Back to Reality

We are "home" in Rome and back from a BEAUTIFUL week long field trip to the Veneto. I apologize in advance for the length of this post.

Bologna
We started out heading by train to Bologna. I borrowed a copy of Alasdair MacIntyre's After Virtue from a friend and read it along the way. Perhaps it would have been better to read it After Coffee but I was glad to have something, especially a book I've been intending to read. I was amused a bit when the french man behind me spilled his mineral water and exclaimed "Zut!". European problems.

At first I wasn't impressed with Bologna because all we saw were dirty streets and modern loggias plastered and defaced with irate and crude political messages. However, when we finally walked into the city center it became alive with wide streets, medieval arcades, and markets and shops. Bologna is supposed to excel at food and the narrow market streets we wound through had all sorts of delicious looking vegetables, fruits, fish, and bread (and really creepy, bloody beheaded goat faces). What I actually consumed in Bologna wasn't anything great so that was a bit of a letdown I guess. Some of the best food I've eaten since arriving in Italy came later in the week in other cities. The best thing to eat in Bologna seemed to be the fresh bread they were making in the piazza in front of San Petronio and selling for a euro or two. The first time I passed it with some friends we immediately stopped because the smell of the bread baking was arresting. We split these plain pieces of bread and as we were eating we joined the rest of the group standing a few meters away including Duncan Stroik who was with us for the week.

Duncan Stroik had a huge influence on me when choosing to study architecture and I highly respect him so he helped make this week so great. I had been introduced to him when I became a student at Notre Dame and we talked before but we got to know him and he got to know us much better this week. He told us right off the bat that his teaching style involves asking us questions. That comes with pros and cons (getting us to think and being vague, respectively) but overall I really enjoyed it. Those of us who had to walk around with him received very little information about history but a lot about architectural theory. He also forced us to draw and pace off dimensions everywhere we went which was great for lazy people like me who are intimidated by their lack of talent and thus draw hesitantly. But really, I think I noticeably improved this week. It was like boot camp. We followed him all over each city and didn't stop until around 6:00 or 7:00 (I started falling asleep while drawing in Verona because I was so tired). But even when we did our assignments for drawing class I don't recall having a mini existential crisis each time I sat down to draw a perspective so there's improvement there.

I thought I was going to have trippy nightmares about endless
loggias.

Bologna is a city of loggias. Stroik recommended that we climb 666 steps to see the view of the city from a church outside the walls and some of us actually did because we figured why not. Well. There was a slight problem. First of all, we had been on our feet all day long and were already exhausted but then we walked all the way up the hill and hundreds of stairs and through 654 bays (at least) of loggias and we had to stop to catch our breath along the way. When we reach the last stretch of loggia we found that a gate was blocking people from the top. You couldn't see the city or the church or anything except fencing and a cross through the gate. I remarked out of breath that it was a great metaphor for life. You work through a long, difficult problem and have to turn around, start over and try again. So with that joyful message we trudged down those 654 bays (at least) of loggias and slept very, very soundly that night.

Mantua

Sant'Andrea in Mantova

The next day we went to Mantua and upon arriving made a beeline for Sunday mass. We stopped in a large cathedral and mass was already going on so we left and power walked to Sant'Andrea by Alberti. The rest of the day was spent sketching and walking with Stroik like normal. The other group that went around with another professor had a different and more relaxed schedule. We were pretty divided the whole time which was strange but I was happy to go around with Stroik. We went to Giulio Romano's house, Italian painter Andrea Mantegna's house (where we sang the fight song in the circular courtyard because Stroik told us to sing something to test the acoustics and you do what he says), Chiesa di San Sebastiano, and the oh-so-mannerist Palazzo del Te (or if you're punny and prefer to call it the Tea House). We didn't get to see the famous room of giants because we spent too long in other parts of the palazzo with the professors. I don't know if I'm disgruntled about that or apathetic because Palazzo del Te isn't quite my cup of tea (ba-dum tssh) and I also don't find it to be as hilarious as Giulio Romano did. It was raining pretty hard by the time we got to Palazzo del Te and of course it was the one time when I didn't have my umbrella on me. I got a bit wet and it was a bit cold...perfect weather for soup...which I did not have...but nonetheless, perfect soup weather.

