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wifeofbath · 5 years

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Wife of Bath in Florence--Part 6: San Lorenzo, Palazzo Medici Riccardi, and Santa Croce

Hey, Wife of Bath! Two things! First, it’s been *checks blog* three years since you last told us about what you did in Florence back in 2014. Second, where’s the love for Michelangelo?

Hi, fictional person I made up solely to ask me accusatory questions! Yes, it has been a ridiculous amount of time since I last did my little travel breakdown, and I really haven’t mentioned Michelangelo at all have I? That’s going to change because Michelangelo featured prominently in the last two days of my 2014 Florence trip.

(Also I realized that I really do want to finish this because I’m going back to Florence in June.)

Friday brought an early morning with the class meeting at San Lorenzo at 8:30. By this time, I had a pretty good (though not great) idea of where everything was, so I had a leisurely walk to the basilica. Unfortunately, I got to the church earlier than the rest of my class, which meant a few minutes of walking around trying to spot anyone I recognized. Thankfully, I found them after a while at the back. Luckily, my favorite classmate was also running late, so at least I wasn’t the last to show up.

Once all gathered, we headed to the Old Sacristy. At the time of our trip, San Lorenzo did not permit pictures inside, so the photos here are a mix of Wikipedia and WGA.

Brunelleschi’s Old Sacristy. Look at those lovely arches and Corinthian capitals. In their architectural designs, both Brunelleschi and Michelangelo used this gray stone, pietra serena, which was native to Florence.

Michelangelo’s New Sacristy, commissioned by Leo X and Giulio de’Medici. Michelangelo designed it and completed some of the sculptures, including the famous Night, but he was never able to finish it.

Night and Day flanking a sculpture of Giuliano de’Medici. Much has been made of Night’s pose and her physiognomy, ranging from the humorous “Michelangelo wasn’t comfortable with women so he stuck two oranges on a man’s chest,” to doctors speculating that Night shows symptoms of breast cancer to analysis of androgyny and late-Renaissance/early Mannerist concepts of beauty. Personally, I come down on the side that Michelangelo designed a figure that was both elegant and off-putting that reflects both the changes in art and the uncertainty in Italian culture during the beginning of the Mannerist period.

Dawn and Dusk with Lorenzo de’Medici. This is not a sculpture allegorizing Michelangelo’s beloved mentor but one of the lesser known Medicis, Lorenzo di Piero, Duke of Urbino, who’s probably more famous for his children, Catherine de’Medici and Allessandro, who became the first duke of Florence. Lorenzo the Magnificent’s tomb was never completed, but he is buried here with his brother Guiliano in a simple tomb underneath a Madonna and Child sculpted by Michelangelo.

From there we went to the Cappelli dei Principi (Chapel of the Princes). If you look at an aerial view of San Lorenzo, the large, octagonal dome between the two sacristies easily stands out. Of the sites we saw at San Lorenzo, this one with its height, opulence, and the mixture of dark stone was one of the most memorable for me. First photo from MuseumsinFlorence.com

Peak Baroque aesthetic right here. This picture helps give some sense of how TALL this space is.

Off to the Laurentian Library!

Brunelleschi’s cloisters

Orange trees!

Inside, the vestibule with the famous steps designed by Michelangelo. Originally, Michelangelo wanted these stairs, which may be the first freestanding staircase in Western architecture, to be made of walnut but ended up using that gray stone seen in the Old and New Sacristy.

Subverting the rules of Classical architecture to make a characteristically Mannerist space

I love how the center aisle of the staircase seems to pool out into the vestibule.

Inside the library, the floor with some great grotesques

One of the reading stalls

From there to the Medici Riccardi Palace. We primarily focused on the Chapel of the Magi, the tapestry room, and the Luca Giordano hall.

The Chapel of the Magi is actually quite small, smaller than you might think just looking at pictures of Benozzo Gozzoli’s frescoes online. It’s a very intimate space (confining if you’re in there with fifteen other people). The frescoes completely envelope you, and your eye follows the journey of the Magi along the walls. No pictures inside the Chapel, so pics are from travelsintuscany.com and wiki.

Like many Renaissance depictions of the Magi, Gozzoli included portraits of the Medici family among the Magi.

