I have scored with one course thus far. It is called Letteratura e Critica Dantesca, and I will be reading and discussing much of Dante Aligheri's Commedia. Dante's famous journey is split into three parts: Inferno, where Dante travels through circles to the center of hell, Purgatorio, where he ascends different cornices to the top of a mountain, and Paradiso, where he moves through different skies until he reaches god. Back in high school, I read much of the Inferno in translation, and now I am going to read the real thing! Much of the symbolism in the is difficult for even Italians to grasp, but I am sitting in the front row of the course and learning fast, so hopefully I will catch up quickly. Dante's narrative poem was incredibly radical because, contrary to the convention of the time which upheld that all academic writing about important topics such as God, heaven, the bible, etc. be in Latin, Dante wrote a masterpiece in the vulgar language: the Italian of today. The Commedia is named such because it starts poorly (HELL!) and ends well (heaven). Comedies of the time where normally written in the vulgar language and because of this everyone, down to the pheasants and manual laborers, could understand them. By writing in this way Dante made his poem accessible to everyone at all rungs of the socioeconomic ladder.
I am very interested in this Dante course, and have been trying to read the required text for the course, which is in Italian, for the last two weeks. Thus far I have made it about 25 pages! I use a three-part strategy (basketball language to make literature exciting!) to tackle each paragraph: I read it once through kind of fast without trying to interpret, then I read slowly out loud and try to determine the meaning of all the words in context without using a dictionary, and then I read it through again in my head. I've learned quite a bit about a previous work of Dante's call Vita Nova and I can feel myself getting faster, but VERY slowly. I am glad I am going through the process of learning a new language now, because if I go into the Peace Corps after I graduate I will have an idea of how to deal with the frustrations this task entails and to remember to take deep breaths to reactivate my sense of patience.
The only science course I have found, Biodiversita e Evoluzione, is taught by a very monotone professor with awful powerpoints, and I have tried to talk to him after class and during his office hours but he is incredibly unapproachable. This could be his real personality OR, as I have come to realize after talking with other students, it might just be a result of how the university system is set up in this country. When I go to class, there is only lecture. The professor talks, I listen, and then it is over. The system is very authoritarian and has been that way for hundreds (almost a thousand) years. Problem is, I feel like I am just in this class to get a grade. Neither I or the professor want to be there, but it is something that we are both required to do. For me, that is not education. Education is me looking forward to class every day, to talking with my professor and working with my classmates and not being able to get my mind off a problem because it is so interesting. In my Dante course, I come out of the room talking with my professor or with the Italians I have met about the class and about the reading! This is not something that will show up on my permanent record, but man I love it! At the end of high school, I decided I wanted to be a writer so I took (as many of my friends know) tons of humanities courses. Now I am slipping!
However, all is not lost on the side of Science. I believe that next semester I will be taking a course on Vulcanology where we will go on field trips to the provinces of Italy which still contain active volcanos. Interestingly enough, Italy regularly has earth quakes, and because of an event in the youths of two of my housemates they can sense them when I can't, so that when a 5.2 on the richter scale quake occured last week they immediately turned on the TV and got online to read about it. Recently on television I saw the museum at Pompeii, where an eruption occuring in the distant past actually froze people in their movement so that now there are what look like statues made out of stone sitting behind glass enclosures, statues which moments before their creation had been eating, laughing, maybe even thinking about how to solve a really tough problem.
OKAY, so that was my first week of class! I know, all my reader(s?) out there are like 'Wow, Ben, that was cool but now we are ready to stop reading because you write too much.' Well, never fear! I am about to recount how amazing my weekend was, which will hopefully reward your perseverence!!!?!
