Piazza Navona and the Four Rivers Fountain by Bernini, with Borromini's church in the background. It's an especially intriguing placement of monuments, since both sculptors/architects were such great rivals. The city of Rome is largely baroque, and this is a grand example of one building trying to outdo the other. Both still have no trouble looking absolutely stunning in any case.

When everyone first tries to picture Italy in their minds (in America, at least), they usually envision rolling hills, medieval brick buildings, cobbled streets, sidewalk cafes and gelato.

Well, prepare yourself, because Rome is far from what you’d imagine. That isn’t to say that you weren’t at least partially right—yes, there are cobbled streets, cafes and gelato—but Rome for the most part is a baroque city of monuments testifying to the glory of Romans past and present.

At first, the grandeur of it all takes your breath away, and you can’t help but walk around with eyes wide and jaw slack in wonder for it.  But as the city becomes familiar, as the street names become engrained in your memory, and the tram is just another part of getting to school, you begin to realize a different side the Rome.  There’s something hidden in the years of history and grime.  It’s proud, defiant, degraded, pompous, flamboyant, demanding, and still here.

The ruins and monuments have been something we’ve been brought up to accept and even expect from Rome, and Rome delivers with ruins in spades.  It’s as if the Italians of the past were giant children who had all these toys to play with, block buildings they built as big and as grand as they could, and when play time was over, the block buildings were torn down or left to fend for themselves.  Other big children came to play, and so some buildings were stolen from to build the new, and others were forgotten completely.  This is what Rome truly is—a city of grandiose buildings, both old, gone, or built upon, that proclaim one thing: I am Italian, and I am great!

In fact, every city seems to have something along the same thing to say, though in its own way.

Florence (aka Firenze) is a magnificent medieval city spotted with renaissance architecture and far too many American tourists.  The food is fantastic and everything we dream of when we hope for the perfect Italian dish.  More importantly, it is home to the Uffizi, one of the greatest art galleries in the world, filled to the brim with famous paintings by Botticelli, Raphael, Michelangelo, Lipi, Giotto, and so many others.  We spent somewhere close to four or five hours here, soaking in as much of the secrets each painting by one of the greats would offer us.  Some paintings reduced us to tears.

I personally hadn’t expected to see half of the great paintings that were there, including truly ALL of Boticelli’s masterpieces—the Birth of Venus and La Primavera in particular.  I literally rounded a corner, looked up and felt the chills absolutely cover every inch of my body and the hot sting of tears push past my eyes and roll down my cheeks.  I had never even been that big of a fan of Botticelli either, but this truly reversed that for me.  I think we’re so utterly bombarded by reproductions of these pieces of art and others that soon we’re desensitized to just how fantastic it is that this piece was created, let alone so very long ago and by mixing your own paints and lacquers.

The Columbus Museum of Art seems almost childish in comparison, boasting pieces by artists whose work is about 100 years old or younger.  Once you’ve seen a piece that is centuries old, and has stood the test of time with a vision that can yet speak to its audience, that is truly a humbling experience.  And in regards to what this has to say about Florence, or its own message to us, it is simply this: I am Italian, and I am cultured.

Inside the illuminated manuscript library in the Sienna duomo. Its walls and ceiling are decorated with beautiful, intricate renaissance paintings and designs. Illuminated manuscripts line the walls in glass cases, but it's hard not to just keep looking up at all of the paintings above.

Sienna (or Siena, as the Italians prefer) is yet another medieval city, though not by its own volition.  Back when the black plague was running rampant, Sienna lost 4/5′s of its population.  As a result, it became something of a backwater city, unable to afford updated buildings or roads, and so has remained very medieval into our current history.

The angle of the roads here are far steeper than those of Florence or Rome, and its small alleyways provide the perfect frame to sprawling vistas of the Tuscan countryside.