For a long time, there was speculation that the young king was a portrait of Lorenzo de’Medici, but recently, he’s been identified as one of the other members of the party (fourth figure from the left).

He does look a lot more like the later portraits we have of Lorenzo.

The Tapestry Room

This was interesting to see. It’s a Madonna and Child by Filippo Lippi, but on the other side is a drawing of a young man.

The Gallery, which is where Florence’s government meets.

Giordano’s ceiling fresco, representing the creation of Man and the triumph of the Medici on Mount Olympus.

The courtyard with the sculpture of Orpheus.

The gardens. In Hannibal, this was where “Dr. Fell” ran into Anthony Dimmond (thirsty scarf dad).

Once we were through with the area surrounding San Lorenzo, we split into two groups. My professor took half the class to the Florence Archives while my group headed to Santa Croce.

“The Church of Santa Croce, seat of the Franciscans, its vast interior ringing with eight languages as the hordes of tourists shuffle through, following the bright umbrellas of their guides, fumbling for two-hundred-lire pieces in the gloom so they can pay to light, for a precious moment in their lives, the great frescoes in the chapel.”

Of course, I had to check out all the tombs

Machiavelli’s tomb

Dante’s memorial

Galileo’s tomb. All that Baroque covering up those frescoes *sigh*

Michelangelo’s tomb. Definitely not what he had in mind, but Vasari went all out to honor his friend. Hopefully, Michelangelo does not mind too much that I write stories of questionable quality about his relationships with Leonardo and Raphael.

The altar

Bardi Chapel with one of the earliest depictions of St. Francis (sorry about the glare)

Death of St. Francis by Giotto and his followers

Just wanted a picture of the stained glass light on the stone floor

Baroncelli Chapel, Taddeo Gaddi’s fresco of David and Goliath

Because of the time, we didn’t have a chance to check out the Pazzi Chapel. I also did not take a close look at the Rinuccini Chapel (mostly because I didn’t know how relevant it would be to my research later—add that to the to-do list).

It was close to lunchtime, so we grabbed a sandwich nearby (tomato and mozzarella with an Orangina) and had some gelato under Dante’s imposing stare.

The façade of Santa Croce, completed in the 19th century.

Then it was off to the Florence Archives to briefly talk to the people who run the Medici Archive Project. I’ll be seeing them again in June for their paleography seminar. Once done at the Archives, we checked out the Duomo.

Vasari’s frescoes inside Brunelleschi’s dome. He’s showing up a lot in this write-up too, but Vasari has cast a long shadow over art history.

We then dispersed for a couple hours until meeting against for a farewell dinner that evening. I hate that I never caught the name of the restaurant (we met together at the cathedral and then walked over together) because the pasta carbonara and tiramisu I had was really good.

And that was it for the official class business! All in all, I learned a lot. However, I still had a day left to explore Florence on my own, which I will recount later (but not too much later).

#WifeofBath in Florence

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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The Falcon and the Winter Soldier Episode 5: Marvel and MCU Easter Eggs

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This article contains The Falcon and the Winter Soldier episode 5 spoilers, and possibly more for future episodes and the wider MCU.

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier episode 5, “Truth,” is another somewhat transitional episode for the series. Big action at the beginning, some heartbreaking reveals in the middle, and then plenty of bonding and moving pieces around for the finale for the rest of the episode. Oh yeah, and one absolutely awesome use of The Meters’ “Hey Pocky A-Way.”

Anyway, let’s dig into the MCU and Marvel Comics references we’ve found so far. And remember, if you spot anything we missed, let us know in the comments!

“Truth”

The episode title is taken from Truth: Red, White, and Black, the 2003 miniseries that introduced the concept of Isaiah Bradley and told his tragic story. It references those events extensively, too…

Isaiah Bradley

Much of what Isaiah recounts to Sam during their heart-to-heart is very similar to the events of Truth: Red, White, and Black. Here, we assume that the events described took place approximately during the Korean War rather than World War II, but the effect is the same, and equally horrific. Things ended differently and perhaps even more tragically for Isaiah in the comics, where a combination of the serum and years of experimentation left him barely functional.

