We started off our week in Firenze. A train ride away from Rome, we got off the express from Termini and entered out into the land of Brunelleschi and leather. Our program of the week, simply labeled "excursion 1" told us what was in store for us. Because of the nice weather, we began our excursion at Santa Maria Novella for our first sketching assignment. Our mission; find the geometries/ordering principles/regulating patterns of the façade by Alberti. Aight, I got this, a classic sketching assignment. We’ve studied this building. The design brings together the ideas of humanist architecture, with classically styled details and proportions while merging the interior basilica plan with a harmonious exterior composition. The church was clear and articulated and the hidden squares start to make sense once the diagram begins to form itself. It was a good warm-up, a way to get us looking at the subtleties of complex design solutions.
Wasting no time we headed to the highlight of the day, Brunelleschi's, "brilliant engineering feat" as noted on our schedule. Il Duomo, the masterpiece every student of architecture is secretly, not so secretly required to love is...well, it just is everything. Winding stairways and crooked angles lead you up as you set a pace; you tell your body it isn’t tired as you progress higher. Every small window reveals a hint as to how far up you actually are. Only then you reach the first landing where your eyes widen and your senses heighten. I look down and see tiny specks which I know are people looking up at me. Emily tests my fear of things dropping something over an edge as she gets on her tip toes for a better picture over the scratched Plexiglas barrier (I am still cringing). You climb four hundred and sixty three stairs and you finally make it. We happen to exit on the windy side of the dome so, for the first few minutes all I can really think about it how beautiful the view is/ keeping my feet on the ground/camera wrapped around my hand. After the rapid picture taking subsides and I take in the glorious view of Florence, I look down at a small bench and think, oh, that must have been difficult to carry up. My eyes then casually travel over to a column holding up a buttress holding up the entire top of the dome and my concerns are instantly trumped. After a half hour and a few group shots we reluctantly descended the glory that is the double shelled, brick masterpiece of Florence.
Next stop, Santa Croce, the Pazzi Chapel, Piazza Signoria and the Uffizi Gallery, enough said. There was too much beauty to even begin writing about the experience. End of day 1: group dinner of bistecca fiorentina, success beyond belief.
Day 2: First, New Sacristy by Michelangelo, Old Sacristy by Brunelleschi in San Lorenzo; did some sketching. Next, Galleria dell'Accademia to say hey to David among a vast collection of important early Renaissance pieces by Giotto. Later on in the day we walked to Brunelleschi's Ospedale degli Innocenti, a beautiful piazza which drives home the Principle of the Second Man where one building informs the next and one unified space is created from the work of two or more architects. From here we had the rest of the day off, mostly due to the cold morning. We spent the afternoon exploring churches, gasping at expensive merchandise, and learning the art of a well made leather man purse at the expense of a cheaper bag’s stitching. Dinner was unplanned but quite literally 10 steps from the front door of the hotel making it that much better.
3: Long train ride, catching up on sleep, conversations with Cervanamama about the snow in Bologna, thinking about last night’s episode of Grande Fratelli, failing at capturing the 4 seconds of snow viewing between tunnels, arriving in Venezia. We checked into our hotel, glanced out of Lisa and Brigid’s balcony, and headed out for our day of learning. Assignment one, get off the Vaporetto and start on a dérive to Piazza San Marco. Not going to lie, I pretty much had this one mapped out in my mind, and the wall art definitely helped.
We explored a bit, saw our first glimpse of the basilica, the Doge’s Palace, and Carlo Scarpa work in Piazza San Marco and went to grab lunch at a local gem. After Steve was unhappy with his “choice” of an anchovy filled fried mozzarella Panini we all collectively enjoyed a few pieces of fried calamari and weaved our way back to St. Mark’s Square. We then re-grouped and entered the basilica, hoping to be wowed by the gold mosaic and grandeur of the space. Instead we were roped off, pushed through, and forced to stand as we hopelessly tried to sketch the interior of this unforgettable church. This was without a doubt a disappointment of a visit. Whatever sadness we felt as spectators to the city of Venice was forgotten when we entered the realm of Carlo Scarpa and the Querini Stampalia foundation’s museum. God is truly in the details, and Scarpa leaves no detail unfinished in his series of spaces within the museum. I have been introduced to the work of an architect whom I now greatly admire. 
