frualeydis | Entries tagged with italy

Finally I have the time and energy to resume my telling of our trip to Italy. Sunday started out bery grey and we decided to visit Palazzo Vecchio, formerly the seat of the magistrate, then appropriated by Lorenzo di Medici as the family palace. This led to a large re-decoration scheme, with rooms on different floors correspondign to each other according to Roman mythology and astrology. Mostly it was Vasari who did the painting. You really should read the wikipedia article, it's very interesting.

From the outside.

Of course this visit to the museum involved more stairs and lots of walking :)

( They really were serious about decorating their ceilings )

( The floors weren't bad either )

All these are from the part of the palace modified or built by the Medicis. Now we enter the medieval part, where the men in the Podesta were living during their term of rule. And I love his room - just like in 14th and 15th century paintings:

( Ceilings )

After Palazzo Vecchio we strolled around in Florence, looking at all the pretty houses. Like this one:

The weather got better and we sat in the sun outside Santa Maria Novella and Rickard had an ice cream, while I had a diet shake.

And then we took the train to Florence, we just missed one train so we had to sit in the sun outside the station and wait for the next one - oh no! ;)

( Me )

The train trip to Bologna wasn't cheap, but very fast and soon we reached our destination, checked in at our hotel and went for a walk. And climbed this tower.

I will have to get back to that however, I promise you lots of photos of the view, as well as a description of the chilling experience of climbing 97 metres on stairs supported only by bams driven into the tower walls.

Sautrday the weather was worse than Friday: c. 10 degrees C (c. 50 F) and raining on and off. Though not enough to stop someone from Gothenburg, or even make him/her take out their umbrella :)
We started with visiting Basilica Santa Croce, to look at the frescoes by Giotto, and by Taddeo Gaddi. This meant walking through all the old, old parts of Florence, houses which stood there when Dante pined after Beatrice, or were built in the days of the Medicis.

In the earlier Middle ages the rich/noble families built narrow owers which they fortified and lived in. These were later incorporated in to larger bulidings. The image behind the cut shows one of those.

( see )

The church of Santa Croce is very typical medieval Italian, influenced by Byzantine architecture and very different from the northern Gothic style. Like the Duomo and Santa Maria Novella it is decorated/built with white and green marble.

( More photos )

The church is actually a whle complex of buildings, with different chapels and areas that used to be inhabited by monks and priests. There were two lovely courtyards; photos behind the cut.

( Courtyards )

After Santa Croce we had something to eat (or rather, Rickard did, I'm still on the Cambridge diet) and continued to Palazzo Davanzati, a late 14th centur Palazzo which has been furnitured as it might have been. I took photos there too, but they're not as good as the ones on the museum's website, so I suggest you go there :)

Now it's time for the Swedish qualifier finals to the Eurovision song contest, so I'll continue with the rest of the Saturday tomorrow.

So, we went to Italy last weekend, Rickard an I. When we arived in Bologna it was 15 cegrees C and the sun was shining. This was good since we had just missed one bus to Florence and the otehr one wasn't due in an hour. It turned out that bus was delayed by 40 mintues too, so it was very good that we got to sit in the sun while waiting. We reached Florence around five and checked in. I can only recommend Hotel Adler Cavalier on Via della Scala, very nice rooms, biscotti and a kettle and tea (and instant coffee) in the room, and quite through the whole night, which, as you might know is very rare in Italy. It's very close ot the railway station (S:ta Maria Novella), so that means that you have to walk a bit to get to the Palazzo Vecchio, the Duomo and especially basilica Santa Croce. Not far, but maybe a quarter of an hour's walk.

We even had our own little balcony, though since the weather turned worse, we didn't use it.

After unpacking we took a walk down to the river Arno - I love that river so much. It was much more water now than when I as there in April last year, when you could walk to the middle of that dam.

We walked up to Porta Romana on the Oltrarno side, and I showed where I styed with Sara last year, and the the charming monastery turned hotel (though still with closed areas for the clergy) just by Porta Romana where I stayed on my first visit to Florence in September 2015.

