywhere (napping I cannot manage, but real sleeping, not a problem—as long as it’s not a plane).  I mean, it’s not the least comfortable mattress I’ve ever slept on (that honor might go to the one in Rome) even though it’s certainly the smallest—twin doesn’t even cover it, it’s like a twin junior!

Anyway, I still managed to get up at 7 so I could get to the Accademia shortly after it opened at 8:15.  It was really a pleasure to be alone in the galleries, especially in front of Giorgione’s Tempest and La Vecchia, and later Titian’s Pieta, not least because I could snap photos unobserved!   The museum is composed out of the shell of what was once the church of the Carita and its attached confraternity, or scuola, as well as some new buildings.  One of the rooms of the scuola, the Albergo, has basically been maintained with its same decoration since the 16^th century, a cycle of paintings including Titian’s awesome Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple.  I was really looking forward to seeing it, but I walked into the Albergo to discover it was completely bare—quite literally; you could see the exposed brick behind the support structures for the paintings!  I knew the Presentation was being conserved by Save Venice because Rosand told us, but I thought it was being conserved in situ.  Nope.  They stripped all the paintings out of the room.  The sign encouraged you to appreciate the carved wooden ceiling, instead.  Sigh. There were a  couple of other disappointments; I was annoyed to find some Tintorettos missing, till I realized they’re in the show I’ll be seeing in Rome, but it was  a real blow to walk into the room with Veronese’s ginormous feast picture and see it covered by scaffolding (no laboratory conservation for this monster picture). 

I got a really cool picture of a detail of an early 16^th-century Mansueti painting of a miracle that took place in Venice, where on the side of a church there’s a scrap of paper reading “House for Rent, 5 ducats.” (I would never have noticed it, much less been able to decipher it, except for the label!) I don’t know exactly how much 5 ducats was worth in 1503, but it sure as hell wouldn’t go far in the expensive Venice of today.  I paid 5 euros today for the pleasure of two cups of tea—more than eight dollars!  I’ll admit it: I miss Starbucks here, or at least small quiet cafes where you can sit and read the paper and drink inexpensive tea and no one looks at you funny.  Café-going is a social activity here; even at 10am the atmosphere is loud and jocular, and anyone alone is just grabbing a quick stand-up cappuccino at the bar.  Plunking myself down and spreading out the Corriere della Sera, I’m afraid, already made me look kind of weird, and then my struggle to order tea (I learned that te’ is different from tisana, even if the waiter’s explanation of the actual difference went by too fast for me to get) because god forbid you not want a simple caffe. 

This was my first time in a café on this voyage, and I remembered why I don’t like them; I always feel intensely out of place, like there’s some subtle code of behavior that I’m not enacting properly.  I couldn’t remember if I should wait to catch a waiter’s eye before sitting down, how to get another cup (bring it up? Signal him to come to me?), or what to do with my cup when I was done (leave it on the table?  Bring it up to the bar?).  The waiter was nice (for an Italian waiter) but I still sensed the pity for this poor girl who can read the newspaper but can’t order tea! (I’ll have to have Carla give me a tutorial in Rome). My finances will not permit more cups of tea in a café, but no big loss.  I did stop by the store and pick up tea bags on the way home; however, since Elsa lacks a tea kettle (how many Italians have those, I wonder) I made tea in a saucepan! Now I wish I’d brought more packets of Truvia, if the rainy weather is to continue.   Of course, I’d probably not drink tea before leaving home unless I was sure I was headed somewhere where I could use a bathroom for free (at least got that much out the café!).

I had another “learning experience” in the post office at the Lido, where I stood like an idiot for a few seconds before realizing you have to take a number from the machine like you’re at the deli counter.  I waited till my number showed up on the electric screen, but for some reason two numbers showed up concurrently for the same service window, and this old woman dashed in front of me, presumably holding the other number, and proceeded to carry out a long transaction.  (Post offices here do more than mail; credit cards, loans, getting your pension payment, etc all happens at the post office).  I waited patiently, but when she left, the woman behind the counter hit the button and—presto!—a new, third number appeared, and a guy swiftly materialized in front of her.  I lost my turn and I have no idea how.  Was I supposed to go before the little nonna?  No clue.  I was both annoyed and embarrassed, and left rather than go through the process again—all for the sake of some damned stamps for postcards I haven’t even bought yet.  However, Carla told me that you definitely can still buy the foreign stamps at the tabaccherie, as I remembered; no idea why that other lady told me different.  Carla suggested “because she’s Italian??”