The food, yet again, is fantastic here, and it has an even more small town feel to it than Florence, though not by much.  In fact, a fairly strong undercurrent of competition runs between Florence and Sienna, both in commerce and pride.  One of Sienna’s greatest buildings, its duomo (the rival to Florence’s, of course), is almost ridiculous in its beauty.  Covered in black and white stripes with a hugely ornate Gothic facade, it bears a bell tower, transept, and a skeletal structure reaching to its right that was to include a whole other section of the church that was not completed.  Apparently, the Siennese had hoped to build a church even larger than that of St. Peter’s, with poor result.  But for all that this seems a failure, their duomo truly is something spectacular, and it seems extremely strange that up until I had seen it in person, I had never studied or seen it in any of my text books.  It’s truly remarkable, with inlaid marble floors depicting biblical stories, great piers of striped marble that echo the exterior’s patterning, and fantastic wood work and illuminating manuscripts in the Chigi chapel.  To me, it seems like Sienna is ever trying to tell us this: I am Italian, and I am the past in the present—I am still here.

Assisi (yes, like St. Francis of Assisi), is probably the most charming place I’ve been to yet.  It’s got a small village charm to it (probably because it is small) that allows you to feel more incorporated in the Italian community than any other place.

It’s located amongst the mountains, just a few hours north of Rome, just above the lower cloud line.  When we drove into town in the morning, we were surrounded entirely by a thick mist.  By the afternoon, the mist had lifted and we were able to truly behold just how amazing a place we had landed ourselves in.  The entirety of the Tuscan countryside sprawled below and beyond us for hundreds of miles—patches of green, blotches of blue and brown and yellow, some laced with stripes indicating farmland and others cultured spots that could only mean orchards or vineyards.

My first Italian pizza, far from the traditional sort we find at home. It's of the "frutti di mare" variety (literally "fruit of the sea") and they sure weren't kidding. I just couldn't get over how amazing the ingredients for the pizza were (including whole small squids, clams, oysters, octopus, and small scallops), and the amazing colors they created when put together. I was almost sad to eat the pizza and ruin the perfect little ensemble on my plate!

Yet again, we were able to experience one of the very most dear qualities to Italian culture—food.  When I say that, it’s not so much the food that you eat when you go out to a restaurant, although the Italians do that well too.  It’s the quality of the food, how utterly fresh it is, having just been picked, harvested, or slaughtered and brought directly to the store or market it’s to be sold at.  It’s something that America seems to have outgrown and found itself unable to do for itself anymore.  There are too many people, too few farmers, and fewer yet out of all of those people who are willing to compromise in order to regain the quality of life that the Italians enjoy so well.

The architecture here is medieval, as seems to be the trend in the smaller or less crowded towns, and beautiful as is any you’ll find in Italy.  But it truly is the views that these buildings are able to allow us to see more easily that makes them wonderful.  The cathedral of St. Francis is at the very edge of a plateau of the mountain it’s on, and the sheer drop makes the whole place far more magnificent.

On a side note, St. Francis Cathedral is well worth going in to. It’s free, and aside from seeing the tomb of St. Francis himself and some of his artifacts, the entire lower story of the basilica is adorned in paintings done by Giotto and his assistants.  Hundreds of them cover its walls. It’s utterly astonishing.

But back on track to good views. You’ll find, in my opinion, the most fantastic of them all on the highest hill top accessible by foot in Assisi.  There, a medieval fortress towers over the rest of the city’s buildings, lone and surrounded only by grass, flowers, and lush folliage cresting and tumbling over the edge of the mountainside.

At sunset, the view becomes even more spectacular and a singularly unique experience.  During the day, the mountainside is alive with insect life and tourists, but at sunset only the dedicated few tourists journey to the top, the wind is brisk and cool, driving away the insects for the evening, and the sky blazes in such rich colors over the expansive countryside so as to not be done any form of justice by just viewing a photograph.

The colors and views of Assisi have stuck with me, and I’m positive they will begin to haunt my drawings and paintings for many years to come.  If anything, Assisi has this to say to us: I am Italian, and I am lush and beautiful.

