Cimitero Monumentale is something I
can’t describe and the photos can’t show the scale of the place. If you ever get to Milan we think it is
something you have to see. Most of the
monuments have a religious theme such as resurrection, being greeted by Christ,
etc., but the second most popular theme is the grieving wife prostrate on the
tomb mourning her loss. I thought it was
a nice touch, ladies you don’t have to throw yourselves onto the funeral pyre
(that would be a very nice touch if you have a funeral pyre). Just a gesture to hide the fact that you are
glad to be rid of the old grouch. We
could have spent all day wandering around, but we were only there for 1½
hours. We then went back to the gift
store at the convent that has the Last Supper to look for that scarf for
Sue. They no longer sold scarfs. That was bad and good news. Bad because the scarf was really neat, good
because it cost a lot of money. Then off
to two more museums the Brera Pinacoteca and the Biblioteca Ambrosiana. The Brera has six paintings on our list that
we saw in 2012. But on that visit we got
to the museum about 15 minutes before closing and had to run through the
galleries to find our paintings, which we did because most are highlights
marked on the floor plan of the museum.
We went back to take a more leisurely walk through the place. Plus I’m also now keeping track of the
paintings by Caravaggio that we’ve seen, and another version of the “Supper at
Emmaus” is there, and we saw it. Four of
the six paintings on our list are in the relatively small Modern art gallery in
the museum. The majority of the
paintings at the museum are religious works, what you would expect in Italy
where the Renaissance began. But even we
get overwhelmed after a while. Sue more
than me, as my compulsion is to read every label, even though they are in
Italian. We stopped for lunch before we went
to the Ambrosiana. We had a and beer,
both were delicious. The Ambrosiana
doesn’t have a “1001” painting but it does have a Caravaggio, the ”Basket of
Fruit” and Leonardo da Vinci’s Codex Atlanticus. Once again most of the paintings are religious,
and not on the list so we didn’t spend too much time studying many
paintings. The jewel in the crown here
is Leonardo’s Codex Atlanticus. It is the
biggest collection of Leonardo’s drawings.
The pages were originally bound in one big volume of 402 pages. It was called Atlanticus because it was bound
in a large book the size typical of an atlas of maps. Napoleon took it from the Ambrosiana to Paris
in 1637. At some point the 1,119 pages
were bound into 12 volumes. These
volumes were returned to Milan. In 2009
these volumes were unbound in order to preserve the individual pages. There were 20+pages on display in a library
room. Each page was in a special case
with a digital display that told you about the page. The description was in both Italian and
English. Last year and this year they
will display all of the pages of the Codex at two different museums. So if you know someone who is obsessive that
might like to see EVERY page let them know.
It was very neat, I didn’t read every label as Sue was just about down
to bloody stumps, so we went back to the hotel so she could rest. I then went out to another art gallery on the
Duomo Piazza. This gallery has paintings by Lucio Fontana who has one our
list. His painting on our list is in a
private collection, but he made a series of very similar paintings so I was
hoping that there would be one of those here.
There were about five paintings that are similar to the one on our list
(we have seen at least three similar paintings at other galleries) plus there
was a lot of interesting Contemporary art on display.
Wednesday morning we took a train to
Padova (Padua) where we spent the night where there are five paintings and
Galileo’s house among other things. I
forgot to mention that our passports were checked by a border patrol officer on
the trip from Zurich to Milan. On our
2012 travels that would have been a problem, but not this time. He didn’t really look at the dates just our
photos and asked if we were carrying more than €10,000. I wish.
The Scrovegni Chapel has four by Giotto
and the Duomo Baptistry has one by Menaboui.
Each artist, probably with help from assistants painted all of the paintings
in each chapel. The walls and ceilings
of both are totally covered by the frescoes that depict the life of
Christ. We walked by Galileo’s House on
the way to our hotel as it is just around the corner. All we saw was a sign on a column pointing to
the building that said “Galileo’s House” and that was it. There were no open doors, no entrance sign
nothing, so I took a photo of the sign and the building and that was that. The Basilica of St. Anthony is about a block
from the hotel, the reason Sue chose it.
The Basilica is quite a place.
