Daily Updates
Week Eight: Nov. 13
13 November. Ariel reporting: We began our day in Verona with a fantastic breakfast at the Hotel Aurora (cheesecheesefruitcheesetastycakesyum). Then we headed out to see Vicenza, a city that once was a Roman town but now is a monument to Palladio, the famous Italian Architect. We showed up in Vicenza on market day, so the old Roman forum was filled with fantastic clothes, wares, and old women who were determined to purchase their new sweaters. We learned all about Palladio, the genius of architecture. He started out as a stone cutter, but ran away to Vicenza to seek his fortune; however, he was subsequently caught and back to the stones he went. After a few more years of toil, he finally found himself a patron (ie, someone to fund his inner architect) and off he went to Rome to study the great structures of ancient Rome. After drawing hundreds of buildings, he returned to his former life with a new, classical eye, and began designing. He finally reached architect status and moved to Vicenza for good. His first major work was the basilica on the old Roman forum. The basilica had been designed a century before Palladio, but the architect didn’t do a great job and the outer ring had collapsed (ooops!) So Palladio designed a beautiful classical loggia to surround the old Gothic core of the basilica, creating a fantastic space that combines two long architectural traditions. We walked around the upper loggia, looking out over the city of Vicenza before heading to Palladio’s great Teatro Olimpico. The Teatro Olimpico is a fantastic theater that Palladio designed right before his death, and it seems to represent a combination of all his studies in Rome. The theater is indoors but made to look like an outdoor Roman theater. The stage is the typical “scenae frons” style seen in Pompeii, and even seems to have a triumphal arch in the center. Statues, real and painted, stand loftily above both the stage and the seating area, and the backstage area of the stage has been built to look like ancient Thebes. It really is a masterpiece of design, and Palladio would have been very proud of his theater. After this, we broke for lunch, and a group of people tried to walk out to the Villa Rotunda, another Palladio design. This villa is extremely famous because it is the same design as the Pantheon, except it has the square façade on all four sides. Essentially, it looks like a large cube with a dome. This design was much loved by the founding fathers of the United States, and Monticello in Virginia, along with many other buildings, is based on this Palladian design. On our way to see the building, however, we took a wrong turn, climbed a really, really big hill, and never quite made it to the villa. Oh well, I guess I’ll just have to come back! (Photos of the Villa Rotonda courtesy of Elizabeth and Professor Ulrich’s group who did manage to find it.) We then caught the train to Venice, and pulled into the floating and sinking city around 4 pm. It was wonderfully not crowded, and we had a fantastic time strolling through the streets, checking out all the candy and pastry shops and oogling all the glassware. We reached Piazza San Marco before sunset, and it was dazzling to look at the beautiful basilica of San Marco in the setting sun. We took copious amounts of pictures, ran through flocks of pidgeons, and annoyed some tourists before heading into the church. The inside of the church is amazing; every single ceiling surface is covered with gold background mosiacs depicting scenes from the Bible (literally over an acre of mosaics) and the walls are covered in marble. Every space is curved, domed, or vaulted, making the whole structure seem to glide along. A musical group was practicing, so we were greeting with organ music and the occasional trombone. We paid a bit to see the Pala d’Oro, or in my own words, “The really cool gold thingy.” Apparently it is an altarpiece that is 15 by 10 feet, made of solid gold and inlaid with hundreds of enormous precious stones. Scenes from the life of Christ are engraved and painted into the gold, making it stunningly glittery and very pretty. When Napleon sacked the church in his takeover of Italy, he left this because it was so big, he thought for sure it couldn’t be make of real gold but was only gilded bronze. Haha, silly French dictators. After the basilica, we strolled along the water as the sun set around us, admiring Venice by night. Then we got down to the real business of being in Venice, shopping for Murano glass, the renowned glassware produced on an island off the coast of Venice. After going into every single shop between the piazza and the Rialto bridge, we were all loaded down with too many euros worth of trinkets, animals, grapes, and other items of glass. We stopped for dinner at a cute little place where everyone but me ordered seppia, because seppia is suppose to be whitefish. I ordered sea bass. When the seppia came, it was not whitefish but squid, cooked in a sauce made from the ink of the squid. Cordelia, Adam, and Myung-Hee finished their dish, proclaiming it fantastic (and staining their teeth black) but Tori suddenly developed a shellfish allergy and exchanged her dish for some sole (I personally am with her, but hey, some people like squid!) After dinner we headed back to the piazza and took a vaporetto, or water taxi, back up to the train station along the Grand Canal, which was lit enough to admire the beautiful buildings. We hopped onto the train back to Verona, and we got our own cute little train compartment, which Cordelia was extremely pleased with, and slept the whole way home to Verona. Ahhh, what a nice successful day of working hard and studying the beautiful architecture of northern Italy!
13 November. Piazza delle Erbe in Verona
13 November. Piazza delle Erbe in Verona
13 November. Tower across from our hotel
13 November. Hotel Aurora: our home away from Rome
13 November. Piazza of Andrea Palladio's Basilica
13 November. The Palladian Basilica
13 November. Tori
13 November. Erin and Professor Bradley attend the lecture
13 November. Professor Ulrich delivers the Palladian lectures in Vicenza
13 November. Joanna
13 November. Brian
13 November. Cordelia
13 November. Professor Bradley
13 November. Maya and Sophia
13 November. Matt and Sarah
13 November. Cross vaults from the porch of the basilica
13 November. View from the basilica porch
13 November. Another Palladian building faces the basilica
13 November. A close-up of the famous composite capitols Palladio adopted from the Arch of Titus
13 November. Inside the basilica
13 November. The gothic building encased by the basilica
13 November. The ceiling of the basilica
13 November. The other porch
13 November. Column pairs from the basilica's facade
13 November. Vicenza
13 November. Inside Palladio's Teatro Olimpico: the scenae frons
13 November. Inside Palladio's Teatro Olimpico: the scenae frons
13 November. Inside Palladio's Teatro Olimpico: the half circle colonnades
13 November. Inside Palladio's Teatro Olimpico: the benefactors of the theater
13 November. Inside Palladio's Teatro Olimpico: one of the "Seven roads of Thebes" built into the scenae frons
13 November. Inside Palladio's Teatro Olimpico: the cavea and colonnade
13 November. Inside Palladio's Teatro Olimpico: more benefactors and patrons of the theater
13 November. Inside Palladio's Teatro Olimpico: the central street of the scenae frons
13 November. Inside Palladio's Teatro Olimpico: another street
13 November. Inside Palladio's Teatro Olimpico: Maya and Matt
13 November. Vicenza
13 November. Palladio's Villa Rotonda
13 November. Palladio's Villa Rotonda
13 November. Palladio's Villa Rotonda
13 November. The Duomo of Vicenza
13 November. A detail
13 November. A final look at Verona's amphitheater