San Miniato al Monte

Buongiorno!

I really enjoyed reading everyone's comments on my blog, thank you!!  And I will certainly talk more about the food (and later I'll do a post about music too, Melanie ;) ) but unfortunately I don't have a lot of food pictures, so I will have to see if I can get some from my friends.  In the meantime, I wanted to share some pictures from my art history field trip to San Miniato al Monte.

In my art history class we are learning about the different architectural styles of churches.  San Miniato al Monte is a great example of the Florentine Romanesque style.  The facade (Italian: la facciata) is made of white Carrara and green Prato marble and features a mosaic in the middle of Jesus, Mary, and Saint Miniato.

San Miniato al Monte

As you can see it is up on a hill ("al Monte" means on the hill) and so we had a spectacular view of the city.

I can't imagine I will ever tire of this view

Inside San Miniato

This is what it looked like inside.  As you can see, it is very ornate.  Our professor explained that it would have also been very dark as there are few windows and the only light would have been provided by candles.  We can see the details in this picture because they have since added lights to the church and they leave the doors open during the day.  The darkness and heaviness (or sturdiness) of San Miniato is typical of the Romanesque style, as are the round arches (Italian: arco a tutto sesto) and the columns.  Each column capital (the top part of the column) is unique.  Very often these capitals, as well as other parts of the church, are pieces taken from ancient roman buildings and then reused as building material.  This happened all the time in the ancient world as well, in fact, this summer at the excavations in Greece we found all sorts of interesting things in the walls of buildings!

Imagine how this gold mosaic would glow in a church lit only by candles!

Check out the detail on the floor...

...on the walls...

...and on the ceiling of this cappella (chapel)

There are also some frescoes on the walls of the church that were added sometime after it was built.  Here we can see where the artist made the outline for his work but never actually got around to painting over it:

Sketches that were never painted over.  You can see the finished frescoes on the right.

 Well, that's all for now!  I hope that you have enjoyed all the pictures.  I am always in awe of how much attention to detail and fine craftsmanship is present in these churches and it is really great to be learning about their architectural styles.  I'm excited to share with you my trip to Santa Croce next week because you'll really be able to see how much the style changed and how it is reflective of changing perspectives on Christianity (and also there are some really cool people buried there!).  If you have any questions about anything feel free to ask and also let me know if you'd like me to go into further detail about something. :)

Ciao a tutti,
Isabella