Isaiah makes mention of the “Red Tails”, which was the nickname for Tuskegee Airmen, a group of primarily Black fighter pilots in World War II. Despite fighting for the U.S. military, they were subject to racism within the army and in civilian life.

Presumably, the woman writing him letters while he was imprisoned is Faith Shabazz, who was his wife in the comics and similarly never gave up on him. However, there she survived to see his release, while in the MCU, she didn’t.

Sam’s visits to Isaiah stand in stark contrast to how this played out in the comics, when it was Steve who learned about Isaiah and came to honor him, but by then Isaiah’s mind was gone.

John Walker

When fighting Walker, Falcon and Bucky nearly snapped his arm right off in order to remove the shield. Understandably, Walker spent much of the episode with his arm in a sling. In the comics, Walker had a more dire arm injury, losing both an arm and a leg in a fight against Nuke (who we saw a version of on Jessica Jones). During this time, Walker refused any cybernetic replacements and instead resigned himself to a wheelchair. Not that it hindered him, as he was still able to kick ass as the warden of the Raft.

The fight with John taking on Sam and Bucky simultaneously feels like another inversion from Captain America: Civil War, where Steve and Bucky fight Iron Man. The end of it, with Sam reluctantly picking up the bloodstained shield, is one of the most powerful images in MCU history.

In the comics, Walker wasn’t permanently stripped of his Captain America role after killing (which he did in gruesome fashion, to the tune of several members of the extremist Watchdogs group after they murdered his parents). In fact the government even tried to help cover it up for a while, and temporarily put a leash on him. They did formally take the title from him a little later, but it was specifically to give it back to Steve Rogers, who initially refused before Walker himself prevailed upon Cap to take up the shield again. In any case, Walker suffers more consequences here than most authority figures do when they find themselves in the public eye for doing the wrong thing…

Holy moley, Wyatt Russell sure sounds EXACTLY like his dad Kurt during that Court-Martial scene. In particular, his line about “not like I’m gonna disappear” is a nice acknowledgment that John Walker is probably going to have a future in the MCU as U.S. Agent.

Speaking of which…

Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Contessa Valentine Allegra de Fontaine

Your eyes do not deceive you, that is the brilliant Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Seinfeld, Veep) as Jim Steranko creation Contessa Valentine Allegra de Fontaine. She sure does appear to be doing some recruitment here, and with word that she’s also appearing in Black Widow, we get the feeling this means she’s putting together a team of her own. Dark Avengers and/or Thunderbolts, here we come! We wrote more about that intriguing possibility here.

Interestingly enough, the “legal gray area” she refers to about Captain America’s shield not belonging to the government is in fact a detail from the pages of Marvel Comics. It’s one of the things that led to Steve having to give up the title of Captain America (along with the shield) and that opened the door for John Walker to take over. Although the argument the government used at the time was that the costume and shield had been designed by employees of the federal government, and thus those belonged to them, and that technically Steve had never been discharged from the Army. Presumably, the “legal grey area” here may have something to do with Steve’s disappearance and resurrection and/or how the government may have cut ties with former organizations like the SSR (which later became SHIELD) after it was revealed they had been infiltrated by HYDRA. Or something like that.

Zemo

After a quick escape from the Dora Milaje, Zemo visits the Sokovian memorial he mentioned to Sam and Bucky in episode 4. It seems he knew that he wouldn’t get far, and had accepted he’d be back behind bars imminently. The fact that we’re disappointed to see him exit says a lot about Daniel Bruhl’s acting throughout the series, though we doubt we’ve seen the last of the charismatic character.

Zemo’s philosophical conversation with Sam about his scorched earth policy on supersoldiers in episode 4 pays off in our main duo’s favor in episode 5 when Zemo reveals he no longer has any interest in killing Bucky. Bucky then proves to Zemo that he has become much more than the Winter Soldier, but not before giving him a scare that quickly becomes relief, then disappointment when Bucky reveals there are no bullets in his gun. The Raft better have some good therapists, or this man’s gonna change up his reading material from Machiavelli to Zapffe. [Please stop inserting these philosophy references into our Easter eggs – Ed] [No <3 – Kirsten]

Sam Wilson

We’re explicitly told that Steve revealed his retirement plans to Bucky before he went back in time to replace the Infinity Stones in Avengers: Endgame. Bucky apologizes, saying that neither he or Steve fully thought through the ramifications of passing on the shield to Sam.