So what yet is there out there in Italy to see?  Venice, for sure, is something I’m determined to experience.  I can’t imagine a city that thrives on waterways as streets, and I’m afraid that if I don’t go now, it won’t be there when I ever decide to come back.

Certainly, it’s clear that each city, no matter how big or small, is very distinctly unique, and very distinctly Italian.  It’s hard to say what exactly I’m planning to see, or what I’ll be lucky enough to realize.  All I know is that this trip has absolutely impacted me in ways I could not have foreseen and that will influence the way I see and appreciate things both in life and art from now on.

I’m keeping my fingers crossed that my work will continue to benefit so well from what I’ve seen, and that there will be many more sites to allow to seep in.

First Day of School at Lorenzo De' Medici

We have been really busy here. There is never a dull moment! So far, Rome feels like home. We have all become really comfortable when it comes to transportation and adjusting to the culture. We are even to the point where we are mistaken for being Italian by the locals. It is exciting at the bus stop to be approached and asked a question in Italian and thinking ‘Wow, I must really look like I fit in here’.

Italy is a remarkable country and the perfect place for art students. Everywhere we turn there is another church or museum covered in art. We walk and commute on buses, trams, and trains everyday to see these great things. I can’t help but think that Rome is boot camp for artists.

The first picture I have is one of my favorites. It was our first day of school at Lorenzo De’ Medici. It was taken eight weeks ago, but it seems much longer. At the same time this whole experience has flown by and we are winding down to the end. It is definitely bitter sweet.

Bernini's Four Rivers Fountain

For my art history reports my topic is Baroque Architecture and Sculpture. My main focus is over the works of Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Francesco Borromini. In this picture I am in Piazza Navona giving a presentation on the Four Rivers Fountain by Bernini. This is my favorite fountain in Rome! (I have also included a picture of the fountain itself)

So far we have gone to many sites and museums in Rome, but we have also traveled to Florence, Siena, and Assisi. Florence was spectacular. While we were there we visited the Uffizi Gallery which had some of the most famous works of art ever known. It was definitely the highlight of the trip.

Siena was a wonderful and quiet medieval village. My favorite thing there was the stripped cathedral.

Assisi

So far, my favorite place is the small medieval hill town of Assisi. It felt completely different than the other three places because it was much quieter and smaller. It had the perfect balance of city and nature. Overall, it was one of the most beautiful places I have ever been!

The view from Rocca Maggiore of the valley below Assisi

By Lian Dziura

So far in Italy we have seen about a million beautiful things.

Italian art and architecture, and the natural scenery of Italy make it hard to choose just a few photos to show what we’ve done so far.

These photos are just a few of our favorites that we’ve picked out to share with you!

Talking Art History

By Brielle Burrus

We are all learning so much from everything we are seeing and doing, it’s so overwhelming. Our brains feel like they are on overload, but probably in the best way an artist could have it.

In the last few days we all had to shut ourselves in our rooms so that we could concentrate on making art and letting all the inspiration we have seen sink in. It’s hard because we have so much to just pick one aspect.

All of the pre-trip art history readying has really helped me understand and appreciate the works and places better. I’m also getting to know the artist behind the work and the struggle or drama that they went through. It has been really great to see and hear about so many people that I have admired for so long, and see them as real people. They had a life outside of just the few pieces of famous art that I studied in freshman art history. Actually standing in front of these things changes everything you knew about it, that might sound dramatic, but it’s true.

We spent a few days with Linda Karry a landscape artist. It is really exciting to walk around the city with someone who views everything in pastel colors. We have all really enjoyed getting to know her.

The pictures below are mostly of us talking about the art we are seeing. In one, Megan James is giving an art history report in front of the Four Rivers Fountain in the Piazza Navouna. We each are responsible for a certain aspect of art history and it has been really good to hear about other people’s topics also. Not only the factual things about the places or pieces of art but the opinion of the person who is studying them.

Below are some pictures that show some of what we are doing in Rome.