Friday, after departing from my beloved Internet Point (where I now also get un sconto, or discount), I gave my Polish friend Jacob a ring because he lived very close by. He related to me that he was out buying wine with a friend and would meet me at the internet point in five minutes. As a rule, I do not party during weekdays, with few exceptions. I saw this week as no different from any other week at UNC. While it is slightly ridiculous how many opportunities there are for European and other exchange students to go crazy at bars and discoteques, I do my best to refrain because, while every night at a bar or disco seems the same, every time I travel and every time I have a long dinner with a friend it seems as if saving that money to spend now on another dessert which might prolong a conversation was totally worth it. So, Jacob met me outside the Internet Point and I babbled incessantly to him and the French girl with him on the way to his house because I had been locked off from contact with anything but a computer for a long time. We walked past the numerous Italian youths gathered in the dwindling light of Piazza Verdi, past the stucco walls covered with graffiti at street level, and ascended the two floors to Jacob's apartment. When we arrived we gathered next to the window that opens out on the alley, and I could hear the music drifting in from a gay/lesbian/bisexual performance that was occurring on the piazza. Another French girl was there and along with her friend she taught me how to say bad things about other people's mothers in French. We had a great conversation about a new game show where people get payed more and more money for answering more and more personal questions, and I picked a few leaves from the basil plant on the window where she sat and smelled. As we sat and talked and drank white wine, she smoked and exhaled into the street, and the smoke looked amazing in the light. Jacob and the other girl put Ragae music on the computer, and we spent a good two hours hanging out and occassionally dancing or tackling and piling on each other. When they left the apartment for a Regae show on the Piazza XX Settembre I unlocked my bike and headed for home to get some sleep before going to Florence the next day, but I now wish I had gone to the concert and held on to that feeling I had in the apartment for a longer time. I ate dinner (11PM) and dropped off to sleep after struggling to read a little more Dante.
I arose from my slumber at 7:50 AM on Saturday and had an amazing breakfast of cereal with milk and half a banana, a tiny coffee that I made on the stove which I have to light with a lighter (difficult to do when your eyes are half closed) and a cookie, then the second half of the banana afterward. I threw tomatoes, bread, crackers, and jam into my backpach and hopped on my bike to make it to the train station before our 9:00 train. At the train station I met up with three amazing people: Corrina, a 23 year old philosophy major from Germany, Maya, an art major, and Tanya, a girl from Slovenia who sings and is going to try out for the choir at Bologna! Of the three, Tanya was definitely the most touristy, and she had begun to take pictures even before we had left the terminal to head for our trains. We booked a very cheap train to Florence (Firenze) for about 5 euro and it was fine that it took an extra hour because we spent the time talking and they were incredibly eager to use my super amazing fantastic guidebook (Eyewitness travel guides), which has an entire map of Florence and cross sections of the most important buildings. We also had time to take pictures next to an ugly fountain in Prato, which you might be able to find on Facebook.
The three girls had reserved tickets to the Uffizi, which was fine with me because I wanted some time to myself to explore the city. I started off like I always do: walking and taking a glance every once in a while at the map but mostly trying to make my own course. Very close to the train station after walking by vendors trying to sell me many things I don't need, I came upon the Piazza Santa Maria Novella and ate crackers with jam in the grass in the shade of an obelisk looking at the facade of the church and the people walking past. Afterwards I walked towards the entrance and cosidered paying for the museum but decided that I'd rather have money to pay for the train ride back and instead took off down a side street past several shops with beautiful goods in the window.
The first monument I found was San Lorenzo, a church whose facade, like the basilica of San Petronio in Bologna, remains unfinished. The idea of an ugly or undecorated face of a church is appealing to me though because it seems to make more sense when the most beautiful works are on the inside, when what matters most can not be seen. I did not stay to see the inside of the church, but I did walk into the cloister garden, which was planted with beautifully symmetric bushes and a pomegranate tree in the middle.
A picture of San Lorenzo from the shade of the
cloister arden. This is where nuns and priests used to
and probably still do come to chillax. On the other side is a
door to the library, where a famous Mannerist staircase
designed by Michelangelo leads to the stacks.
