Tuscan Traveler

One thing that continues to fascinate me about Florence, despite all of its many frustrating aspects, is how nuggets of historical gold can be found once you learn one little fact – kind of a Medieval/Renaissance version of “Six Degrees of Separation.”

For example:  I visited the Chapter Library in Piazza del Capitolo. Across the piazza was a tabernacle on the wall. I took an arty reflective photo of it because the glass was too dirty to get a good shot of the fresco inside.

Duomo reflected in tabernacle in Piazza del Capitolo

As I was researching the history of the Biblioteca Capitolare, the ancient library, I ran across a reference to the tabernacle, which led to the following story and more places to visit (just click on the embedded links):

On a hot summer night in 1501, a young man named Antonio Rinaldeschi, drunk and angry at losing his money and some of his clothes while gambling at the Osteria del Fico in what is now Via del Giglio staggered through the streets around the Cathedral cursing the name of the Virgin.  He entered the tiny piazza in front of the small church, which is now the Chapter Library. There on a wall he noticed a tabernacle with an Annunciation known as the Madonna or Santa Maria de’Ricci (probably commissioned by the Ricci family who lived in the area). He stooped, gathered up a handful of horse manure and threw it at the face of the Virgin before running away.  Unfortunately for Antonio, the dung did not dry and fall off (a clump stuck to her halo) and his act was witnessed by a boy, who was able to describe the defiler.  The Archbishop came to view the outrage and the devoted came to pray and leave votive candles.

Tabernacle with Annunciation to the Virgin fresco

The Otto di Guardia, eight men charged with keeping the peace, were commissioned to find the culprit. Rinaldeschi was soon identified as a likely suspect. He was taken into custody in the garden of the convent of S. Francesco al Monte alle Croci (behind the Church of San Salvatore), outside the city walls. Fearing the mob, he tried to commit suicide by stabbing himself in the chest, but was saved by hitting a rib.  He was imprisoned in the Bargello, charged with gambling, blasphemy and attempted suicide. Although these were not usually offenses that called for the death penalty, Antonio reportedly asked to be executed for fear of worse treatment by a lynch mob, which had been fired up by the radical monk Savonarola. Rinaldeschi was hanged from the wall of the Bargello.

Altar of the church of Santa Maria de'Ricci

Today the shrine is replaced by a copy. The original was placed on the altar of the church of Santa Maria de’Ricci. The whole story of Antonio Renaldeschi appears painted in tempera on a board divided into nine squares, which show the true sequence of events. The board is now in the Stibbert Museum.

Story of Antonio Rinaldeschi (tempera on wood)

Doomed Antonio’s story is described and discussed at length in Sacrilege and Redemption in Renaissance Florence. The slender book by W.J. Connell and G. Constable unveils a series of newly discovered sources concerning this striking episode. The authors show how the political and religious context of Renaissance Florence resulted both in Rinaldeschi’s death sentence and in the creation by Savonarola’s followers of a new religious devotion in the heart of the city commemorating the event.

Another historical thread led out of the Piazza del Capitolo, but that will be the subject of a future post.

I had been looking for Dante’s Stone for years. Not every day mind you, but off and on … for years. The story of the Sasso di Dante has been talked about for centuries. Seven centuries to be exact, because the last time Dante could have sat on his rock was 1302; that year he was banished from Florence, never to return.

Dante Alighieri

Guidebooks told me that the stone was gone. No big surprise. But it was repeatedly reported that a plaque had been placed on a wall where the rock sat and where Dante sat on the rock. It was supposed to be on the wall in Piazza delle Pallottole. I looked on every wall in the tiny piazza. I couldn’t find the plaque.

From the stories that have filtered down through the ages, you would think that Dante never did anything, but jot poems. The Sasso di Dante supports this idea. Dante reportedly relaxed on this stone a lot, either (depending on the source you are reading): 1) watching the cathedral walls go up (the Duomo’s dome wouldn’t go on for another 150 years), 2) catching the cooling wind on summer days (it’s true, it’s one of the few places in town where the air moves in the summertime); 3) writing love poems (first poem at age 18 (1283); then between 1290 and 1293, he wrote Vita Nuova, a book of prose and poetry about his love for Beatrice), or 4) talking politics (Dante entered city government in 1295). But Dante was not always hanging out in Piazza delle Pallottole. He rode a horse into two, maybe three, major battles, managed the family estates, and as mentioned before, served as a political appointee.

No reference book says Dante was watching games of bocce ball from his sasso, but Piazza delle Pallottole is so named because it was a piazza where the game of pallottole, a type of bocce ball game, was permitted to be played.