Alexis presenting about Caravaggio

The photo to the right, Alexis presenting about Caravaggio, is a photo of myself in the San Luigi dei Francesi Church in Rome. I am presenting about The Calling of St. Matthew, The Martyrdom of St. Matthew, and The Inspiration of St. Matthew all painted by Caravaggio between 1599 and 1602. My goal in presenting to our group is to introduce Caravaggio not only an artist that I have incredible respect for but also teaching who he was as a person. I enjoyed telling the group stories about the artist during my presentation because I think learning about the mind of the artist and how he or she lived is very essential when analyzing artwork and the artist who created it. Looking at these incredible works of art in person is extremely overwhelming especially after studying them and their creator so deeply.

In the gallery below the first three photos Assisi View1, 2, and 3 are all of Assisi, a small medieval hill town. This town has been my favorite trip so far. I think I enjoyed it so much because it was so far from anything have ever seen before. This was also a place with a nice balance of art and nature. During our weekend stay in Assisi, I enjoyed not getting overwhelmed with the amount of artwork we were seeing. I found the whole experience very therapeutic and inspiring. After spending a day jam packed with seeing art and fantastic churches we hiked to the very top of the hill town and just sat in silence and soaked in the view and the atmosphere. It gave me time to think and process through all I had seen that day.

The photo of Our group experiencing the food culture is one of my favorites. We all agreed that going out to dinner in Florence would be an excellent time for our group to experience the Italian food culture. Up until this meal we had only bought pizza or cooked food on our own. Everyone insisted that we go to a restaurant and truly embrace this experience. This photo was taken by our waitress and includes everyone from our group along with the two chefs. The atmosphere of this restaurant was unlike any I have ever been in. Everyone was incredibly welcoming and was very interested in what we each thought of our meal. Italian’s only cook with the freshest of ingredients and it shows. I had the lasagna. I noticed they didn’t load the meal up with a ton of seasonings. The meal was so simple but so fresh and more flavorful than ever.

I thought it might be important to include a few photos of us as a group in front of some of the places we have visited. I have included a photo that I took of us Walking up to a church designed by Bramante in Todi and a photo of us Walking up to the Uffizi Museum in Florence. The Uffizi is easily the largest and most important museum I have ever been in! It was extremely impressive because of its size and the amount of extremely famous artwork that it held. I love the photo of us walking up to the church designed by Bramante because it shows the grand scale of the church. I also enjoyed that there wasn’t a crowd of people around this church like there usually is so I thought it was a rare chance that I could capture a photo that would just contain our group and this incredible monument without any other outside elements.

An afternoon of sketching beautiful landscape and roman ruins

Buongiorno, all!

So, it turns out that Italy is a little more topsy turvy than first anticipated! Sure, we were given the books to read up on their culture versus ours, and talked plenty pre-trip about the potential difficulties we might face abroad, but it seems that no amount of training beforehand can ever truly prepare you for culture shock.

Seeing as I’ve already traveled to several different countries before this, I honestly believed that Italy would be, “no big deal,” upon arrival. Beppe Severgnini, in his book La Bella Figura, describes Italy as a sort of stage, wherein every Italian believes they are the lead role. Personally, I find this to be a bit of an overstatement, but it does have a bit of truth to it—Italians simply love to dramatize even the smallest of incidents or situations.

Before we even walked through the door, I could tell that Anita, our teacher, was already feeling a little worn out. She greeted all of us with a big grin and plenty of welcome, and then with a wistful sigh, informed us that they had actually just finished cleaning our apartment for us, since it was a disaster when they arrived to check it out.

Moments later, after we had all selected our rooms (I’m rooming with miss Lian Dziura, who’s along the lines of splendid! Our room is a giggle fest comprised of good cooking, incense, and British film watching), we were quick to find out that our apartment is without WiFi (thus the long stretch of time it’s taken us to post anything on the blog!). Even though it’s almost over three weeks later (many, many phone calls, personal exchanges, head scratching and puzzled expressions later, too) our house is STILL without WiFi. However, we’re making due pretty well on two ethernet cords that we’ve learned to share. Who would’ve thunk life would be so difficult without checking your Facebook whenever the fancy struck you?