The next day (day 4) we travelled like a pack of penguins huddling to avoid the cold air as we visited two Palladio churches in Venice, Il Redentore and San Giorgio Maggiore. Both churches were distinguishable as Palladian and were beautiful in their quiet simplicity. Each used a layering system of columns with entablatures wrapping the upper portions of the church. Bright light from the high windows gleamed on the white walls as we sat in the bitter cold and sketched before the funeral services planned for that afternoon were beginning to start in San Giorgio. One more façade lesson from Eric and we walked together to the point of Venice where were took in the massive scale of Venice and had time for one more group shot. Later on in the day; we started with an hour long boat ride to Cimitera San Michele, the island cemetery of Venice, and then we boated to Murano for some glass shopping, what else? [Found a restaurant next door to our hotel once again this night; good food, but a waiter who insisted on practicing English despite my efforts to speak Italian]. Day 5: Back to the train which we nearly had the wrong time for. Off to Verona to see the façade of the Banco Populare, another interesting layering of elements with details I began to recognize as distinctly Scarpa.
From here were departed to the Castelvecchio Museum, a playground of architectural wonder and ingenuity. The castle itself is powerful and compact with prominent details of Gothic architecture mixed in with the ingenious detail of Scarpa’s modern work. Every stairwell was a new experience, every view was framed in a different innovative way. It was simply hard to take in all the beauty at once.
A few hours later, we collected our bags out of the train station storage room and were off to Vicenza, or as we like to call it, Palladioville (or simply Palladio for Claire). We explored a bit on our own, found the McDonalds, looked a few Palladio works, and prepared for our group dinner. A few of my classmates ordered horse steaks which must have been good knowing that it was all gone by the end of the meal.
6: I’ll explain this day in Lisa Nucera format.
-Funny cab ride to Villa Rotunda
-Exploring and sketching the exterior, watching frost melt as time went by.
-Realizing the building’s context and that it is on a plinth
-Lost my ticket, was almost not allowed inside
-Group walking tour down a massive colonnade
-Sketching of Basilica Palladiana| “But where will the other half go?” Learn that Andrew Speer doesn’t know what a bay of a façade is.
-Palazzo Valmarana, Teatro Olimpico- forced perspective stage “that we were not allowed to play on.” -Lisa
-Witnessed a heated argument on Via Palladio
-Ate crazy pizza
-Filled up Steve’s memory card with pictures of human pyramids
Day 7: Milano. First impressions of the city center of Milan are of the Duomo, glistening in the sunlight. Every detail stuck out as flying buttresses flew over the sides of the church walls towering over the city square. The Galleria Vittorio Emmanuele II stood out to me as we entered the square in front of the Duomo. What an amazing structure to walk through at all times of day with a feeling of indoor and outdoor qualities all at once. The area was lively and vivid with hundreds of people moving about. The inside of the Duomo was quintessentially Gothic. High springing vaults, large open side aisles, and beautiful reflections from stained glass windows characterized the church. After the exploration inside, we once again climbed a second Duomo, but this time we walked on the roof; quite a different experience. Walking around the perimeter of the church we casually took pictures of building details and one another model walking up and down the pitch of the roof. It would be hard to forget this afternoon. I can’t forget to mention the group dinner with piano players & large pieces of mozzarella.
8
Another day in notes_I’m getting tired
-An modern architectural tour of Milan, on a bus.
-Major buildings visited: Renzo Piano's Il Sole 24 Ore. Università Bocconi.
-Had an awkward interaction with Italian students in the University of Milan
-Explored every bit of new development in Milan; some which didn’t make much sense.
-After day 7, we were all anxious to get home, happy for the train ride back
-The train breaks
-Parti games
-Hop over the tracks onto a new car
-Everyone gets settled/ransacks the snack-stand in the new car
-I make friends with a native cab driver; my Italian improved with my state of sleepiness.
There’s so much to say about this trip it’s hard to write everything down. Pictures speak for me where I cannot, but nothing compares to seeing it, being there. It took this week in Northern Italy to realize how much we actually do love living in Rome. I am grateful for this experience, I am ready to take in all the Italy has to offer, but most of all, I am happy that Rome is starting to feel like home.
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