Elsa is not exactly proving a helpful companion in the language department.  We did have a conversation when I came home today about the earthquake and the Brindisi attack, but when I was asking her to show me how to use the washing machine, I couldn’t remember the idiomatic expression for doing laundry, so I asked (in several ways) if there was an Italian phrase for washing your clothes.  She didn’t seem to get what I was asking, and then said no, no such phrase—but I knew there was, because I learned it at Middlebury from Anna Clara, the fierce Neopolitan teacher who lived in Meeker with us.  Later I checked my dictionary—fare il bucato!  Also useful: lavare i piatti, for washing the dishes.

Quiet Sunday

Today I decided to take the day ‘off’ and not go into Venice at all.  I’ve been really tired a lot of mornings—last night I slept almost 12 hours, and it wasn’t the first time.  Maybe that’s because I’ve been on the go so much—yesterday I was in Venice from before 9am until after 5, most of that time spent on my feet—but I do that every time I travel and I never sleep this much.  Of course typically, I don’t let myself sleep this much because there’s so much to do, so it may be the result of knowing, subconsciously, that I’m here for a while.

Last night I dreamed about the house shaking around me.  In New Haven this would not be so surprising, since the house tends to shudder if a big truck races past (in fact when we had that small earthquake last year, that’s what Sean thought it was).  It was apparently a real earthquake, though, in Emilia Romagna.  I just felt a brief aftershock a few minutes ago.  I remember the first time I felt any kind of tremor was three years ago in Rome, when I noticed a glass of water on the table vibrating and thought for a minute it was the people in the apartment beneath us—nope, it was basically a long-after aftershock of the huge L’Aquila terremoto that devastated the city.  It’s a little freaky to think about the sheer size of the tectonic plates, about the way they move against one another to create earthquakes.  It’s like the surface of the world is on the back of something living that could shake us off, if it wanted to.

The other big news of the day was a bomb placed outside of a school in Brindisi yesterday morning that went off right as the girls were arriving on a bus from the towns in the countryside.  (I actually heard someone talking about this in a bookstore I was in yesterday morning; I heard “bomba nella scuola” and thought, wait, did that happen here?  Wouldn’t people be more freaked out? Since it wasn’t in either of the newspapers I read yesterday afternoon, I forgot about it) One girl is dead, so far.  People have immediately suspected the mafia (the name of the local mafia is Sacra Corona Unita, which sounds like a soccer team);  mafia activity is pretty high there, and the school is named after the wife of Falcone, one of the two anti-mafia judges assassinated in 1992 (the wife died too).  The families of some of the students have links, too, apparently.  Yet there are clear indications that it might be garden variety terrorism instead, since the mafia don’t use the kind of bomb employed in this attack, and they’ve never attacked a school (as someone pointed out in the paper, they’re not stupid, they know killing schoolchildren is bad for business).  As someone else wrote, it’s one thing to hear of this kind of thing happening in the Middle East—as terrible as that sounds—and another to hear about it in your own country.  I can only imagine if that happened at an American school.

This morning I went downtown to get groceries.  At home we’re used to doing shopping once a week, maybe, but in Italy, due to the tiny size of the fridges and also the lack of preservatives in things like bread, you have to shop every couple of days.  Today my goal was ingredients for the no-cook pasta that Sean and I love in the summer time, with cherry tomatoes, arugula, basil and garlic.  Before I could prepare it, though, I cleaned the kitchen and did Elsa’s sinkful of dishes, for my own sanity.  She’s one of those old people that just really doesn’t give a damn anymore—four coffee cups on the table, crumbs everywhere, trash can full. I swept the floor and I do not even want to guess the last time she’d done that.  But hey, she’s over 90, and god knows my grandpa wasn’t much better.  Now the mixture is in the fridge waiting for me to make pasta later.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t find ricotta salata in the grocery store.  There were a thousand kinds of cheeses, many of which I’ve never heard of because they’re probably just local variants or something (there was also something called table cheese, which I decided against trying today), but no ricotta that I could find.  Finally I turned to an older woman, told her I was American, and asked her if the ricotta was lurking there under some other name unknown to me.  Nope, she said it should be there and to look for it, or ask someone.  However, I managed to find a small container of parmesan, which is the other cheese the recipe suggests, so I left it at that.  Another time, I suppose.  Another challenge was estimating amounts—Elsa has a food scale, but when you’ve got a 500 gram box of tomatoes, how much of that is 1 pint?  More to my chagrin, I discovered that although she has a garlic press, she seems to have no chopping knife.  Luckily I was only roughly chopping the greens. 