When I say I walk somewhere, it usually means that I am spending more time stopping to look at things than walking. In the case of Florence, I would stop to gawk at about every other shop and after I left the piazza I saw several exhibits which caught my eye. Sure they aren't what peopel seem to associate with Florence, but I think I should spend more time looking and thinking than rushing to see another building. On this occasion I stopped at a horror shop which had a display on the most famous serial murderers from the United States in Italian, as well as busts of their heads and pictures of them looking very scary and fierce! There was blood and some of them ate people after they killed them! Gross!
After that I kept walking and realized I was in the Piazza San Marco. They seem to have all kinds of plazas and churches and streets named after the same saints in each city, and I really need to read to find out about these people: Santo Stefano, San Margherita, San Vitale. Also, there are a lot of plaza named after dates: Piazza VIII Agosto, Piazza XX Settembre, Piazza VII Novembre, and it would be nice to know what had happened on these dates. Anyway, San Marco was in the University district, and I stopped by a random art exhibit I saw and found a very cool photograph portrait of a man smiling whose face was made of flowers. It looked like something out of the Beatles 'Yellow Submarine' move, and it was beautiful. I also stopped in at the Galleria dell'Accademia, where the original statue of David by Michelangelo can be found, but there was no student discount to see the 5.2 m /17 foot nude. While other people seem to emphasize other parts of David's anatomy, I really like to look at his hands. It seems they are larger than they should be and all the veins and lines are precisely in the right places. I'm not sure how sculpting works, but that statue is just so darn beautiful! I believe that next time I return to Florence I will go to see the real thing.
The North doors of the Baptistry, with tons of touristslooking on. I think I will go back to Florence when it is cold
and nasty so that I can enjoy the doors without people
struggling to take photos the whole time they should be looking.
After I stepped out of the Academy, I looked to the left and saw the Duomo in the distance. The building is like a giant piece of art, with white, green, and pink Tuscan marble covering much of the exterior and soaring arches holding the church up from the inside. Across from the entrance to the Duomo is the Battistero, or Baptistry. The doors of the Baptistry were constructed by Lorenzo Ghiberti over 21 years of work, but after he got done with that he was comissioned to make the East doors! Uffa! Each panel on the doors depicts an important scene from the bible: Adam and Eve getting kicked out of the Garden of Eden, Moses bringing down the ten commandments, and Abraham and Isaac among others. Each of these panels is stunning in its beauty, and I had to elbow some tourists so that I could get to the front and see them up close. Michelangelo called these doors the "Gate of Paradise."
Inside of the Duomo. The painting of Dante is on the left towards
the front, and the dome at the far end of this picture is filled with the
Last Judgement frescoes by Vasari. The dome has two shells: an inner
one for support and an outer shell for show.
Beside the Duomo is the Campanile, a great big tower from the top of which can be seen all of Florence. Each square inch of the tower and of the Duomo is outlaid in marble, like the buildings are enormous sculptures. I stepped into the church and my first thought was 'the ceilings are very high.' I felt bad even walking on the floor because it was all tiled beautifully, but the walls were sparsely decorated with art. All the windows were colored glass, and at the front of the church I got to see a very cool painting of Dante next to Florence, with Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven to his right in the picture and the city to his left. Dante always has on this red robe with a red cap in paintings. One of the reasons the Commedia is so beautful is the many references to politics and religion both contemporary and in the history before Dante.
Painting of Dante in the Duomo. All the people headeddown for Hell don't look so happy, and some of Florence's major
monuments (like the Duomo) can be seen in the city.
Stepping out into the sunlight from the Duomo, I went and stared at some reliefs on the side of the Campanile, then started walking again. The next place I came to was the Orsanmichele, a covered market which had been converted into a church, so that I could see where the arcades had been filled in and frescoes had been put up. I sat for a while in the church and stared at the amazing alter, which like everything else in the church had been constructed by the guilds (arti) of Bologna. I had never thought about a group of people creating a piece of art before.
