Abbey Mirasole,within walking distance of where we live in Opera, about 7 miles from downtown Milano. This church was built before 1,000 AD, and the abbey a few centuries after that. It (the abbey) had a moat around it for centuries. The Umiliati, who were associated with the Waldesians, who Lorenzo Snow came to Italy to teach (after they were baptized then went to America, for example, the Cardon family from Mesa were included, and there are a lot of them in Idaho), were associated with the Umiliati for a while, then the pope excommunicated them in about the 1400s and gave their property to another order.
Inside the abbey one finds the old church, where we are going to take the senior missionaries when they come to the mission office in Opera for conference, the day before Elder (Apostle) Christoffersn comes to see us on March 7. We want our seniors to sing hymns together in this old church because the acoustics are so amazing, although it does not have an organ. I am going out this week to check with the monks to see if we can arrange for this to happen. They encourage pilgrims, people who come to worship.
Altarpiece painted in 1500s by Leonardo da Vinci's pupil. The guy is praying to the Madonna that he can have children.
Entrance to museum that used to be a rich man't home in downtown Milano, close to the duomo. He collected old paintings, suits of armor, weapons from the middle ages, old watches, jewelry, and lots of other cool stuff that is now in a museum. It took us about two hours to quickly see all the rooms, which used to be his house. The 20 or so room home itself is a beautiful work of art.
Entrance to the rich man's house, in the courtyard off the road, which is now a museum. It cost 7 euro and took a couple of hours to see, but we walked fast. I took hundreds of pix, but am only posting a few. You were not supposed to use flash, although occasionally I did when I had to because it was fairly dark in side.
From his collection of suits of armor, etc.
This is a Greek breastplate from before Christ.
A painting, from the 1400s of Jesus after scourging, the next pix is a closeup of him showing a tear.
I couldn't use flash in this museum and I shook the camera a little when I took this altarpiece (sits on the altar). What is interesting are the paintings on the back of this work of art, definitely to scare those who want to bother it.
These people seemed to really like skulls, etc.
From a large collection of compasses from the 1400s and 1500s, they also had cool watches and clocks in this collection.
This is a really cool wind up "alarm" clock. At the time set the top flips up, strikes the striker flint which lights the candle, but makes no noise. Pretty cool technology.
Italian painters loved to paint pictures of the Madonna holding the baby Jesus. He was always shown naked, but here he is with his little cousin John (the baptist), and the artist put a very thin cloth around his midsection to make him somewhat modest, although it still shows everything. I took a closeup of another nearby Madonna and Jesus (there were many, actually thousands, of the same subject, many with Mary nursing, which also shows all) to better show the fine piece of silk fabric. I guess they could weave really thin cloth in the 1500s.
See the thin cloth that is supposed to be hiding the private parts.
An ink pen (dip it in ink) but it has a built in clock, this was made in the 1500s, amazing!
A casket (sarcoughagus or how ever it is spelled) into which the body would be placed and it would be placed in a church.
Some of the books from the guy's library; he had rooms full of them, all about this old.
A still life painting of pork products, which they still have that look just like this. They have made these for centuries, and they need no refrigeration.
That museum had this original painting of Martin Luther, which I have seen before. The rich guy who collected this stuff was apparently sympathetic to Protestants.
This is an original by Michaelangelo, He apparently painted several similar to this. The most famous is in the Louve in Paris, and has St Anne (John the Baptist's mother) standing behind Mary. The city in the background is a real city somewhere, I can't remember.
Near the museum is this street, typical of Italian side streets in the city. It is a one way street (you can never drive around the block in Italy) and there is a no parking, your car will be towed away sign, with graffiti (which is everywhere) but people still park illegally, and if the car does not fit, e.g., the truck, they just park it on the sidewalk. Sometimes they double park on the sidewalk and road. There are way too many cars in Italy and no place to park them, even when we go to church. (Churches do not have parking lots.) That is why we take the metro (subway) to Milano and not drive our car. There is a parking garage at the subway station, it cost 2 euros to park all day.
Within walking distance of the museum is another old church. There are at least a dozen famous and old churches like this within a half mile of the duomo in downtown Milano. Of course, I was interested in the organs, but all of the churches have beautiful old art and statues, and they have signs that tell what it is, who painted it, etc. Churches are generally free to enter. However, the very famous and very large duomo has two lines (yes you have to stand in line to go inside churches). If are going in to pray, it is free, but if you are a tourist and just want to see the place and maybe take pictures (there are lots of guards to watch what you are doing, no touching, no flash), it cost 6 euros, which is about $7 to go in a church.
This old organ (built in the 1600s), is typical of Italian organs. About a half block away there was another old church, even older than this, in which the organ was destroyed during the war, so a few years ago they had a brand new pipe organ installed. It looks like those typical of German organs, not Italian,, although this one was built in Italy.
Currently my favorite old church in downtown Milano, built about 500 AD and is currently my favorite church, because they let me play the new pipe organ. Man of the old Italian pipe organs don't work, they need restoration, which is expensive.
New German style (trackier=all mechanical) pipe organ in that church above. The company, from Udine, Italy, near the border with what used to be Yugoslavia, that made this organ about six years ago, donated a small pipe organ to this church, which they keep in the altar area. I played it and it's sound filled the church.
This small portative pipe organ, makes enough good sound to accompany the congregation, but has only one manual and no pedals. It is all mechanical, electricity only supplies air for the bellows. There are three ranks of pipes in this little pipe organ.
