Art History Field Trips: Firesole, Pisa, and Lucca

Even though I am not taking art history classes here, due to the absent of my typists, I still take the Saturday field trips which are design particularly only for art history students. Since I am thinking about double majoring in art history and studio art and the art history professor here is a genius, I tag along on the all day trips. So far, these field trips have taken us to Firesole, Pisa and Lucca. 

Firesole

The first major field trip gave everyone, including non art history students, a taste of the amazing professor Helen Watterson. I have never met a professor so brilliant its almost crazy. Professor Watterson seems to know every detail about all the buildings and art pieces we have visited so far. Some of the smallest and dullest aspects become interesting and significant as Professor Watterson explains it's importance to her class of fifty students. Her most amazing defeat in my opinion is her ability to gather absolutely no salvia build up in her mouth, even though she talks the entire day. Pretty cool. 

Anyways, here are some picture whichs highlights some of 

my favorite aspects of what I saw at Firesole:

Ruins of Bathing Area

Archeology remains were found at the site and were placed in a tiny museum. This pot and the one below reminds me of the greek pottery I studied last semester. The red figure pot depiction is probably of the Greeks' deity Nike.

This pot depicts an Amazonomachy scene, that is the Trojan warriors versus the Amazon women. I'm guessing Archilles and the Amazon Queen, Penthesilea, are the main subjects. 

Pretty marble sculptures. The curls are so delicious looking.

View from the top of Firesole. Down below and behind the green is Florence. 

Pisa and Lucca 

The week after Firesole, the art history class visited Pisa and Lucca where the famous leaning tower is. We were only able to see the main attraction area of Pisa, which is a tiny part of the entire Pisa area. I was quite astonished to discover my favorite building was not the leaning tower, but the sanctuary next to it. Everyone only talks about the leaning tower and never about the amazing buildings which surrounds it which really bothers me. Here are some of my favorites from Pisa:

View of the Cathedral

Baptistery. The grass was so pretty with no dog poop and perfectly smooth. 

Cool marble podium in the Cathedral

Inside the Cathedral. There were so many different kinds of art pieces jammed together inside, such as beautifully painted murals, mosaic wall pieces, marble sculptures, altars, and so on. The walls seemed as if they hardly had any breathing space. Probably one the most beautiful churches I have visited. 

My favorite buildings of the four we visited at Piazza del Duomo. I believe its a sanctuary mainly because...

.... all the floors were neatly organized underground graves. So basically we were walking on top of these graves which is a pretty surreal feeling. 

For some creepy reason this fresco is one of my favorite art pieces I have seen so far in my stay here. First, I seriously need to take a religion class since I had no idea what this scene was, which is a depiction of "Last Judgement and Hell". The scene shows different acts of torture of humans in H-ll, such as the top left shows humans being attacked by snakes and their intestines pouring out, while in the mid-right, a crowd of humans are being boiled. The worst act (which is too hard to see in this photo) shows two demons cutting the skin off a human. How sweet. I literally felt nauseous after starring at this, not only because of the scene being depicted but the overall enormous scale of the fresco made me feel very tiny.

Grave we weren't aloud to walk on. Sad.

One of the gorgeous marble sculptures inside the sanctuary.

Cool grave symbol

And now for the pictures everyone has been waiting for...

My roommate Molly and I standing in front of the leaning tower after we climbed it. Sorry for the weird blur located on my knee.

So tall

Poetic shot

Climbing the leaning tower! It cost 15 euros but I knew I would never climb it again. The  marble stairs were so slippery it was almost dangerous, especially when walking down. 

On one of the higher levels. It was very clear the tower was leaning which made me a tad queasy.  

All the way on top! I learned two things in particular: 1) Don't wear a dress when climbing buildings such as the leaning tower (it gets winder the higher you to) and  2) Do not attempt a snookie pony tail without a mirror at hand.

So after the long and hard climb, myself and fellow "We are crazy because we just spent 15 euros to climb a tower" went to grab a quick lunch. I had an interesting bathroom experience because I could not find the flush handle. Random fact.

My yummy pizza and the cheapest I have had so far (4.50 euros). One difference of receiving pizza here is the customer has to cut the pizza themselves. I never have been so thankful for the folks back home who take the time to cut my pizza. Thanks!

Poetic picture of eating 

Now we are in Lucca, this is outside of one of the churches we went into. I literally have never been in so many churches before, so after a while they all start to look the same to me (of course not to the art history professor). 

Medieval Graffiti on a church column. Its an elephant and there were also a lot of fishes inscribed too.

The art history professor insisted on buying us all a slice of cake at this bakery. I wonder how many times she has done that (shes been teaching at SACI for about 30 years I think) and it was so sweet of her. Apparently Prince Charles likes the bakery too and they have photos displaying all the times he has visited the bakery.

Looks delicious but I doubt I would be satisfied by eating just one. 

Professor Waterson handing out pieces of cake

Very interesting cake. It basically tastes like a sweet quiche with rasians, nuts, and kale. According to Molly its called: Torte de Vedura.

So if you have successfully reached the bottom of this post, thanks for getting to this point. Tomorrow the art history class will be going to Siena. So expect more art history posts in the future.