One Month Left

This past week marked the “one month left in Siena” marker! NOOOOOOO! I can’t believe we have less than a month here until we return to the good ole US of A. Time really has flown by.

Anyway, for our Sienese Art and Architecture course, we took a trip to the small towns of Monteoliveto and Pienza last week. I took about 140 pictures for this six hour trip altogether. In Monteoliveto, we saw the monastery and cloister, with original frescoes from the 15^th century. It was a very small, quaint town that was composed of a single bar and the monastery where Benedictine monks live. We got back on the bus after learning about the life of St. Benedict from the frescoes and went up to Pienza. Pienza is another small town outside of Siena constructed by Pope Pius II in the mid-15^th century. He constructed it to be the “perfect Renaissance town.” I’m still a little confused as to what that actually means though…The best part of that trip was getting a little break to explore on our own. Our professor told us that Pienza is home to some of the best pecorino cheese, so obviously we all bought some. Most of us bought a baguette and then went into this little store and asked for slices of salami and pecorino to make a sandwich. It was incredible. I also bought some kind of pumpkin and cinnamon spreadable concoction that I can’t wait to mix into the applesauce I make. J

The next day we had the chance to meet with a study abroad director from a university that may send its students to CET. CET sponsored a luncheon at, as you probably guessed, Fonte Giusta! We talked with her about our time in Siena, the good things and the bad things, what we do for fun, our classes, study abroad in general, and so much more. She was so down to earth and we all really hope that the study abroad office at her university decides to open up a program in Siena, because all of us love it here so much! Siena is the perfect place, not too big, not too small, and it really gives us the opportunity to learn the language. The people in Rome, Florence, Milan and all the big cities immediately know we’re Americans, so they don’t really give us the chance to speak Italian, which is very frustrating when you’re trying to learn.

Anyone want to take a guess as to where we went this Friday? That’s right, Florence! Again. It was a really ugly day out, super rainy and chilly and gross. I don’t have an umbrella either so I got pretty wet and my feet were completely soaked, even though I was wearing boots. It was all worth it thought because this trip was much more of a success than last week’s visit. We arrived in Florence around 9:30 in the morning and went straight to the San Lorenzo church to see the New Sacristy. Inside were sculptures by Michelangelo (Night and Day, Dawn and Twilight) on top of the sarcophagi of members of the Medici family. Next stop: Bargello Museum. Here we saw more sculptures by Michelangelo, namely his Bacchus.

Upstairs we saw the room of Donatello. There was his bronze David, St. George Slaying the Dragon crushed relief, and the competition panels for the second bronze door of the baptistery, one by Brunelleschi and one by Ghiberti. It was such a cool thing to be able to see everything we learn about in class. In the United States, you don’t really get the chance to physically see anything and it makes a world of difference when learning and trying to analyze art. On slides, everything just looks flat and you can’t tell the size so being able to see artworks in person is wonderful.

Next on our itinerary was the Galleria Accademia, where Michelangelo’s original David is located! We walked over there, still in the pouring rain, and had to go through security to see it. I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw this massive sculpture. My heart might have actually skipped a beat. It’s literally more than three times my size (I’m 5’2” and the David is about 17 feet tall). It was so overwhelming because the David, in my opinion, is one of the most researched and talked about pieces of art in history and getting to see it in person instead of just reading about it was amazing. I am just so, incredibly grateful to be able to do all of these things! After seeing the David, we went to Santa Croce church, Brunelleschi’s Pazzi Chapel, and then the Pitti Palace. By the time we finished it was 5:45 and we hurried to catch the bus back home, thoroughly exhausted.

I’m really writing an essay, aren’t I? These blogs just get longer and longer each time I write! I promise, this is my last thing I’m going to talk about. Even though we were so tired from such a long day in Florence, we decided to have people over to our apartment and hang out for a while. After a bit, we went over to the apartment of a girl on this program’s boyfriend. He is a part of the University of California program in Siena, one that is much, much larger than CET’s. I’m not sure why it took us this long to actually go over there and meet these people, but we finally did last night! There were a bunch of people just hanging out in the apartments (which are dorm style) and we stayed there for a few hours just talking with people from the program and their Italian roommates, one of whom was super cute. ;-)

Okay, that’s the end for now! Stay tuned to hear about my upcoming Thanksgiving break and other tales from Siena!

CET Siena Student Correspondent, Fall 2010

Melanie Bianco