Travel Tips From My Summer Adventures.

Before I get into the art stuff, I want to mention a few of the indispensable items that kept us happy for our two month trip.

1. Maps and Travel Books.

I don't like to bring those very thorough, yet totally unwieldy 500 page travel books. I have in the past, but this time we were packing light. Carry-on luggage only! The best solution for a slim site seeing book with great shopping and eating picks PLUS manageably sized maps is the Knopf MapGuide.

The genius behind these books are the fold-out maps. Here we have an example of useful origami! The image above shows, on the left, a description of the neighborhood and a small map to mark its relation to the rest of the city. On the right you find restaurants, cafes, bars, and shopping. Once you flip the page from the bottom up you will find a larger detailed map and cultural destinations listed along the bottom.

Snacks in Rome. 

Looking for a pizza rec in Flo.


A long leisurely dinner at La Beppa near St. Miniato in Florence. 
On this night we had the best pizza of our entire trip.
Thank you guidebook! GO THERE.

Planning tomorrow's Florentine adventure.

With this classy design you actually want to display your travel guide.
On the train from Padua, heading toward Venice.

From Venice to Athens!

Passports in hand! Next destination in the bag.
En route to Istanbul via the seaside airport in Iraklion, Crete.

Surprise upgrade to FIRST CLASS. Thanks to Turkish Airlines we flew to Stockholm (with our MapGuide in place), surrounded by complete luxury and lots of space. What a lovely experience.

Now you can see some of the major cities that we traveled to: Rome, Florence, Venice, Athens, Istanbul, and Stockholm. Lucky for us there was a book for each one on our itinerary. Knopf MapGuides are not published for every destination under the sun. I kind of like that they are selective. Our future trips will have to be based on which cities they offer.

Take note:

Make sure that you always get the most up to date edition. For some reason I ordered an older copy of Athens and it turned out that many of the recommended places had closed. This was especially devastating when we went looking for Greek bakeries. Not getting those lovingly described pastries at the end of a long, sweaty trek is the worst. 

Although the recommendations for food, shopping, and top ten neighborhood sites were always fantastic, these guides do NOT offer extensive information on works of art or architecture. You will need supplemental books if you want to learn about these things while you are looking at them. We saw a lot of people reading from their books in churches and museums. We didn't really need them in this case, since I am an art historian after all. However, we did get some small art books here and there along the way just to be sure we didn't miss anything. Even though we filled every single day with a dozen stops, barely remembering meals, seeing way more than I thought was possible, we still managed to miss a few very important things...

Like Bernini's 17th century St. Theresa in Ecstasy in the Cornaro Chapel at Santa Maria della Vittoria and Bramante's Tempietto. I am utterly devastated that these were in reach and went unnoticed. More trips to Rome!

Tempietto, Rome

Completed in 1508, Bramante's Tempietto was modeled after the early Christian Roman martyria. It was thought that this spot, where the "little temple" stands, is the site of St. Peter's crucifixion. Bramante was one of the architects involved with St. Peter's basilica in the Vatican City. Even though the basilica did not follow the central planning that Bramante wanted, his plans for the dome, finally designed and built by Michelangelo later in the 16th century, were partially included in the final product.

St. Peter's Basilica, Rome

2. Camera case. 

This was such a good investment for us. Twenty bucks probably saved us another 700 and possibly invaluable documentation. I have a history of bad luck with digital cameras. I usually break them while on important adventures. This has happened three times already! First in Berlin, a separate trip in Stockholm, and finally last year in Barcelona. That was the most painful occasion since I had traveled far to see the church I had written about during my graduate program. Luckily we had a film camera so I was able to take a few pictures for my archives. I also invested ninety euros in a very thorough book I found in the makeshift souvenir shop. It is massive and filled with hundreds of images that were taken with a crane. So this story turned out okay, but we were determined not to be foiled again.

Part of the problem here is the lens. If the lens is mechanical, the camera is more susceptible to malfunctioning. If the lens can't open, then the entire camera is unusable. This time we got a Nikon1 which has a manual lens and a nice leather case for complete protection in case it gets dropped. You can wear the camera on the strap instead of fishing it out of your bag and then throwing it back in. This setup made taking 7000 photos easy, exciting, and somehow a little bit classier. Of course I still took lots of pictures with my phone like everyone else.

A Pentax photo on real film! 
But notice my Nikon digital camera all safe and cozy, Roman Forum.

3. Avene Products. Especially SUNBLOCK.

You really need good sunblock (and a hat) to brave these cities in the summer, especially if you've ever had the lucky chance to have some mysterious mole carved out of your leg and are now terrified of skin cancer. On our first day in Rome we went to the apothecary and consulted with the saleswoman. She took one look at our pasty white skin (summer hadn't reached New England yet) and recommended a French brand, Avene, which uses thermal spring water as its base for every product. The best option for us: very high protection, very water resistant 50 SPF.

This is the good stuff. We never once got a sunburn, which is saying a lot considering how much time we spent outside in the sun. We barely ever saw any clouds at least for the first month, only a lot of sunburned tourists. It's so water resistant that sometimes we didn't have to reapply every day even after sweating, swimming and/or showering. I also discovered some of the other marvelous Avene products such as thermal spring water in a can. These spray cans became indispensable for refreshing cool downs and energizing sweat cleansers. 

