Back to the daily grind! Reality hit hard, we have 3 more weeks here, 26 days. Ok so technically its a little over 3, more like 4, but the last week doesn't really count since I know I'll be bogged down with finals. That we're-in-Italy-I'm-so-lucky feeling is back, and I'm experiencing the city like every moment could be my last walking down that little Florentine street. It's fun!
But in the meantime, I do have 10 papers and 4 presentations, an oral and a written final to take care of. Sheesh.
My Black Death class met at Santa Croce today for class, and it was my first time in this church, which is one of the major ones in Florence. Badly damaged by the 1966 flood and Vasari's 16th century whitewashing, it houses the tombs of some of Florence's greats, including Michelangelo, Machaveli, Dante (who has a tomb there but isn't actually buried there...he was expelled from Florence in his later years, but clearly Florence regretted that after a while...) just to name a few. We spent some time in a private chapel locked off to the public after looking at some Giotto (pre-Black Death) frescoes to compare those to these private chapel's post-Black Death frescoes. The difference? The treatment of intimacy and the idea of the "touch"--since the BD was so contagious, and was sweeping people out left and right, the people of the time refused to even look at the diseased. As a result, we can see this change when Jocohiam (Mary's dad) meets Anne at the gate scene: Giotto had them kissing, their halos converging, emphasizing the humanity and tenderness of the moment of good news (that Anne was pregnant). In the post-BD, we see the two characters grasping each others' arms, in what's supposed to be an embrace, but in reality it looks like they're pushing each other way. There's your art history lesson for the day.
After Santa Croce, I headed to Italian which just seemed to drag on. My Medici class was in a classroom for the first time all semester, and that also didn't seem to exactly fly by either. I made my interactive Christmas wishlist during that class (all I want for Xmas is world peace! I don't deserve Xmas presents this year!) and the people behind me were getting a kick out of it. It's Nov 22, and I'm pretty sure it's rained every day for the past 22 days, so I was thankful we were warm and dry at least.
I made it home in a productive mode, and cranked out three papers WOO HOO. Other than that nothing's too exciting from today! I forgot to mention yesterday that Anna's friend Antoinetta asked me if I felt fatter or skinnier since being here, and told me that in her opinion I was skinnier because of my pants. I think I'm fatter and that it's an optical allusion because they don't use dryers here so nothing shrinks back. Oye.
Staying dry and fly in Firenze!
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