The first week proceeded by us in a quick flurry of colors, a myriad number of smells (lots of cigar smoke and lemons…), many buildings that were far too impressive for their own good, and a lot of different characters passing us by speaking a language we can barely comprehend.

We kept close to each other, but walked forward with feet firm on the ground and determination written on our faces (along with mild confusion, but I think we covered ourselves pretty well). While the locals here aren’t the most friendly looking people at first glance, since smiling here is something for people of the lower caste (happy people?), they’re pretty quick to recognize you as a local by the second or third trip into their store, and attitudes toward you as a clumsy English speaking tourist change pretty fast. Their vigorous hand movements in conjunction with speech closely resembling Spanish with a dash more of elegance makes comprehending them a little easier on you once you get used to it. In general, getting to be addressed to as, “bella,” when someone wants my attention isn’t too shabby a change, either.

By the second week, I’m pretty sure we all felt like veterans. Sure, our sense of direction and self was still a little shaky, but all in all we had made our first trips to the market just below our apartment for delicious sundrys, been harassed by a couple of the more forward street vendors, and braved a trip on the metro. We had also done more than enough of our fair share of walking, considering, A) we’re art students, and, B) we’re not earning P.E. credit for our time here. And let’s not even get into the initial ’bout of jetlag we contended with.

Rome is just too filled with history, art, and glorious architecture. It seems almost unfair that one country could hold so many indelible treasures from our world’s history, and even more unfair that Rome itself can claim the majority of it for itself. “In this church, three Carravagio’s. In the one around the corner, ten Bernini sculptures. And over here, we have a facade designed by Michelangelo.” I’m sure we must have looked like wide-eyed fish out of water as we walked through the city, eyes nearly popping out of our heads while we marveled at whatever came around the next corner, and mouths gaping all the while.

It seems like Rome hasn’t bothered to look over a single portion of the city in its grand architectural scheme to exude beauty and elegance. Most of the buildings are baroque (very theatric and embellished), with stout or blocky medieval buildings randomly sprinkled here or there in nearly perfect condition. People here live in buildings nearly five hundred to eight hundred years old and think nothing of it. Even the most humble of doorways sports an impressive lock system and some sort of distinct embellishment to it. When it comes to “neighborhood integrity,” as they put it in the real estate market, Rome has got it.

So, along with plenty of site-seeing (art history, on site!), cooking, open-air markets, and sampling of the local culinary establishments (culture), as well as sketching, painting, collecting and collaging (art/studio, of course!) we’ve had our hands plenty full. We have culture and language classes for Italian at a locale institute (the Lorenzo de’Medici Scuola) two to three times a week, and spend all of our remaining free time walking and sketching around the city.

It’s strange to think that the Colosseum and Pantheon are just down the street from us, and that the Vatican City itself is a mere forty-five minute tram and bus ride away. It’s crossed all of our minds, I’m sure, that this sort of good fortune and wealth of beauty and history is probably wasted on a good majority of the Italians who’ve grown up and been around it all their lives. Even now, I can feel myself more easily shrugging off “less impressive” churches that seem to riddle every nook and cranny around here. I hope that even though our stay is both long and short, that we will maintain our sense of wide-eyed wonder and enjoy Italy to the very fullest potential it holds for us.

Next week/weekend we’ll be in Florence and the suburban area of Assisi. I’m extremely excited to see how it compares to Rome as a city, and to see the place where Michelangelo and Giuliano Sangallo grew up! It should be something marvelous to behold! Until next time, ciao, bellas!

<3 Ally Anderson

PS. Once upon a time I was a journalist/editor/layout artist for our high school’s newspaper… Lian thought it would be something worth mentioning, so as not to psych everyone out.