Today, there is an old trattoria called, not surprisingly, Sasso di Dante, that takes up most of the piazza.

Modern version of Dante's stone

But back to the search for the plaque… One day, about two years ago I was taking a shortcut through the alley alongside the trattoria in Piazza delle Pallottole and there against the opposite wall, blocking a narrow sidewalk, was a huge stone with a metal tag that read “I Vero Sasso di Dante” (incorrect Italian (missing an apostrophe) for The True Stone of Dante). I swear on all three parts of the Divine Comedy it had not been there the month before.

Now I could bring my touring clients to the spot and tell them the most famous story about the Sasso di Dante. It goes like this:

“Tradition says that an unknown person once accosted Dante seated in his favorite place and asked:  ‘What do you like best to eat?’  Dante answered “A hard-boiled egg.”  A year after the same man, whom Dante had not seen in the meantime, approached and simply asked: “With what?”  Dante immediately replied:  “With salt.”

"I Vero Sasso di Dante" The True Stone of Dante

In the late 1800s, the poet Carlo Gabrielli, set Dante’s egg story in rhyme (ottava rima) and ended with the moral:  L’acuto ingegno apporta gloria; / Maggior, se v’é congiunta alta memoria.

I’m not sure this is a tale of great memory or a savant’s selective focus. Dante was reportedly a peculiar guy.

And by the way, I found the plaque. It’s very large, made of marble, and not in Piazza delle Palottole. It’s around the corner, in Piazza del Duomo, low on the side of a store that sells all things sacred (during this season – many crèches) and Catholic. I went in to ask when the marble sign was placed. “Twenty years ago or more.” I had been walking past for more than ten years without noticing – easy to do in Florence where the past comes to greet even the longtime visitor every day.

The "missing" plaque in Piazza del Duomo

Outside Santa Croce

As the November 4th anniversary of the 1966 flood that devastated Florence approaches, it’s the perfect time to read Robert Clark’s Dark Water: Art Disaster and Redemption in Florence, which was just released in paperback.

As Angela Leeper writes in her concise review in bookpage.com: “History and art criticism, with a dash of memoir thrown in, Robert Clark’s Dark Water chronicles how the flood of November 4, 1966—in which four million books, 14,000 works of art and 16 miles of documents were either damaged or destroyed—came to define the Italian city of Florence. Clark begins with a history of the city: its literary and artistic greats, its sins, its transformation into a tourist haven, and of course, its centuries of flooding. With each catastrophe, Florence’s residents were quick to place blame on God, their politicians or their immoral lifestyles.

Inside Santa Croce

“Clark continues his layered account with profiles of the residents, artists and volunteer ‘mud angels’ who began to salvage Florence’s treasures that November as the Arno River rushed by, improvising conservation and restoration on the spot. Throughout his evocative, detailed prose, he reflects on the city’s character and the ephemeral nature of beauty itself.”

A more detailed review was written by Michael Dirda in the Washington Post and can be found online.

For those who seeking more information about the 1966 flood, a website, florence-flood.com was created in 2006 on the 40th anniversary, to provide news, archives and photos.

Only death or divorce will get you a spot in the coveted first row on an Italian beach. In a country where there is a socialistic equality in most things – health care, long lines at the post office, job security, good food – the beach is not one of them. In the U.S., if you get up early enough, you can stake out the best piece of sand on almost any shore and you can usually have a couple of yards between you and your nearest neighbor.

Each beach station has its own color scheme

In Italy, the best spot is already taken – everywhere.  This prime real estate is a ten foot square piece of sand on the front row (closest to the waterline) in one of the hundreds of beach stations (stabilimenti balneari or bagni) that line the sandy beach along the gently rolling Tyrrhenian Sea from Rome to Cinque Terre. It is only obtained through patience or primogeniture.

This, of course, is not the natural sea-washed, wind-ruffled, kid-pocked, littered and shell-strewn beach of the States or Britain. No, this is ten feet of perfectly groomed sand, topped by a large beach umbrella, a beach chair, two matching sling-back chairs and a long lounge with attached sun-shade.

Chairs for five under the umbrella

It’s crowded, especially after the allowable five people move into the space. It’s more crowded when the neighboring umbrellas on either side are raised and their quota of five people each arrive. But ,of course, if you have a spot on the front row, you know everyone around you – they have been friends, or even family, for decades.

It takes a lifetime to get to the front row

Each summer Italians spend as much time as possible, not only in the same seaside town, or at the same bagno, but on the same spot of sand, the same distance from the same sea.  They frequently rent the spot for three to four months each year. When no member of the extended family is present between the months of May to mid-September, no one else is allowed to sit under their umbrella, on their chairs, or on their ten-square feet of sand.