Hazelnut hot chocolate. Yum yum yum.

Later that night we ate tortelli de zucca which is one of the best things I've probably tasted in my life (it's pasta with pumpkin in it). So that was delicious but then we went in search of hot chocolate and found a place that had a bunch of flavours and upstairs had ottomans and couches in a barrel vault against a window. It was such a good experience it has changed my view of hot chocolate; it must come with a window seat under a barrel vault now. We sat in that barrel vault talking and laughing for hours while it rained outside until we felt we had to go back to the hotel.

Verona
After pillaging another hotel breakfast we left by bus for Verona. I spent part of the morning racking my brain for the exact wording of the opening lines of Romeo and Juliet. Freshman Honors English in high school was eons ago. We also never got around to reading Two Gentlemen of Verona.

We saw a bunch of palazzi, Porta Borsari, the duomo, Basilica di S. Anastasia, and Gardino Giusti - spacious gardens across the river. Verona was so full of balconies. I did not see the "Casa di Giulietta" but I was told by others that it was a bit of a disappointment and even ruined the romantic image in their heads. We'll just stick with Franco Zeffirelli's vision in Pienza, eh?

Some quotes of the day were "Tectonics are good, especially a gin and tectonic." and "This is an early-on-a serliana." Professor Stroik got lost and took us on a wild goose chase for which he apologized several times but I was distracted from irritation by the conversation we had about Bond Hall and the new architecture building for campus. I was so tired that night that I sat down on my bed and started falling asleep so eventually I mustered enough energy to change and crawl under the sheets.

Vicenza
Before we actually arrived in Vicenza we started our Palladian pilgrimage. This was a really, really good day. We just stopped at a bunch of villas and drew and explored them. I think it was prior to this when Stroik started a "game" called "Is it Palladio or Not?" and he made one girl in our class always ask the question and then we all had to answer. It was amusing and it sounded like a game show especially when he kept saying "Do you buy that?". We went to Villa Poiana, saw Villa Saraceno through closed gates, Villa Pisani, and ended with Rocca Pisani by Scamozzi. There also was a conversation with Stroik about Pride and Prejudice which was priceless. It is a verified fact that the BBC version with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle cannot be beat and that the Kiera Knightley/Matthew Macfadyen one isn't worth watching.

Villa Poiana

The villas I enjoyed most were Villa Poiana and Rocca Pisani. In Villa Poiana we got to see the inside of the roof, the vaults below, and the rafters and I was, no pun intended, beaming. Rocca Pisani is at the top of a really long hill out in the middle of beautiful nowhere. The weather during the majority of the field trip was a really moody, beautiful misty haze so that was the backdrop for these villas.

Rocca Pisani

When we got to Vicenza that night and trudged to the hotel I got a glimpse of Palladio's basilica and exclaimed "Ahhrgh! Garghhh!" and gestured with my free hand. I was so excited because it was something I analyzed in my very first project at Notre Dame and therefore meant something a bit more to me than to anyone else.

The next day I sat down at a breakfast table for three and, to my joy, Professor Rowland sat down next to me and a few minutes later Professor Stroik walked into the room and sat down in the other chair. It was the best start to the day I could ask for. Professor Rowland talked about the book she's working on and the new one she is beginning to write. I really, really want to read it when it comes out. Later on the way to Villa Rotonda there was a conversation I overheard about The Hobbit and she excitedly revealed she's writing a character in her book based on Richard Armitage. I'd tell you what it is about but out of respect for her I don't want to give away too much information in case that's not something I should be sharing.

We went inside the Teatro Olympico which is totes cray and then visited more palazzi and Villa ai Nani and Villa Rotonda. Freshmen year at ND people apparently spend nearly half a semester on the Villa Rotonda so all my classmates were freaking out and groaning "NOOOO! Bane of my existence!" and in general having absurd reactions. That was the first day I ever had to draw it so it didn't mean the same thing to me but I would have the same reaction if I saw the Rose Seidler House in Australia because I spent half a semester of freshman year on that.

Pretty much the same house, right?

