Busy day, too busy. Didn’t wake up till 8am. Need to set the alarm tomorrow morning. Caught up on sleep lost on the plane. First stop, Piazza del Duomo. One of the largest Gothic churches in the world. Like always, in a cross shape, 515ft. long and 301ft. wide. It was started in the 1300’s and wasn’t finished for 500 years! Its most startling feature is its roof. 135 spires and innumerable statues and gargoyles. A few pictures below.
Incredible carvings on the outside, that is David and Goliath on the right, graphic!
The gargoyles were the downspouts! Too many things to take pictures of.
One of Da Vinci’s students carved the statue on the left, unusual because it is very “anatomical” and in the church. On the right is the corpse of a cardinal! He has a silver face mask on, but those are his real hands, his cardinal ring is on his dried up finger!
After the Duomo, we headed across town to find Da Vinci’s legendary 24 ft. long horse he rendered in clay. In 1499 the French invaders destroyed by using it for target practice It was finally reproduced and cast in bronze in 1982. Only problem was, we ran out of time and had to abandon our search and never did find the horse. Next we went to the Leonardo da Vinci Museum of Science and Technology. Again, we didn’t have enough time to really explore it, because we had a 3:15 viewing of da Vinci’s famous “Last Supper”.
This was stunning. I would rank with the Great Wall of China, the Eiffel Tower or Angkor Wat. After 500 years of neglect and inept restoration, 21 years of correct rehabilitation ended in 1999. Indeed, Leonardo used a “dry” fresco approach to its rendering, and it began to deteriorate within 6 years of its completion in 1498. 25 people are admitted every 15 minutes. Your group goes through three rooms for “dehumidifying” before you are allowed into the refectory. Miraculously, it survived WWII bombing, the entire abbey was flattened except that wall!
No pictures were allowed, but to gaze at it for the 15 minutes was extraordinarily moving. Indeed, a masterpiece.
No comments:
Post a Comment