For Americans who for the most part don’t spend the summer holidays in the same place twice, this shows an astonishing commitment or a sad lack of imagination. But this is not unusual for Italians. A recent study showed that over 70% of Italians take their 30 to 60 days of vacation each summer at the same time and over 65% spend that holiday time in the exact same place every year.

Perhaps it is the chaos of their history and politics that push Italians into a comfortable conformity in their private lives.  They have a sense of humor about it all. In the 1960s, Piero Focaccia, a popular singer, warbled this tune:

Changing cabins for rent at the beach

Per quest’anno, non cambiare.
Stessa spiaggia, stesso mare.

For this year, don’t change
Same beach, same sea.

Italy is blessed with beaches, both east on the Adriatic Sea or the west on the adjoining seas:  Ligurian, Tyrrhenian, as well as the southern Ionian Sea.  The personalities of the coasts are clearly defined.  The east coast has thousands of stabilimenti lined up at Rimini, Ancona, San Benedetto and Lido di Jesolo, south to Pescara. The sea is flat and tepid, but the beaches rock with discos and luna parks.  The west coast has more rambunctious seas, but seems to have a more placid beach life, fewer teenagers looking to hook up, more groups of three or four middle-aged ladies standing knee deep in the water gossiping. Italians are opinionated and loyal – those that favor the east coast, do not let the west coast sand slide through their toes.

Actually, there is not a lot of sand-toe contact on the Italian beaches. Once the Italian family (this is not a solitary pastime; you only go to the beach with family or friends) selects its preferred coast, picks a town to match their socio-economic class (Forte dei Marmi for high-rollers, Viareggio and Lido di Camaiore for the well-to-do, Lido di Massa Carrara for the middle class) and puts down one to five thousand euro for the sixteen summer weeks (mid-May to mid-September) at a bath station, they will have a combination of the following amenities: a parking lot, an entry portico, a receptionist (for day or weekly renters), a bar or café, showers (mostly cold, some hot for a fee), toilets, changing cabins, restaurant, fresh- or sea-water pool (higher end establishments), video games, fooseball tables, boardwalks to the sea (wood, plastic, or rubber), a bagnino (lifeguard cum umbrella jockey cum sand raker), a flag pole with colored flags (red if sea is too rough), paddle boats for rent, and a rescue rowboat for the bagnino.

Upscale stabilimento balneari provides extra space

For the American with an exaggerated sense of personal space, the Italian beach scene, although colorful, can seem claustrophobic. For the Italian it is a joyful place of friends and family – teenagers fall in love, get married ten years later, socialize and play cards with other couples, have children – who play as babies/toddlers/teenagers, and then fall in love and start the cycle all over again.

As the summer ends and the ombrelloni are put away, Italians say goodbye to their beach mates with promises of “Stessa spiaggia, stesso mare” next year.

For garden-lovers and those who just enjoy the vistas of the classic Tuscan countryside, an afternoon touring the gardens of the famed La Foce estate, two hours south of Florence, provides the impetus for many that brings them back to stay in one of the many renovated farm houses or even in the villa once occupied by the author Iris Origo.

The Villa of La Foce

La Foce lies on the hills overlooking the Val d’Orcia, a beautiful valley in southern Tuscany. Midway between Florence and Rome, it is also within easy reach of Siena, Arezzo, Perugia, Assisi, Orvieto.

From Etruscan times (a burial-place dating from the 7th century BC to the 2nd AD has been recently excavated on the property), the settlement of La Foce has been continuously inhabited for many centuries. In medieval times, ts strategic position on the historical Via Francigena leading to Rome greatly increased its significance. The Villa itself (now available for rent) was built in the late 15th century as a hostel for pilgrims and merchants traveling on this busy road.

In 1924 the clay-covered hills were bought by Antonio and Iris Origo, who dedicated their lives to bringing progress and social change to the then poverty-ridden area, building a profitable farm on the enormous property. Today the estate – a combination of woods, cultivated fields and olive groves – is run by the Origo daughters, Benedetta and Donata. The garden, is an ideal combination between the landscape and 20th century architecture, blending Italian and English traditions and taste.

The Geometric Italian Garden

The Origos engaged an English architect, Cecil Pinsent, who had previously done extensive work on Bernard Berenson’s Villa I Tatti in Florence, to restructure the main buildings and create a large garden at La Foce. The vast garden was conceived to enhance the Renaissance house and expand the spectacular view over the valley of the Orcia and the Amiata mountain. The harmony between buildings, garden and nature makes La Foce an ideal example of Tuscany’s architectural and cultural evolution.