The tomb of the saint is in the Basilica so this place has been a
pilgrimage site for centuries.
Apparently they dug up his body in the 1980s and encased it in a new
tomb/altar that you can walk up to and touch.
There is another area where they have Class 1 relics of the saint. Class 1 relics are actual parts
of the saint’s body. We saw
reliquaries that contain St. Anthony’s tongue and another that has his voice
box. We saw another one where we
could see teeth that must have had his lower jaw. There were more vessels that may have more
parts but we didn’t want to start another “list”. We got a booklet about St. Anthony, but lucky
for you I haven’t had time to read it.
And this post has already gone on too long. We are on the train Thursday morning to
Trieste to see one more painting. I will
try to post the tonight when we get back to Milan.
On the train back to Milan and I am
able to charge the laptop. On the last
Trenitalia train that I tried to charge the laptop the cursor could not be
controlled. I couldn’t move the cursor
or it would move by itself and the camera opened and took about five pictures
looking up my nose. I know a horrifying
thought. I think it was due to the
quality of the power I was plugged into.
On this train the same erratic cursor movement happened when I plugged
in, but now it seems to be working ok. I
thought you would want to know this. Tomorrow
we are renting a car to drive to two places each about two hours from
Milan. At the Novalesa Abbey Dom.
Giuseppe has kindly let us visit even though the Abbey is closed to visitors
during the week in November. Both places
are north of Milan so I hope the rain we’ve gotten isn’t snow in the mountains. This post has gone on too long, but we had to
move two guys out of our seats because I wanted the table to type on, so I have
to keep writing so they don’t think I'm an a##h##e. I will try to post the photos and this blog
when we get back to our hotel in Milan, but sometimes uploading the photos take
a while, like you care.
Saturday morning we will be off to
Florence.
Saturday November 8, 2014
I’m writing this as we are on the train
to Firenze (Florence). We were
travelling to two sites a few hours from Milan, so we took an express train to
the airport to pick up the rental car and that went pretty well. It was a beautiful day, sunny and
bright. The first destination was the
Novalesa Abbey that is about 2.5 hours from the airport. In November it is only open on the weekends,
but I had been corresponding with (Father) Dom. Giuseppe and he said he would
open it for us so we could visit on Friday.
I had emailed him that we would be there between 11 & 12, because I
had planned on leaving at 9:00. We
actually left around 10:30. As we drove
west toward Torino on the motorway a line of snowcapped mountains became
visible in the distance. Sue was busy
taking photos of the rapidly changing scenery.
Each vista was more picturesque and dramatic than the last. There were monasteries or castles or I don’t
know what spotted up the hill sides all along the route. There were even a few on the top of some of
the lower mountains along the road. Most
of the driving was on motorways so it was pretty easy with the GPS. I had the guy at Hertz program in our two
destinations and where to return the car and I allowed the routes to include
tolls. I think the government of Italy
could give us a rental car for free if we took the toll roads. There are a lot of tolls, and most are not
cheap. I had asked the Hertz garage
attendant if we could pay tolls with cash and he said we could. Of course the first toll booth was unmanned,
long story short I was there for at least five minutes trying to pay. If I was behind me I would have been going
nuts. Finally figured out that I had to
put the credit card into the same slot that ate the ticket. We got to the Abbey at about 13:15. It is located a short distance from the town
of Novalesa. It is very small with just
a few houses outside the abbey. I pushed
the call button, and when someone answered I gave my name and asked for Dom.
Giuseppe. Well Dom. Giuseppe was not
happy! He said we were late and that he
had been waiting since 11:00. I started
to tell him about the traffic out of Milan (there was some road work, but not
the real reason we were late). In the
midst of my bs he cut off the intercom.
We waited a few minutes and then he came out side. He told us that he had waited for us and now
it was time for him to rest and that we would have to wait until 15:45! We told him that we could not wait that long. He then asked if we came by car, and we said
yes. I don’t know how else we could have
gotten there. I looked at us for a
moment, he said that he would be back and he left. We waited at least ten minutes, and we were
getting concerned that maybe he wasn’t coming back. But he did, and it looked like he had had to
change his clothes, i.e. put on warmer clothes under his cassock. He then gave us the full tour of the place
that lasted at least a half hour. There
are about four small chapels and he gave us a little information about when
each was built and the style of architecture.