You know what else is surprising?  The number of stores open here on a Sunday.  In Florence everything shut down on Sundays, except the big grocery store that was by Piazza dei Ciompi, and Rome was the same, at least in the neighborhood where we stayed.  Here there are bars, tabaccherie, even little produce shops on the sidewalks, all open.  I don’t know if that’s just a peculiarity of the Lido, or Venice in general?   Certainly there seem to be many more supermarkets around than I remember.  I’ve spotted 5 or 6 in Venice itself, most of them In-Coop; here on the Lido there’s an In-Coop just a few blocks from a Billa. Italian supermarkets also have their own store brands now, too; Billa’s is called Clever.  I have Clever mozzarella in my fridge and balsamic vinegar in my cabinet.  Another thing that’s changed is that you can’t buy foreign stamps at a tabaccheria anymore, which I used to do in Florence; when I asked for stamps with my newspaper today she said they only did Italian stamps.  For foreign I’ll have to actually go to the post office.  I haven’t even bought post-cards yet, of course!

More Notes

 Internet access at last!  It’s temperamental and way too weak to do anything like upload photos, and I had to go to way too much trouble to get it, including bringing my laptop to a computer shop and paying them $50 to install some missing software, but c’est la vie.

A couple of days ago I saw a water taxi go past the vaporetto I was in with a coffin strapped to the back and the widow sitting next to it; today I saw a bride being helped into a taxi, train and all, on the Grand Canal, and further down saw the groom waiting on the landing where the ceremony was evidently going to take place (fixing his hair in a window; he must have been Italian)!  Now all I need to see is someone giving birth and I’ll really believe everything here happens on the water.  It’s still a little surprising to see someone go zipping past in a crappy little skiff, talking on their cell phone while zig-zagging between bigger boats.  I mean, if you mentally shift the vehicles to cars it’s nothing strange at all, just city traffic, but when you see a vaporetto gliding confidently through the water with just a tiny distance between it and one of the biggest ocean liners you’ve ever seen, it’s impossible to make a comparison to our way of life.  I mean, cars aren’t moving within a medium that can buffet them about at will like a boat.  I keep waiting to see a gondola that has just cut precipitously in front of  a vaporetto get overturned, but those gondoliers are quite skilled at keeping the boat afloat.

On Thursday I was exploring the quietest district of Venice, Cannareggio, where you can walk for minutes at a time with no sound but your own footfalls and the slap of the boats bumping the sides of the canals. I went to a bunch of churches as well as the Jewish Ghetto.  All of Venice is made up of tiny islands, but this one had only one way in or out, back in the 15^th century.  It was the iron foundry, and gettare is the verb they use for ironwork, so its name was the ghetto, which it then passed to other neighborhoods where Jews lived, like Warsaw.  Medieval Venice was in one way more accommodating to the Jews than other European cities, since they let them in when they were being expelled elsewhere, but they also forced them to live in the ghetto and to pay for Christian guards who guarded the bridge after nightfall, in addition to having to wear special clothing and other restrictions typically placed on them.  The result of this crowding is that the Ghetto has some of the first high-rise apartment buildings in the world—some are eight stories tall.  A plaque on one of the walls commemorates the two hundred Venetian Jews who were handed over to the Nazis during WWII.  Most of the shops and restaurants there now cater to Jewish tourists; there was even a Jewish hotel.

A little later that afternoon, I was standing on a bridge at Fondamenta Nuova (so-named because they literally added land to the city’s northern edge in the 16^th century by dredging the lagoon) looking at the cemetery island of S. Michele, and reached for my camera to take a picture.  La camera non c’e’.  I frantically tried to remember when I had last taken a picture, and realized I took a picture of myself (awkward, I know, but I don’t want to be totally without record of myself in these photos!) in front of S. Maria dell’Orto before I sat down on a secluded stoop off to one side of the piazza to have a snack, nearly thirty minutes or so earlier.  I realized I must have left my brand-new, $400 camera just sitting there like candy to a thief.  I was so fucking pissed at myself, as I literally raced through the calli and back alleys that make Venice so frustratingly picturesque—they wind, they stop, they abruptly become a gated courtyard with no exit, etc. etc.  Cute when you’re wandering, incredibly frustrating when you’re trying to get somewhere that is not that far away, as the crow flies, but which seems eternally distant.  In the end, I raced into the piazza to discover my camera sitting innocently on the stoop where I’d left it!  Thank God I’d decided to visit the least-touristed corner of Venice that morning, because probably only a handful of people had been around in my absence, and no one apparently noticed, or at least wanted to steal the camera.  Crisis averted.  I will be more careful in the future, you’d better believe it.

