The dome in Florence

For this midterm I immediately knew what I wanted to write about; the dome in Florence. When I learned about the dome in art history last year it really interested me. The dome was meant to be at the time, the largest in the world. This would have been a symbol of power for Florence. However, the original architects couldn’t finish it. It was meant to be bigger than the Pantheon but ended up being an embarrassment to Florence. For years it remained unfinished leaving a hole in the middle of the city’s church. The Medici family decided to find someone who could finish it, this would help gain them power. The person they picked for the job was Filippo Brunelleschi.
Brunelleschi studied the Pantheon trying to recover architectural knowledge that had been lost. He finally came up with a brilliant plan that would allow him to build the great dome of Florence. He was very secretive about his plans to build, even today there has been trouble understanding exactly how it was built. This build was such a great feat because he could not use any support while building it. The dome was finished and was finally the great symbol of Florence. Today the dome is still a beautiful place to go and very amazing to look at.
When I attended church I got my first look at the artwork on the inside of the dome. Even though my neck was hurting I couldn’t stop starting straight up at it. The very large fresco was started by Vesari in 1572 and then finished by Frederico Zuccaro. It depicts the last judgment. The fresco shows all the stages of the judgment from the angels to the depths of hell. The parts at the bottom of the dome representing hell show the pain and the torture of those who are getting tossed into it. Above hell we see the people getting judged and angels flying around. Even before researching the fresco I figured that it was something about heaven and hell. I thought it was the most interesting painting I have ever seen in a church. The dome itself is a beautiful piece of artwork and once I seen what was on the inside I only appreciated it more. I feel very fortunate to have been able to see it first hand and get the real experience.

Music

After learning about music in math class I was a little confused but also very interested. First of all I never knew how big a role math played in the aspects of music. It is used from the instrument to the composition. Also how there were such subtle changes in the three pieces we listened to that if I did not know they were supposed to be different I would not have heard the slight variations. I think I will listen more carefully to classical music to try and catch the small changes; however I don't feel like I know enough for it to completely change the way I listen to music. It did give me a greater appreciation, I think, than I would have had if we had not learned about music in class. I kept thiking how much thought went into each not and how they fit together so perfect as a whole piece. That was a new experience I am glad I had now that I was able to see a little farther into the world of music. Overall I had a good time at the concert.

Via Giulia

Before we learned about Via Giulia I never realized how many streets we went down that just did not make sense. The streets that curve around to lead into a dead-end and the funny placement of the sidestreets. Living in America, a country that is so new I never took into consideration that a long time ago they were not very concerned about making their streets perfect. If a map of a city in the U.S.was compared to Rome the differece would be very apparent.Via Giula was a nice place to go, I was surprised how many churches were on that one street. There was a church we passed with skulls all over it. The more I looked the more I noticed that the outside was a little disturbing for a church. I thought that that was probably a medieval church. I liked how unlike many of the streets in Rome Via Giulia was wide giving us more room to walk when cars went by. The arch was one of my favorite parts; I liked how it was supposed to be this great bridge built by Michelangelo but it never was finished. I think that Via Giulia was a good plan and a step in the right direction for city planning.

Leisure

In Itlay their leisure time is in the middle of the day. All the stores close down and people go home. They sit down together at home, relax and have family time. Stores closing down in the middle of the day has been hard to get used to; it seems so inconvient. I know its not strange for them because it is waht they are used to . In the U.S. I feel that our leisure time is after a full day of work and on the weekends. I prefer getting work over with all at once and going home for the rest of the day instead of taking a long break and going back to work. I'm not very sure what people do for leisure outside of Rome but I do see that they sit at cafes with their friends, walk their dogs, or just relax in a park or piazza. When I have free time I like to see my friends and do things outside. Where I live people usually do things outdoors as leisure activities or have picnics. Overall the biggest difference in leisrue is what time we do it and the way we plan ours out.

Medieval Art

The medieval artwork I chose is from Santa Maria Trastvere. It is on the outsitde of the church over the entrance. It is a mosaic from the 12th century. As soon as I seen it I knew that it had to be from the medieval period. The figures are not very realistic looking and not in proportion with eachother. Mary who is holding Jesus in the middle is larger than the rest of the figures to show her importance. I have also noticed that much of the artwork from this time were mosaics with much gold used in them. The inside of the church was covered in medieval artwork. I think that the shift of the way things were depicted is so interesting. Before this time everything looked very realistic. I think that the meaning was the most important part for medieval artwork because it was for lessons and faith. I learned that the reason the eyes on the people usually look so big is because it is supposed to represent their eyes being open wide to god and seing the right way in life.

Piazza

When we walked into the Piazza Novana it was full of people. It was a big open space in between all of these buildings. In the middle were statues and fountains. The piazzas here can be a get away from the busy city. When you look around people are sitting outside of cafes having casual conversation with eachother. I guess a piazza would be our equivalent of a town square; a meeting place for a town. There is much to do, but it also a relaxing atmosphere. Everywhere we looked around there were small shops to go into and locals and tourists alike. In the smaller piazzas away from major landmarks, they are much quiter and fewer tourists. It is a very nice place to sit down and have gelato.

Flowers!

Even though we could only find one place that sold flowers in Campo Dei Fiori we found a pretty wide selection. When we bought all the flowers I was pretty curious to see if they would all comply with the Fibonnaci numbers. Our flowers lost a few petals on the way so hopefully the numbers we counted are all right! Math is far from my favorite subject but this made it fun and interesting. I actually wanted to learn more about this and it surprised me. The flowers we bought contained: a red rose-13 petals, a mum-144, sunflower-32, yellow lily-6( even thought this is not one of the number there were three petals with spots and three plain ones.), daisy-34, and a gardenia-21.