We had a drawing assignment in marker at Villa Rotonda and it began to drizzle so it must have been a comical sight seeing all of the undergrads crouched in a manure laden lawn drawing under our umbrellas. Consequently lots of jokes were made as we drew. The problem with drawing in marker as it is raining is that washes appear where you do not want washes to be so it looks like we wept over the Rotonda. I hope the professors got a kick out of our misery because it was just a funny situation.  

I believe it was during our last night in Vicenza when some of us again went in search of hot chocolate. We spent another night of laughing hysterically in the upper floor of a cafe (no barrel vaults sadly, but a beautiful view of the Basilica and piazza) though only a few actually ordered hot chocolate. The rest of us got coffee and ate chocolate muffins. It drizzled again outside while we were talking. I spun around and skipped in the piazza with my umbrella on the way back to the hotel.

By the way, Palladio's basilica isn't a church. It refers to its typology.

Venice
We took a train to Venice and when we got off and stepped out into the surreal sight that is Venice. It was so blue. There is no other city that can compare to how unique Venice is...it's just...gah. I was excited for Venice because there was a build up all week to it and it met all my expectations. Venice is obviously meant to be seen by canal and we definitely took plenty of vaporettos (water taxi) around the city. I didn't get to go on a gondola but maybe next time. The gondoliers really do wear stripes and sing. We stayed in a former Dominican monastery that was a hop, skip, and a jump from its church Santa Maria della Rosario. The first day we saw Santa Maria della Pieta which was Vivaldi's parish and then we walked to Piazza San Marco and talked about that and the Doge's Palace. Then we went to four other churches including Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari which contains Titian's beautiful painting of the Assumption. A few of us went out to dinner with Professor Stroik that night and got gelato afterwards. A few of us listened to the competing bands in Piazza San Marco which was a lot of fun.

The next day we went to mass at San Marco at the altar where St. Mark is buried. San Marco is just gorgeous. The craftsmanship in that church is stunning. We went to Palazzo Ca'Rezonico later in the day and on our lunch break ran through the Doge's Palace after a friend and I had a picnic sitting on the base of the campanile in Piazza San Marco while people and pigeon watching. After lunch we went to San Giorgio Maggiore and Il Redentore where Stroik thanked us for the week before we went inside. I wonder how much planning he did for what came next. We went back to the sacristy, he talked for a bit, inched towards the door and then said "In the words of Bilbo, 'It's been too long. I've put this off for far too long. Goodbye." and then he actually disappeared. I'm not lying, we were genuinely confused. We exited the sacristy after him, looked around and didn't see him. A few seconds later we saw him sprinting out the doors and then he just kept running away. We stood there, jaws dropped, whispering "Did that just happen? He's actually gone." He had told us to draw half the plan and a section of the church so we diligently did so after he made that splendidly strange exit and then we left.


That night I went to a Vivaldi concert in the Scuola Grande di San Teodoro and then met up with more studio mates in the piazza and talked and listened to the dueling bands again until we decided it was high time to go sleep.

Before I put shadows in the sketch...

The next morning I saw Stroik at breakfast and he said hello/goodbye to me as he was leaving the table. I helped a British couple make tea by showing them where the hot water was since it was labeled in Italian. I should have warned them that the tea selection was terrible. Lipton is gross. We had the morning free except for a drawing assignment at Santa Maria della Salute. After I finished drawing and walked about the church I set off on my own in search of San Barnaba, the site where the scene in Venice from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was filmed. After definitely over shooting the campo, I found it, snagged a picture, was satisfied, and made it back to the hotel in time to meet to leave for the train station.

It seems like most of us were very unwilling to get back to Rome, myself included. We are still mourning the end of the field trip and finding it hard to focus and prepare for our pin-up today. Ah well. Saturday night some of us made ourselves feel better by trying out Abbey Theatre for the first time and then getting Frigidarium. Rome is much too noisy, busy, and smelly and northern Italy seemed to be much cleaner and quieter. It was nice to have the normal solemn high mass at S.S. Trinita for the feast of Christ the King though. At some point in my life time I will go back to Venice. As for now I'll make a cup of tea and struggle to focus until Thanksgiving break.