The English Flower Garden

The garden grew gradually, between 1925 and 1939. The villa is surrounded by a formal Italian garden, which is divided into geometrical ‘rooms’ by box hedges with lemon trees in terracotta pots. Travertine stairs lead to the rose garden and a winding wisteria-covered pergola bordered by lavender hedge. Gentle informal terraces climb up the hill, where cherry trees, pines and cypresses grow among wild broom, thyme and rosemary, and a long cypress avenue leads to a 17th-century stone statue. Through the wood, a path joins the garden and the family cemetery, considered one of Pinsent’s best creations.

The Distant Serpentine Road is on the La Foce Estate

Near La Foce, are the Renaissance and medieval towns of Pienza, Montepulciano, Monticchiello and Montalcino. The countryside abounds in lovely walks among woods and the characteristic crete senesi (clay hills) and famous wines such as the Vino Nobile and Brunello can be tasted in the local cellars or accompanying the delicious southern Tuscan cuisine.

The La Foce Cemetery for the Origo and Estate Families

Opening hours: the garden is open to the public every Wednesday afternoon. Guided tours leave from the Fattoria courtyard every hour from 3 to 7 PM (April-September) and 3 to 5 PM (October-March). For more information about the gardens and the vacation rentals on the estate see the La Foce website.

Visitors to Florence this summer should keep an eye out for special events in special places.

Update (9/11/09):

Patti Smith at Palazzo Vecchio

Patti Smith came back to town this past week for her i. was in Florence tour – a tour limited to the city limits, including unannounced stops to sing on street corners and small piazzas. She spoke to a large group of NYU students at Villa La Pietra and rocked the house in the Salone dei Cinquecento in the Palazzo Vecchio where, to an invitation-only crowd, she recited Ginzberg’s footnote to Howl – Holy, Holy, Holy (a glance at the lyrics makes clear that this grand Renaissance hall had never heard the like before). The frescoed walls and Michelangelo’s statue quaked  as she belted out People Have the Power, backed by guitarists Lenny Kaye and Tom Verlaine.

The three, joined by a bass player and drummer, appeared the next night in front of 50,00 people, framed by the facade of the church of Santa Croce for a return concert – exactly 30 years after her 9/10/79 appearance, of which she has said, “At least once a day, every day since September 10th, 1979, I think about that memorable concert, probably the best, without doubt the most powerful of my whole artistic career.”

30-Year Reunion Concert at Santa Croce

Patti Smith performed to a packed house at the feet of David

This past Sunday (May 24), Patti Smith rushed to Florence from the wedding of her son Jackson (to Meg White of the White Stripes) to honor her friend Robert Mapplethorpe at a benefit for AIDS/HIV at the Accademia.

Patti Smith at the Accademia

Although few in the audience actually saw Smith, who stood in the deep shadows at the feet of the David, no one went away unhappy after her superb performance.

She talked about her first evening with Mapplethorpe when they poured over a book of Michelangelo’s sculptures and the nascent photographer wondered if he would ever see his own work in such a book. Smith described his encouragement of her singing and the impact of his death from complications of AIDS twenty years ago on May 22, 1989.

Patti Smith performing at the feet of David

She recited Sonnets by Michelangelo, Psalms of David, her own poetry and sang a choice selection of her songs, either a cappella or accompanying herself on guitar. At one point she forgot some lyrics and gracefully blamed it on the awe she felt for the marble giant standing behind her. Highlights included her recitation of “People Have the Power” and the show-stopping “Because the Night Belongs to Lovers” that brought the audience to its feet, singing along.

Mapplethorpe and Michelangelo together for the first time

This week the Galleria dell’Accademia opens a new exhibit “Perfection in Form” juxtaposing photographic images by Robert Mapplethorpe to some of the most iconic Renaissance pieces in the world – Michelangelo’s David and the four non finiti Prisoners. The two artists seem to engage in a dialogue beyond time, space, and cultures.

One of the Photographic Images in the exhibition

“My work is about order”, Mapplethorpe once said,adding, “I am looking for perfection in form”. Michelangelo would have understood the sentiment.

The 91 works by Mapplethorpe are joined by several pieces by Michelangelo (four drawings and a sketch, in addition to the David, the four Prisoners and the painting Venus and Cupid) and the plaster model of the Rape of the Sabine Women by Giambologna. The exhibition is completed by works by artists that Mapplethorpe referenced throughout the course of his life and work (Brice Marden, Man Ray, Ettore Spalletti and Andy Warhol).

The Slave – Mapplethorpe’s homage to Michelangelo

Mapplethorpe’s double photograph with a knife, entitled “The Slave” (1974), is of a Michelangelo sculpture that is not in Florence, but rather resides in the Louvre in Paris, where it is known as “The Dying Slave.”