We alked around for a couple of hours, Rickard had a deep fried pizza from a hole in the wall, and went "home" around nine. It as so nice to curl up in bed together and listen to an audio book. (The Halfling's Gem" by R.A. Salvatore, if you wondered)

I am going to keep up telling about our trip - next is of course Saturday, which was spent also in Florence. Bu tnow I have to go downtown and stand ready if the nazis decide to march today.

I will write about the trip later, right now I have to get Maja to school and then try to save some stuff I messed up at work, which need to be fixed this morning.

But, sicne I was going to Bologna, and it really was the Bolognese school of painters, which I found out about last visity in September, which sparked my interest in early 14th century Italian dress I thought that it would be fun to have some photos of me in garb from Bologna. I only brought one outfit, from thin silk that didn't take up that much space or weight.

So yesterday morning Rickard and I sneaked out to take this photo (and a few more) under the portico of the 13th century Palazzo Grassi.

Yesterday teh person handlign my case contacted me and after a discussion over the phone wich made me very unhappy we at least sorted some of the stuff. It was partly due to me not filling otu a form that I had forgotten that I should fill in - I was really sick after all - and partly die to my GP not writing a good enough certificate. She claims that she has sent me a letter abotu that, but none has reached me. Maybe she has, maybe she had forgotten all about me and was improvising, so she didn't have to say that. In any case, I will receivie some of the money tomorrow, and hopefully more when my GP has given more info to her.

The long time worries are that you're not supposed to be on sick leave for this long, it should change to something more permanent, or you should go back to work. And I have just done a month long evaluation by a doctor, a physical therapist, a work therapist and a psychologist, resulting in a 35 pages report which shiows taht I will not get any better than I am now. When I asked her about it over the phone shoie, however, claimed that it said that I had no physical hinders to work full time, it was just stress, and that if I just changed jobs i could work 100%. There is no way she could have itnerpreted what is written in that report that way, if she had read it. So either she has not read it and, again, improvised, or she has read it and can't understand what it says. In any case it means trouble for me, because, unfortunately, when applying for permanent disability her opinion is guiding for those who make the decision.

I am going to write a letter to her superiors, asking for someone else to take over my case, but it wil take some time, since I am, as you and everyone except her, knows am sick.

But, I have the best husband and the best friends, so I try not to despair. With reasonable success. I love you

clothsprogs.

I have also borrowed some books and fell totally in love with this Italian outfit from the 1330s.

I've written a long blog post (or at least image heavy) on high waisted fashions of the late 13th century and the first half of the 14th century in Italy. I have also reached the conclusion that some of them actually must have very high waist seams. it doesn't fit with anything I have learned this far, but I can't explain away images like this.

Blog post.

I know quite a few of my lj-friends crosspost their blog psots from other sites to lj - is there a simple way to do that, aside from copy paste?

It would be useful since I now put my research on costume in a seperate blog, and I often forget to mention it here when I have written something.

Anway, latest:

A survey of Italian women's 14th century surcoats with split sides.

Headwear for women in Italy ca 1300-1350

7/8 length sleeves in - you guessed it: 14th century Italy.

I printed on an existing gown and it looks really good.

I have been really bad the last weeks, especially the week that just ended. Friday, when I should have celebrated (a late) Samhain with my coven I insted spent lying on my acupuncture mat wondering if I was going to become as ill as three years ago. Luckily I didn't, and I am a lot better than that now. Not good enough to work, but I can actually sit up and sew, and cook. Sitting in front of the computer causes more pain though, so I try to stay away from it. I'm on sick leave for a month and hopefully it will get better well before that, since I have lectures to give.

But I have made a new gown and a few silk veils. I have recently become obsessed with 14th century Italian fashions, esepcially from the first half of the century (as proven by my Pinterest activity), and this is the first of what I fear will be many 14th century Italian gowns.