After that I decided to head over to S. Michele.  The church, designed by Mauro Codussi, was closed, but the cemetery itself was peaceful and full of cypress trees, making it a rarity on the skyline of the lagoon.  The cemetery goes back to the 19^th century (maybe 18^th?) and is still being used today, so no pictures were technically allowed.  While most of the monuments lacked the personality of the cimitero accatolico in Rome, still one of my favorite places, there were some I still found moving, like the tomb of a 15 year old Swiss boy who died on a trip to Venice in the 19^th century, or the monument to the mother and sister who perished in some kind of boating accident on the Lido (the slab was quite specific).  Ezra Pound and Igor Stravinsky are buried there, although I didn’t manage to find either.  I noticed a couple of things about Italian graves of more recent vintage:  they all include photographs of the deceased behind glass, and the slabs frequently record who put the stone there: “your grieving wife,” or “your inconsolable mother,” some of which seemed to be trying to out-grieve the ones around them, I swear.  Why don’t we do the photographs?  I think it would be nice.  Most people had photos of themselves in old age, but quite a few had photos of them in their prime.  I couldn’t decide which I’d choose.  Is it vanity to want to be remembered young? 

Yesterday was the day of my internet quest, so most of the day was tied up therein.  The afternoon I spent on Burano—or rather, most of my afternoon was spent getting to and from Burano, which is about an hour away, not because it’s distant but because the boats go at a snail’s pace!  I didn’t need to spend much time there because I’d forgotten, from my one previous visit with our school in 2006, that there is nothing on Burano but candy-colored fisherman’s houses and shops selling Burano lace.  I mean, it was pretty, but I probably could have just looked at my photos from then and saved myself two hours on a ferry!

This morning I left early to get to San Marco before the crowds.  Alas, they don’t open the church till 945, shockingly late considering it’s the number one tourist attraction, and I got there at 845.  People were already lined up outside to wait, but I decided to go through the Palazzo Ducale, which was pleasantly scarce of tourists at the early hour.  From there I went toward the public gardens, bought some cherries from a quayside vendor, and read the Corriere della Sera on a park bench.  Then I went to the technical cathedral of Venice, S. Pietro in Castello, banished to the fringes of the city (people think San Marco is the cathedral, but it’s really just the doge’s chapel, which gives you an idea of where the Republic saw the institution of the Church relative to their own authority), walked by the Arsenale, the great boatyard of the Venetian Republic, and then decided I might head back to the Lido to eat lunch and then return to try to slip into S. Marco after evening crowds had left.  When I made my way to a vaporetto stop, however, I found there was nothing doing; because of the America’s Cup regatta, which according to the paper brought 80,000 people to the quays to watch, all the vaporetti to the Lido were cancelled till evening.  I was rather annoyed.  I don’t know what the hell those people thought they were watching (you could see the sails in the distance, but not a whole lot else, unless you were lucky enough to be on a boat or floating stadium—there was one--in the bay), but it definitely felt like 80,000 as I fought my way from the Arsenale stop all the way past piazza S. Marco.  I was already tired by this point, and hungry, but somehow I found myself walking all the way to the top of Dorsoduro looking for a likely place to eat.  I still haven’t had a sit-down restaurant or café meal yet, mostly because I don’t really want to eat alone, surrounded by hordes of noisy tourists and noisier Italians, but I was so tired and hungry that I bought another, different paper and decided to find a place and brave it.  Ultimately I actually stopped in a pizza joint that happened to have a couple of chairs, so certainly nothing fancy, but they were actually nice to me—the guy smiled!—which is so rare that I’m going to go back if I’m in the neighborhood.

It ended up taking me two hours to get home, since the vaporetti were absolutely crowded once they started running again.  It’s only 9pm and I’m exhausted!