The Slave (1974)

One of two such sculptures in the Louvre, the Dying Slave was included in the design (1505) for the initial project for the tomb of Pope Julius II. Michelangelo began to carve it in 1513. After the pope’s death, it, among others, was rejected for financial reasons. Similar figures, including the four marble Prisoners in the Accademia of Florence – carved and also left incomplete (non finiti) in 1532 – had been part of the original design for the grandiose tomb. Julius II, who had dreamed of a freestanding mausoleum at Saint Peter’s in Rome, was buried in San Pietro in Vincoli in a wall tomb, adorned with one grand statue – Michelangelo’s famous Moses.

The Dying Slave by Michelangelo

Despite being unfinished, the two great marble Slaves were already admired. Michelangelo donated them to the Florentine exile Roberto Strozzi, who presented them to the French king. The Slaves thus reached France during the sculptor’s lifetime, and first occupied two niches at the Château d’Ecouen before Cardinal de Richelieu took them to his château in Poitou.

Perfection in Form – the Exhibit

The Galleria dell’Accademia, known to accompany it’s drawing card, the David, with good exhibits in the past, has outdone itself with the Mapplethorpe show – Perfection in Form. Patti Smith, reportedly, helped select the photographic images created by the artist.

The exhibit runs from May 26, 2009 to mid-January, 2010.

Don’t stand in line.  Call for reservations well in advance at +39 055.294.883.

The fish tank was back.  The same week that the huge colorful aquarium was returned to its place in the waiting room of the UNM Cancer Center, Ellen Reavis left this world for a new adventure. Ellen didn’t know that in a life of both big and little causes, she was the victor in her last skirmish – the fish tank was back.

Colorful Hats and Tie-Dyed T-Shirts

Ellen was a regular at the Cancer Center.  Everyone knew her as the Jolly Buddha, dressed in either tie-dyed or exotic Hawaiian shirts.  She had the largest repertoire of hats to cover her pink bald head.  When her hair started to grow back, baby fine, she dyed it bright red.

Ellen was only forty-eight when, coming out of anesthesia from a routine procedure, she was told that she had endometrial cancer. Days later, a CT scan showed “tumors too numerous to count” in her lungs and liver.  The macabre joke was oft told: “Ellen’s lungs look like she’s been hunting with Dick Cheney.”

Although in shock, Ellen and her partner of fifteen years, Ruth Hanckel, did the right thing – they researched treatment centers, interviewed oncologists, became neophyte experts on the disease and its treatment.  They chose Dr. Carolyn Y. Muller, a nationally known expert in the treatment of gynecological cancers, and the UNM Cancer Center, one of the best cancer treatment centers in the nation. 

Ellen was immediately admitted to a promising Phase Three Study, using a new combination of chemotherapies.  She, however, was assigned to the half of the trial that was administered a standard accepted chemotherapy drug.  Ellen’s early response was very favorable.  Having successfully negotiated the first hurdles in what Ellen called her “thirty-year plan”, she came to a wall:  An MRI of her brain showed eight small tumors, each the size of a Cheerio.  To scale the wall she had to stop the chemo drugs and start a course of full-brain radiation with Dr. Gene Wong.  The radiation was successful, but the resumed chemotherapy never worked as well as it had in the beginning.  Her thoracic and abdominal lymph nodes started to grow larger.

Ruth and Ellen Together for 15 Years

Ellen and Ruth were not alone in the horrible first months.  They had hundreds of friends.  Ruth worked at Eclipse Aviation.  Her bosses gave her all the flexibility she needed in her schedule.  Ellen had long been an advocate in many fields – labor and employment, legislative, the women’s community, autism and children with special needs – she had colleagues and friends throughout the state. 

As an Occupational Therapist (OT) for the Albuquerque Public Schools (APS), Ellen worked with all types of special needs children, but her specialty was with those with autism.  In 2006, she was named to the APS Autism Services team to facilitate the training of OTs and Physical Therapists (PTs) to better meet the needs of kids who fell into the autism spectrum of diseases.  She emphasized family involvement.  She was innovative.  One colleague remembers the day that Ellen, frustrated with the pinching behavior of one of her small clients, wrapped herself in foam rubber and duct tape, solving the immediate problem to hilarious effect.