The Chapel of St. Eldrad and St. Nicholas was the last stop on the tour
and where our painting was located. This
chapel dates from the 9th and 10th centuries. Dom. Giuseppe explained that the frescoes
that filled the chapel were some of the only ones left from this time. They were trying to get this site listed as a
UNESCO World Heritage site. The photo I
took of our painting shows some scaffolding where they are either restoring or
protecting some of the frescoes. Most of
the paintings are in good shape, but as you can see some have been damaged over
time. The door to the chapel has open
bars so there is no atmosphere or temperature control. Dom. Giuseppe gave us the stories that the
paintings were telling. Our painting
shows St. Eldrad receiving a blessing from St. Nicholas before leaving on a
pilgrimage. That St. Nicholas is the guy
who became Santa Clause. Dom. Giuseppe
talked with us as we walked around the grounds.
He asked us about our election and we told him our “side” had lost. He then said that must mean we were not part
of the Grand Old Party. We talked a
little more about US politics. He was
very well informed about US politics, he said he reads the papers, but not TV. He told us that he had been to Chicago 30
years ago, and Sue commented he didn’t look much older than 30, but he said he
was much older than 30. He didn’t look
50 though. We then went back to the book
shop, where they didn’t have any guides about the Abbey in English, lucky for
you. We bought a few things and gave him
a donation and thanked him for his kindness.
He joked and said that if we had been GOP he wouldn’t have let us
in. My kind of guy. We thanked him again and he wished us a
pleasant journey.
We were off to our next destination the
Castle Issogne, it was about 1½ hours away.
It was almost all motorway, and the scenery was even more spectacular
than before. The light was changing so
the view were even more dramatic. The
town of Issogne is in the Vale di Aosta, and the motorway to the town ran down
a valley that was lined by steep mountains.
If you were into photography you could spend all your time trying to
capture the views. The Castle is on the
main piazza of the small town. We had to
wait about 20 minutes for the next guided tour in Italian (the only way into
the castle). We looked around and took
more photos. The tour guide came, a lady
close to our age, who spoke no English.
Lucky for us our painting is on a wall in the courtyard, so we were able
to see it almost as soon as she opened the door. We tried to explain that all we were
interested in was seeing this painting.
She was confused, and who wouldn’t be.
We led her back to the office so we could explain to the English
speaking ticket seller what we were doing.
We told them briefly about our quest (something you undoubtedly wish I
would apply to this blog) and that we were crazy, but all we wanted to see was
the painting. Now if the tour had been
in English we might have stayed, but I doubt it. So we were back on the road to get back to
the airport. I didn’t add any comments
to the scenery photos as the pictures say it all, and the photos can’t come
close to how beautiful it is. I guess if
you live in the mountains this gets to be old had. But it was quite the experience for us.
And that was a bit of an
adventure. I misunderstood the attendant
when he explained what he had programmed into the GPS. I thought he said to select Malpensa Airport
and that Somma Lombardo would be the last exit before the airport where we
could buy gas. I missed that he had
programmed Somma Lombardo into the GPS and that I was to go there first. The result is that we end up at the airport
without refilling the car. So we had to
find a gas station on our own and then get back to the airport, not a big deal
except to a high anxiety guy like me.
But there were no real problems.
We took the express back to Milan and had a great dinner at the
hotel. Sue had thin sliced beef over
rocket salad and cherry tomatoes, with a side of diced potatoes sautéed with
scallions. I got the help her with the
beef. I had roast duck in an orange
sauce with spinach and the same potatoes.
I love duck, and this was delicious.
We of course got to talk to the chef, and the maître d’ had given us a
sampler from the chef when we had drinks at the bar, and then gave us an after
dinner drink that I can’t tell you the name, except it wasn’t grappa. We also had gelato for dessert. I had plane old chocolate that was good, but
Sue had the pink grapefruit and pineapple that were out of this world.
We got to Firenze and checked into a
small hotel in a great location on the Plazzo Vecchio. We have already seen four paintings on the
list, and we are getting ready to go to mass at Santa Croce. And then we’ll see about eating.
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