Now that we live closer to the equator, I'm using Avene now everyday, all year, forever. 

In conclusion: I highly recommend these travel products for a safe and happy adventure of any kind! 

Via Pia, Michelangelo

Constructed in Rome, 1590, Porta Pia served as the gateway in and out of the city of Rome. As a commission by Pope Paul IV for civic improvement, it was natural that questions arose as to how something of this nature should be represented. Michelangelo seems to have decided on coded meanings and metaphors. He has created a piece using a variety of architectural tools. Certainly Mannerism is well represented here with:
-broken pediments and lintels
-festoons
-pedimented windows in brackets
-short pilasters
-rusticated piers with pilasters
Michelangelo was influenced by the theatrical genres of the time; he chose to portray this gate as more dramatic than functional.

Michelangelo (1475-1564)

Michelangelo Buonarotti was born in Caprese (Tuscany) and died in Rome. He was an accomplished sculptor, painter, and architect who represented High Roman Renaissance and the concept of disegno. He apprenticed as a painter, taught himself to sculpt, and later studied anatomy by dissection. Early on he was favored by Lorenzo the Magnificent, and he would continue to have a demanding work relationship with the Medici family. When Lorenzo died, Michelangelo travelled on to Venice, Bologna, and Rome where he would work for various Popes and create some of his most memorable work, such as the Sistine Chapel (Creation of Adam detail above), the Last Judgement, David, and St. Peter's. While Michelangelo never formally learned architecture, he perceived it as an extension of sculpture. Buildings were, to Michelangelo, dynamic sculptures.

Model for St. Peter's

This is a drawing by Michelangelo detailing the reconstruction of St. Peter's basilica, originally built by Constantine in 323 A.D.
Notice that Michelangelo implemented an ovoid shaped dome and it is slightly, but definitely larger that Brunelleschi's, with a height of 448 feet.

Michelangelo used Brunelleschi's dome as a starting point, you can see that the dome for St. Peter's has a similar structure, using two brick shells and 16 stone ribs. The inner shell is more hemispherical while the outer is vertical. Like Brunelleschi's it is held together with a lantern topper.

Brunelleschi's San Lorenzo (1421-1470) Michelangelo's facade

Back in Florence, remember San Lorenzo? The plain exterior was the result of a common problem plaguing Renaissance churches: how to get a Classical temple front on a Christian church. Here we have an interesting image of Michelangelo's design superimposed as a virtual reproduction on the actual and still bare exterior of San Lorenzo. While working for Julius II in Rome, Michelangelo was called in to take on the project. Leo X was made Pope in 1513 and being a Medici, he wanted Michelangelo working on San Lorenzo. He later decided the New Sacristy in the Medici chapel was more important and Michelangelo was sent to design the funerary chapel.



You can see he might have been looking at Sangallo's original concept, which merged the stories to create a palace like facade with a rectangular shape. This design features
-paired columns and pilasters (Brunelleschian influence)
-niches between columns (Bramantean influence)
-complex rhthym
-no iconography or surface decoration, with the possible exception of the circles (may have depicted St. Lawrence)

The New Sacristy, Medici Chapel

 Commissioned by Pope Leo X, Michelangelo worked on the New Sacristry from 1519 to 1534. He faced the challenge of having four tombs to build and only two available walls (with a square plan, one wall for an entrance and one for an altar). Michelangelo took advantage of this situation, he devised an elaborate yet clearly articulated Mannerist environment.

Details:
-vertical divisions
-side bays with blank niches and large segmented pediments
-closely framed recessed statue with paired columns, but no pediment
-blind tabernacles over doors, the pediments here are uncomfortably oversized dynamically oppressing the pilasters

Michelangelo had reinterpreted the elements of Classical architecture, eschewing order and rule. He created a plastic environment of original ideas, merging sculpture and architecture to present a strong example of Mannerism.

A closer look at the tombs, which feature:
-tension between projecting and recessing elements
-white marble, intensifying the contrast between pietra serena and stucco
-semi circular pediment

Laurentian Library, San Lorenzo

Commissioned by Medici Pope Leo X, Michelangelo worked on the Laurentian Library in 1525. While the New Sacristy was a transitional project in Michelangelo's architectural career, the Laurentian Library could be seen as a more successful venture into Mannerism. Michelangelo had consciously moved away from the proportional rules of Vitruvian theories; his motivation was not in perfecting old traditions, but in exploring new ones. His architecture is based on anatomy and the concept of living organisms, a radical departure from static to dynamic and plastic. The vestibule features
-recessed columns impossibly supported on brackets
-columns and brackets are not located on the same plane
-pilaster frames on tabernacles taper at the bottom and are topped with capitals that are too narrow
-sense of organic unity and 3 dimensionality
-expressive, cascading stairs which seem to flow and spread on their descent

The stairway leads you up into the library, situated on higher ground to protect the collection from dampness and provide natural lighting. In the reading room, the ceiling is seemingly supported by wall pilasters and the windows are recessed with just a touch of flourish. Michelangelo contrasts the reading room (with its linearity, grace, and lightness) with the more sculptural staircase and vestibule. He is very interested in themes of compression and tension, the vestibule is animated, with remarks on the relationships between weight and support, while the reading room is a great relief of open space.
Although neither the New Sacristy or the Laurentian Library were completed by Michelangelo, they remain important milestones in architectural history.