Sidney Alley, Lead Therapist at APS, described her best, “Ellen Reavis was a force of nature in her steadfast dedication to students with special needs, but also in her support of families and educational staff that are so integral to the success of students with differences. In her typical Hawaiian shirt attire and accompanying energy, Ellen had a gift for entertaining us but also for embracing the causes of families and communities affected by autism. She showed us all how individual voices could work in unison and create opportunities that better the lives of so many of our children.  Anyone who ever worked with Ellen on a project knew that she would not give up until she was satisfied with the outcome; she would step back and look at a task from every possible angle and ensure that she had addressed potential challenges or obstacles.  Friends poked fun at the degree of her persistence and would often feign an attempt to hide from her because they knew she would challenge them to delve deeper into the task. She took the teasing in typical good humor and then she continued to keep us all on track with the important work at hand.”

Ellen Collected Mexican Ceramics

As a past president of the New Mexico Autism Society, Ellen advocated for the rights, treatment, and support of both children and adults with diseases in the autism spectrum.

Ellen also advocated for her colleagues.  For years, she lobbied the state legislature for the rights of OTs and Physical Therapists (PTs) to receive fair pay and working conditions.  She won that fight in August 2006.  Vicki Putman, a social worker in the Santa Fe Public Schools, who was working on the same issues, said, Ellen “was a truly unique individual.  She was like a fast moving train that picked up other train cars and took us along with her toward her destination.  She never faltered, she knew what was right and got us all fired up.”

In January 2007, Ellen was back at the Roundhouse fighting for Senator Dede Feldman’s Senate Bill 164 for autism funding – the first autism service package for New Mexico. The Senate honored Ellen with an official commemoration in early April.

Although Ellen was forced to leave her job due to the heavy cancer treatment schedule, the muscle wasting effect of the chemo, and fear for her compromised immune system, she created a new life. She fought with her treatment team about a prohibition on travel – they feared that she would contract a life-threatening infection.  She went to New Orleans, visited family in Michigan and Washington, and took two weeks in Mexico.  (Dr. Muller warned her about the extreme danger of sea coral cuts, so Ellen sent back photos of hang-gliders over the ocean, asserting that she was keeping far away from submerged coral.)

Ellen and her sisters in February 2008

To stay in touch with children with the varied conditions in the autism spectrum of diseases, Ellen volunteered at Camp Rising Sun last summer as well as at the Wheelchair Sports Camp.  She didn’t have unlimited energy, so she was the photographer.  More importantly, she was a knowledgeable resource for the therapists and volunteers.  Sharon Cruse, a counselor at Camp Rising Sun, said, “She was wonderful with the kids. More wonderful was to see how the young counselors watched and learned from Ellen. ‘The Passing of the Torch’ was just an expression to me until I watched Ellen share her love and talent with the counselors and kids at Camp Rising Sun.”

“Fun” was a word that figured in Ellen’s conversation every day.  A month after she started chemotherapy, Ruth and Ellen donated to the Cibola Choral Boosters, who “flocked” Dr. Muller’s lawn.  “Flocking” is a practice where 140 pink plastic flamingos appear anonymously on the victim’s property, only to disappear again twenty-four hours later.  This event became the talk of the Cancer Center.  Although, they never took credit, Ellen and Ruth held the threat of “flocking” over the more reserved Dr. Wong’s head for months.  He started seeing flamingo references at every turn.

When the traditional chemotherapy ceased to be effective after five months, Ellen volunteered for a Phase One study, but the therapy was not effective in slowing the progression of Ellen’s cancer.  She wrote an article for  the New Mexico Cancer care Alliance newsletter, entitled Rolling the Dice, about the experience.

Ellen chose her oncologist, Carolyn Muller, both because she specialized in gynecological cancers and because of her reputation in the field, but also because Dr. Muller had written an article in a professional journal called “The Miracle of Life and the Privilege of Death.”  In the article, addressed to colleagues, Dr. Muller argued that as much attention should be paid to helping a patient die as to vigorously fighting to keep them alive.

The end came fast.  In January, Ellen fought her last battle – the crusade for the fish tank.  One day, workmen came to take the tank away.  No one could explain to Ellen’s satisfaction why that happened or whether the aquarium would be returned. Ellen, always proactive, grabbed a piece of paper, wrote up a petition and made ten copies.  It read: “Please bring our fish aquarium back.  We watch the fish when we are anxious or angry or just plain bored.  It’s an important part of our waiting room.”  Everyone signed – patients, family members, doctors, nurses, secretaries, technicians, and even members of the Cancer Center’s administration.

Ellen and Bernie

By early February, Ellen knew something was seriously wrong.  She had just started a new Phase One study and she was experiencing severe muscle weakness and confusion.  “I’m not in touch with my brain,” she said.  The next CT scan and blood tumor-marker test told the story.  Her cancer had increased ten-fold in two months.  She was soon unable to get out of bed without help.