Hidden behind a side altar was the old default organ, a pump organ, every one of these churches has at least one somewhere and they are played when they can't find an organist to play the big organ or it is broken.
During the period of time the Byzantines were in charge of the above old church, they added some mosaics, which are tiny pieces of colored glass and some with gold, with which they made beautiful pictures. The city of Ravena, on the coast south of Venice, has the best and most famous mosaics. They are really pretty in the bright light, but when I took this it was raining outside.
A confessional in an old church. They all have them like this. The priest enters from the middle and goes behind the door. Those wishing to confess kneel on either side and he hears their confession during set times. I don't know if he does two at a time or not, I've never tried it, in fact, have never been there during confession, which is typically about an hour before mass, which they have several times a day in the larger churches.
Interesting plaque near the door of the church. It says "Indulgence for 200 days, kiss this cross and recite one Pater (Our Father prayer)." I suppose an indulgence forgives your sins, but I an not really sure what it means. As you can see, this was installed on the 30 Dec 1900, so it is "modern".
We got hungry so we had lunch. This is Myrna's lunch at a nice restaurant, the most common kind of pizza, a Margarita, which is just cheese, but it was very good, I had some because it was fairly large for one person, and cost 7 euros. This restaurant was called "The Meat." Italians love to use English words, they think they are cool.
This is chicken cacciatore, with potatoes (the green is sage or some other spice), and a large salad, ordered by the missionary couple who we went sightseeing with. The bread came with the cover charge, 2 euros per person, and they charged 1 euro each for the water, which probably came from the tap, although it was cold (Italians like room temp drinks). More than half of the Italians prefer carbonated water, which costs the same as still. Today in Italy there is no tipping at restaurants, although you can if you want, but it is not expected. Notice the bottle of olive oil (always extra virgin, I wonder where the non-virgin oil goes) and wine vinegar at the table Italians have yet to try white creamy salad dressings, e.g., Ranch, Blu Cheese, French, etc, are unknown in Italy, it is always just a bottle of oil and another of vinegar, usually balsamic, which you put on as much as you want, and you can also put some on your plate and dip your bread in it. The chicken dish was 10 euros, or about $11. I actually had a pizza, but mine had a different kind of cheese and some sausage, and was 8 euros. We had to wait quite a while in this busy downtown restaurant to get them because they have to cook the pizzas in the wood fired oven. The chicken came out much sooner, because it was the special of the day and was already cooked. I enjoyed my pizza but if I would have known how long I had to wait, I would have had the chicken special.
As we were walking down the busy side streets, they were selling roasted chestnuts, in three sizes, the smallest were 5 euros, medium 8, and large 10. I asked if I could buy just one to taste it, and the guy said I would have to spend 5, which I thought was too much for something I may not like. It was a cold, rainy day, but there were a lot of people out.
Milano is the fashion capital of the world, and there are certainly a lot of clothes stores in the downtown area, for men and women, children and pets (Italians like their dogs). I didn't want to look too touristy, because I had my missionary badge (which we are told to always wear) so I didn't take many pix, and did it quickly and discretly, but it was interesting to see the fashions that will be coming out in the spring. Apparently now for men's pants, they are very short and show a little leg above the socks. This will probably be the fad in a while in the US. The men's suits are very tight, especially on the legs, which some of our missionaries are now coming out wearing. I think they make them look way to young to be missionaries.
Some high water jeans, which the Italians call "jeans".
Spring skirts and tops for women.
More women's spring fashions.
We left about 10 in the morning and got home before dark at 6 pm. It was a nice day, although it rained most of the day.
Today we went to church in our ward, called the Naviglie (named after the waterways on which they used to bring marble into the city of Milano) Ward, our fifth Sunday--how time flies. The ward pianist (we actually have an organ, but it does not work) didn't come today and they asked me to play for sacrament meeting and priesthood, I am now always playing for priesthood. (Before me they put a smart phone playing from LDS.org, near the microphone for accompaniment.) After church today we had choir practice (our ward does not have a regular choir) because we are going to join with the other wards for the stake conference coming up in March. There were about 10 women and one other man who came for choir. I was asked to play the piano, so I did not sing today. They tried to learn the melody line of "Lead Kindly Light" which no one had apparently ever heard before. It will be interesting to see how we sing. Elder Christofferson, a new member of the 12, is coming mid March, and we are also getting new missionaries. It will be a busy time. We are having a mission conference with him and he is also speaking twice to the members. He also wants to see the Leonardo's Last Supper (which we still have not seen because we are waiting to get tickets through a member, whose daughter works there), and a few other things while he is here. He is then going to Rome and then back up to Florence for meetings. Florence is in our mission, so some of our missionaries will see him there. Elder Bednar came last year and wanted to see Lake Como. It rained the entire time he was here. This afternoon the senior couple with whom we went sight seeing yesterday stopped by our place for dinner. They had to go south to church today in a city called called Pavia. That is one of the places we are supposed to go within the next few weeks to check missionary apartments. We have never done this because we are too busy at the office, but will need to do soon. Pavia is about an hour drive from here. they said it is a beautiful, old, city. We drove our car to church today, about a half hour, in the rain. You should have seen Myrna out guiding me into the parallel parking spot we were fortunate to find within about a block of the church, then the front door was locked and we had to stand out in the rain waiting for people to open the door.