It looks like Bucky had the Wakandans make Sam a custom Captain America suit. If you haven’t seen it yet (the toys have already been on the shelves), all we’re gonna say is that it’s genuinely one of the coolest superhero costume designs of the modern era. You can see it here if you want, we just don’t want to spoil it for those who are really waiting. Sam’s gonna look great in the red, white, and blue.

Torres is the New Falcon?

Sam tells Torres to keep his old, broken wings. It seems inevitable that Torres will fix ‘em up, as in the pages of Marvel Comics he becomes the new Falcon.

Batroc

Looks like we’re gonna get a rematch with Batroc (ze leaper!!!) in the final episode of the series. Sam also took on Batroc in one of his first adventures as Captain America, in the pages of All-New Captain America by Rick Remender and Stuart Immonen. More Batroc is good for everyone, but more relevant to that series and what’s coming next.

Is Sharon Carter the Power Broker?

So Sharon got Batroc out of jail and is helping to connect him with the Flag-Smashers…for some reason. So either she’s the Power Broker (as everyone has suspected) or this is a fakeout and she’s just doing this to manipulate Sam into picking up the shield and becoming Captain America. Maybe she’s doing that with Steve’s blessing?

Also, the painting that we see when we first flash to Sharon’s lair is the painting that Bucky smashes through in the flashback in E1, I think.

The GRC

The GRC is tasked with resettling 20 million…MILLION refugees worldwide. Would anyone care to guess how many refugees were resettled worldwide in the entire world at the all-time peak in 2016? 189,000.

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tsvjewelers-blog · 7 years

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Impactful Hip Hop Jewelry

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scottiedawg4 · 7 years

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My great reading reawakening of 2016

I enjoy quantification and data. I started tracking books I was reading back in 2009, but my data shows 0 books read in 2010 and 2012; I fell down on my data gathering.

In 2013 I began again, spurred on by my older brother's "Book Club of One" which aspired to read a book a month. I'm pretty sure he met his goal for years. However, I also selected 12 books for each year and never read the 12 books I selected in 2013, 2014 or 2015. In fact, in only 2014 did I read 12 books at all!

For 2016, one of my yearly goals was to read 20 books. I hadn't read that many books in a year since 2011.

In 2016, I read 110 books.

This was a result of two tools working in conjunction: Audio books and the iOS podcast app Overcast.

Overcast is designed for podcast subscription and playback and boasts two amazing features: Smart Speed and Voice Boost.

Smart Speed algorithmically removes silence between words. It's seamless. Nothing is choppy. (of course if I'm listening to dramatic readings or podcasts like This American Life, The Moth or 99% Invisible I lose a lot of the art). But for audio books it's amazing.

Voice Boost equalizes volume. Both features just work.

Add in variable speed playback (I go between 1.6x and 2.0x) and I can blaze through spoken audio, very, very, fast.

Overcast displays the actual playback speed in real-time that includes gains from both Smart Speed and variable speed playback. Usually the actual playback speed hovers around 2.5x but can be a lot more for deliberate audio book narrators.

I use Docast.me and Dropbox to host my audio book .mp3 files and create a podcast RSS feed accessible by Overcast.

There's a decent amount of research on how well the human brain absorbs and understands spoken words, even at high speeds. That said, my 2017 reading goal focuses more on quality listening, note taking and application.

Onto my 2016 data 86% were Non-Fiction books 14% were Fiction

My average rating (how much I enjoyed each book) was 5.99 (on a 1-10 scale).

Only 2 books received a 1 (The Master & Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov and The Art of Presence by Eckhart Tolle).

3 books received a 10 Grit by Angela Duckworth The Signal and the Noise by Nate Silver Quiet Power by Susan Cain

My most common rating was 6 (30/110)

The average rating of Non-Fiction books was 6.22 The average rating of Fiction books was 4.53

Favorite 9 Books

I read multiple books by the same author:

I read 27 books published in 2016.

I read 13 books published in 2013.

The oldest published book I read was The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli (1532) I also read The Book of Five Rings by Musashi (1645)