Her colleagues and friends rallied around.  Over fifty OTs, PTs, social workers, speech therapists and teachers from APS volunteered to sit at her bedside, each for a two-hour shift.  Ellen was never alone. Ten to twenty people a day, sitting with Ellen or in the living room, sharing stories, laughter and tears. 

Ellen died in her sleep at home on February 28.  She was buried in a handcrafted pine box covered with the messages of her friends and family.  She rests in a 150-year-old San Jose de Armijo Cemetery on the 300-year-old Atrisco Land Grant.

Sometime in the last week of February the aquarium was reinstalled in the patients’ and families’ waiting room of the UNM Cancer Center. Soon it will bear a plaque honoring Ellen.

A Celebration of the Life of Ellen Reavis took place on April 18.  Donations may be made in her name to the N.M. Autism Society, P.O. Box 30955, Albuquerque NM 87190-0955 (telephone: 505-332-0306).

Snow in Florence is rare. But it does frost the Duomo every few years for a day or two.

Duomo in the snow December '05

While Tuscan Traveler was enjoying the sun on the Pacific Ocean on the coast of Chile in 2005, snow fell on Florence.

Let it snow in 2009

Again in 2008, this time the sun, but not the warmth, was in Santa Fe, NewMexico, and snow amazed tourists on the Ponte Vecchio.

Of course, the locals say, “This is nothing like the time in 1985 – the Arno froze solid that year, you know.”

Ponte Vecchio December '05

Now in the first days of 2009, Tuscan Traveler is waiting for snow in Florence.

HAPPY NEW YEAR ! 

 

Image © Florencephotos.com
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Firenze, Italy 1999-2008

The wine portals, buchette del vino, are unique to Florentine architecture. An observant visitor on a walk through Florence can find dozens of these small, once useful, doors.

Palazzo Antinori on Via d. Trebbio

Those who have traveled to Rome, Venice, Milan, or even the small hill towns of Tuscany know that Florentine palaces built during the Renaissance were designed to resemble the bank vaults of their owners. (The city was once the home to over one hundred banking families, serving all of Europe.) The palaces had few windows in the exterior walls and the central courtyards were closed behind massive fortified doors to all but invited guests.

Florentine bankers were diversified in their holdings and their entrepreneurial interests.  Some foreign monarch might not be trusted to repay in cash the loan made by the Medici or Strozzi bank to fund his next war.  But a savvy Florentine banker could probably talk the king into shipping wool from his thousands of sheep to Florence, where the banker’s brother would see it spun and dyed and sold as fine Italian woolen cloth.

The same banker would surely have acquired (through purchase, papal grant, or military action) property in the Tuscan countryside where a cousin would be charged with shipping olives and olive oil, grains and flour, vegetables and prociutto, and grapes and wine to the family palazzo in Florence. These would be stored in the cantina, at or below street level, near the front door of the building.

Wine Portal of Palazzo Viviani

Now, the banker had a problem: how to keep the riff-raff out of his palazzo, but still make money by selling the bounty of the family’s country estates.  The buchette del vino (literally, “the wine holes”) solved the problem. Through the thick wall of the palace, at the location of the cantina, a small opening, the size of a fiasco of wine, was created. It was closed with a wooden door.

The cantiniere, or storeroom manager, would respond to a knock on the door.  Depending on the request, he would dispense wine into the customer’s cup or bottle or pass through a straw-covered liter (fiasco) of wine from the cantina’s stock that just fit through the opening. The cantiniere would also take orders for large glass demijohns (damigiana) or wooden barrels of wine, both of which would be delivered to the customer at the service entrance of the palazzo.  Although the small portals became known as buchette del vino, other products were sold through them by the same order and delivery mode – flasks of olive oil, cured legs of pork, bags of flour, and baskets of vegetables.

Open Hours for Cantina at Palazzo Viviani

The best example of a wine portal is the buchetta of Palazzo Viviani, which was still in use in the 1700s.  A marble plaque above it states the hours that the cantina was open – not only for each day, but also varying by season and for holidays.

Palazzo dello Strozzino

A well-known portal (see photo above) on the north side of Palazzo Antinori (home of famed vintners for the past 500 years) and next to the entry door of Ristorante Buca Lapi, is a fake. Although celebrated at the beginning of an excellent CBS 60 Minutes piece, the impressively “aged” wooden door goes nowhere, and never did.

The wine portal in the Palazzo Strozzino (the “starter” home of the Strozzi before they built the “keeping up with the Medici” palace across the square) is a bit odd because it is uncomfortably low and incorporates a superfluous base stone.  Some propose that the stone was part of the foundation of a previous medieval building and Michelozzo, the architect, incorporated it into his final design.

