End of Week One

The first week ended with a tour of one of the most famous church complexes in Florence, drawing on the grounds, and catching up with moooore errands. Santa Croce is one of my favorite places, even though I got tossed out of there once (that's another story). It's located in what was originally a blue-collar, rough and tumble, somewhat slummy neighborhood in the late 1200's and early 1300's. But that was one big reason why the Franciscans went there, and the people responded. Compared to a lot of churches built just before, Santa Croce is huge. The friars preaching in the neighborhood brought in large crowds of rich, poor and in-between alike. There are many highlights to the work in the church and the museum that is on the grounds, but, unfortunately, one of my top draws is under restoration right now- Giotto's fresco paintings in the Bardi chapel depicting the life of St. Francis, and the Peruzzi chapel showing stories of John the Baptist and John the Evangelist. Oh well, I'm glad that they are being taken care of.

The students worked outside under the protection of the walkways from the rain, which continued off and on for a while.

My weekend was a blur of errands, laundry, catching up with the bookkeeping, doing some shopping and trying to catch up on some rest. After all the travel and running off fumes and caffe', I finally crashed and got some extra sleep. This was rest sorely needed with getting up early on Monday for a two-day trip to Siena.