My favorite sculpture outside the Orsanmichele. I like
how the dudes are just hanging out and talking instead
of staring into the distance majestically. Under them the
guild that made the sculptures is depicted with all their tools.
how the dudes are just hanging out and talking instead
of staring into the distance majestically. Under them the
guild that made the sculptures is depicted with all their tools.
After leaving the Orsanmichele I was surprised to see that Dante's house (Casa di Dante) was nearby, so I walked over to see it and dropped 4 euro on a ticket (risking not being able to return or having to use an expensive ATM). Lining many of the walls of the museum were the coats of arms for the noble families in Florence during Dante's time and the places where they are mentioned in the Commedia. Each family had a specific story associated with trading, murder, whatever, and Dante incorporates references to them in ways that have layers and layers of meaning. Many of them appear in the Inferno, which would not make me happy if I had the talles tower in Florence. The museum was rich with relics from Dante's life: herbs and rocks referred to in the poem, a recreation of a famous battle between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines (still have to find out who they are), copies of paintings of Dante, original manuscripts from his writing, a model of his undecorated bed room, paintings of the different places Dante goes in the Commedia, a cool painting of Dante on the beach, etc. There was lots of text in Italian on the panels so I couldn't read them all, but I think I will return after I have learned how to read Italian better and after I have already read much of Dante's poem.
An inscription at the beginning of the museum that I foundhilarious. Basically its says that Dante and his good friend
Verese engaged in a poetry exchange where each wrote three
sonnets questioning the other's masculinity, intelligence, etc. and then
after weren't very good friends anymore. Wonder why!
A sculpture of Dante (bottom left) and two hands reaching upand maybe trying to take him to hell.
A poster with every line of every canto. This was interestingto me because there are so many ways to look at the poem from the
overall structure to the meaning of each individual line and reference.
Corrina had called me before the museum, but I wanted to see it while I was still in Florence. I met back up with my friends in the Piazza Santa Maria Novella and I ate bread with jam while they told me about the Uffizi (they got to see the Birth of Venus!). I wanted to head for the Futurism museum I had just passed by, but instead we just glanced inside and I took a picture of them under the sign for the Via delle Belle Donne. We then started walking toward Ponte Vecchio, but I lost them when I wanted to look at the 3-D chalk pictures that were being constructed on the sidewalk and they wanted to walk. I walked to Ponte Grazie, a bridge upriver of Ponte Vecchio, and stared at the shops hanging off the bridge for a while. Looking on the hill beside the river, I decided I wanted to see if I could get a good view so I walked up a big hill that was bordered by beautiful apartments with clothes waving and children laughing inside and shutters opening or closing. At the top of the hill I followed some sketchy signs to the Giardini Boboli. The gardens were closed, and when the man at the desk told me in Italian that it was 10 euro for entrance (ingresso), I told him it must be a very nice garden and he laughed.
I headed back down the hill on a different street, glanced longingly at the swordfish on a restaurant menu, and met my friends on the Ponte Vecchio. The whole bridge is covered with jewelry shops with displays where EVERYTHING glitters, and by the end I almost wanted a ring or necklace. When I become a millionaire I will come back and buy a ring to wear or maybe a golden fork to eat my swordfish with.
We decided to head back to the station to catch the train, and on the way I sang to Tanya. She complimented me and told me I should try out for the school choir, which I think I will do tomorrow. After some confusion we got a bus to another train station and on the way Tanya taught me a song in Slovenian. We ran to catch the train only to find out it was running late, and I sang some Death Cab for Cutie songs for my friends while we waited. On the long ride back we looked at pictures and pored over my guidebook some more. I pulled out my enormous gigantic map to show them where I had been in Italy and where I am going to go.
Tanya on the train with a camera. She takes a ton of
pictures so hopefully I don't have to.
pictures so hopefully I don't have to.
Today I ran a long way and went to hang out with my friends in the Giardini Margherita, and I just got back from seeing the amazing fireworks display in the Piazza Maggiore in honor of San Petronio. This week looks promising.
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