Like the Strozzi, the Pazzi were competing bankers of the Medici. They built their own grand palazzo in 1468 on Via del Proconsolo with a wine portal at the appropriate height next to the grand entry door.  Due to their failed attempt to murder Lorenzo de’ Medici in 1478, Pazzi wine was sold through the buchetta del vino for only ten years.  Lorenzo the Magnificent ousted the family from the palazzo and banished the Pazzi from Florence.

Entry Door and Wine Portal of Palazzo Pazzi

Today, the buchette del vino are preserved by law as historical architectural artifacts. This has not stopped them from being turned into mail slots, doorbell/intercom posts, or plastered walls with a vague outline of an more interesting past.

See Mangia! Mangia! – Tale of Two Brothers - a previous post – and find the wine portal in the photo of Trattoria Il Latini.

Most people don’t know that modern clocks run on “French Time.” There is only one clock in the world that runs on “Italian Time” and it is in the Duomo in Florence.

“Paolo made the colored sphere of the hours above the main door within the Church, with four heads, painted in fresco.”  Giorgio Vasari, in his “Lives of the Artists” (1550), goes on to tell us that Paolo Uccello was paid 40 lire in February 1443 when he finished the face of the clock, decorated with the heads of the four Evangelists, on the inner façade of the front wall of Florence’s Duomo (cathedral). Uccello also designed the single golden shooting star-shaped hand that circled his fresco, denoting the time.

Italian Time Clock in the Duomo

Florentine clockmaker Angelo di Niccoló devised the clock’s first weight and counterweight mechanism. In the 17th century, Galileo Galilei designed a pendulum for the clock, improving the clock works.

This is a most unusual clock to the modern eye, not only because the Roman numeral XXIIII (24) is at the bottom, but also the clock runs right to left (counter clockwise).  The hand of Uccello’s clock moves like the shadow of a sundial or wall meridian- counter to the movement of the sun. This was entirely proper in the 1400s.  It was not until the 17th century when there was international standardization of all European clocks to mandate left to right movement.

Clock above the front door of Florence Cathedral

A 24-hour clock is common in Europe (know as military time in the U.S.).  But the hour designated by the number 24 on the Duomo clock is not midnight, but is the hour of sunset. Sunset was a more important concept in the 1400s because that was the time that the gates in the high walls surrounding the city would close and all residents should be inside. The bells of the Duomo, timed to the clock, would ring at set intervals before sunset to warn farmers and others to stop work and head back inside the protective walls.

The time of sunset changes, however, throughout the year.  The clock is re-set each week so that the last hour of daylight always coincides with the Roman numeral XXIIII. Thus, the clock tells the observer how many hours have passed since the sunset the day before – the Italian Hour of the present day.  For example: On November 4, sunset is deemed to be 5:15 and the clock hand will point to XXIIIi (24).  On November 5 the clock will be at XVII (17) at 10:15 in the morning to show that 17 hours have passed since sunset.

Italian Time is also known as “Julian Time” (per Julius Caesar’s reform) or the “Time of the Hail Mary” and was used in most of Romanized Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. The rest of Europe used “Ora Oltramontana” (”hour other side of the mountain” or Transalpine Time) or French Time, which counted time from twelve to twelve, calling the hours from midnight to midday “morning hours”, and the hours from midday to midnight “evening hours”, also know as Gregorian Time after Pope Gregory XIII (1583).

In 1669, the French system prevailed by international agreement and Uccello’s clock face was repainted to depict a twelve-hour clock.

In 1968, a five-year restoration process was started and the twelve-hour clock face was removed. Underneath it another twelve-hour face was found and under that a 24-hour design by an unknown artist.  By 1973, the original Uccello fresco was uncovered and restored to it former glory.

Four historical versions of the Duomo Clock

The original gilded copper hand of the clock created by Uccello was lost when the new 12-hour design was implemented in the 17th century. Restorers went back to Uccello’s original “contract of work” in order to recreate his design – “For the gilding of the clock’s star and for the gilding of the single sphere at the point of the ray …” Restorers also examined the design of the Star of Bethlehem that Uccello had included in his stain glass window, located in the cathedral dome. Then, a new single gilded copper hand in the shape of a shooting star was devised to count the time on the clock.

Since the 1980s, Lucio Bigi and Mario Mureddu have wound and reset the clock every week.  They wrote a small book about the clock, “L’Orologio nel Duomo di Firenze” (The Clock in Florence’s Cathedral), published by Libreria Editrice Fiorentina this year.

Visitors to the Duomo may want to step back in a few hours later on the day of their visit to observe the movement of the only clock in the world that keeps Italian Time.