Today was our regular P-day, we got out work done, even though we took off on Wed, so we went to Milano today to see what we want to see in preparation for Amy's family visit at the end of June. Here are some of the things we saw today, some of which we have already seen:
You come up out of the metro station onto the large piazza of the duomo, or cathedral. Duomo comes from Latin and refers to house of God, and is what Italians call cathedrals, which means that is where the bishop's cathedra, or throne, is located. Any large church is not necessarily a cathedral. For example, St Peter's in Rome is a basillica, not a cathedral, even though it is the pope's church, although his actual bishop's cathedra is in another church, St John Lateran. Anyway, I don't know why I didn't turn around and take a pix of the imposing duomo of Milano, which is I think the world's second or third largest church. It was a fairly warm and sunny day. We wanted to go to the roof, which costs 15 euros each (about 18 or so dollars), so we stood in line to buy tickets. It also costs 1 euro to go to the bathroom at the duomo, those Catholics know how to make money. The above is of the Italian equivalent of George Washington on his horse, in front of the duomo.
I don't know why I took this pix while we were standing in line to buy the tickets, but it does have a website, where you can visit the duomo. The duomo is in the background.
To enter the duomo, armed (with machine guns) guards pat you down and then wave a wand over you, like at the airport. I forgot and left my little red Swiss army knife on my key chain, but a similar guard in Florence on Wednesday, when he saw my name badge and said out loud the name of the church, told Myrna to just put my keys in the bottom of her purse, because they visually check purses, they don't scan them, then he said to her, in perfect English, now don't kill anybody. So we did the same here and they let us through. The above is the marble floor of the duomo, in case you can't tell.
So you look up you see the ceiling, which is not painted with frescos like many Italian churches. This one is very large, but is not very bright or colorfully painted inside. It has, I believe I read, some 3,500 statues and lots of stained glass.
Detail of a window,( there are none with plain glass) they are all very large, this was probably 30 feet high, but the bright light outside lit the windows well today and my optical zoom works well.
As you walk past the many altars along the sides of the nave you see many dead bishops under the altars. They have signs telling you who they are and when they lived. This guy is fairly new, although I believe they have St, Ambrose in this duomo, and he lived I believe, without googling it, in like the 200s or 300s, a very long time ago. He was the bishop of this church and was baptized here in this church. Milano uses an Ambrosian form of the mass, not the one used by Rome, although, of course, it is also in Latin.
This is the high altar (bottom left), showing, of course, the organ. Now it looks like there are six organs, at least cases of pipes, but during the mid 1900s they made them all play from a single 5 manual organ, which is a little bigger than the Tabernacle Organ. They also have a small pipe organ on the floor, which we heard today being played in preparation for a concert, which I wish we could have stayed to hear.
I don't know why I snapped this pix, maybe because she was holding a skull.
This is a side altar, showing some stained glass. The largest stained glass windows are at the rear of the church.
This poor dude was pretty skinny and muscular, although I did't pay attention to who he was, there are just too many statues.
This guy actually had clothes on, but most are fairly naked, although, unlike in Florence, they cover their privates. The Medici seemed to like classical nudes, whereas the Sfortzi of Milano, the ruling family for a long time, must have been a little more modest, but they had no problem chopping off heads.
Another view of the central nave of this very very large building.
From the side at the front you can see the preaching pulpit, above. The preacher climbs the stairs and stands above the congregation. When this dumo was built they did not have amplification of sound, so a loud voice can be heard pretty well as the building is built of marble, which is quite sonorous. You can see one of the organs to the upper right. The painting can be closed to cover the pipes, although I have never see them closed.
We walked past the sacracy, or place where the priests put on their vestments. This guy, called a sacristano, was folding this morning's vestments. In smaller churches, this is the guy I try to find to let me play the organ, because he has the keys, which are generally stored in the sacracy.
When they re-built and enlarged the organs about 60 years ago, they put some new pipes in another case, which is shown on the right. The left case, and several others, is from the 1600s.
This is the bottom of one of the large stained glass windows at the rear of the church.
Even though they have the huge organ and a smaller pipe organ, I spotted this humble reed or pump organ in the corner. Almost all Italian churches have a reed organ sitting around somewhere for when they just need to give the pitch for singing, usually small congregations in the chapels.
We got there just as an organist was working out his stops on the smaller organ. the large one is to the right. This large one is the one I played about 50 years ago, and have a pix of me playing.
After finishing practicing for a few minutes, the organist went over to give last minute instructions to the singers. I have never seen a very large choir in a Catholic church, but this group is probably not the their regular choir, maybe a visiting choir.
Even though the door at the bottom was locked, the sign says that this is the baptistry for early Christians, the font of Saint Steven at the Font, from the 4th century. It is a real baptismal font.
This is the "font" they use today to sprinkle babies, etc.
Then we took the elevator to the roof, for 3 euros, to see the statues on top and the city of Milano. It was quite a sight for sore feet.
Gargoyl.
What is amazing is that there are statues you could never see from the ground, you have to walk around the roof and look down, or up,or sideways, to see them.
I suppose dirt blows up there and falls in the cracks and then weed seeds blow up and before long you have weeds on the roof, which I suppose they pull off or it would damage the marble. Notice the gargoyl, or mythical figure on the left, which also could not be seen from the ground.
The piazza in front of the duomo, in the front is the statue of the Italian equivalent of George Washington, who lived in the 1800s.
Form the roof, on the other side, you can see the Swiss alps. I don't know why I didn't get a pix of them today, as you could see them, which is rare. Normally it is pretty hazy.
We're back on the ground and this is the back of the duomo, showing one of the many stained glass windows, from the outside.
We walked away from the duomo down this not very busy side street.
And went under a fruiting tree, which was somewhat messy. In Thatcher, Arizona, were I was raised, we had mullberries that were like this.
They were messy underfoot.
This was the next church we were trying to find.
And there was another type of fruiting tree we passed.
This was a church with a separate chapel full of skulls and bones, from the days of the black plague, of people who wanted to be buried within the church, and they certainly were.
They even used the bones to make designs.
And some are just there, behind wire, I suppose to keep them safe, so tourists wouldn't take them home for souvenoirs.
The church with the bones is next to another ancient church, why they built them so close I do not know.
Italy does a good job with signs,in Italian and English,usually.
Bum sleeping on the busy street, but with his money container nearby.
We walked down Via Dante about 20 minutes, in the hot sun, to the Sfortzi castle, in the background. the big 2 and 1 are for some type of temporary exhibit, we did not see.
Myrna sitting at the fountain in front of the castle.
Gate to the castle, of which there is a very large moat, now with grass and feral cats, around it.
A patriarch was coming out as we were headed in.
It was a large city inside the walls. On the left are bleachers, where they now have concerts, etc.
A pair of nuns, which you don't see very often now in Italy. There is a museum, actually many, in this castle. One has Michaelangelo's final sculpture,still unfinished, of a skinny Mary and Jesus, which we were too tired to pay 5 euro to see. The walking and heat about did us in.
Myrna sitting in the shade, with the moat below.
If you can enlarge this pix, you can see two cats on the grass. I suspect they keep the rats at bay.
Gate to another part of the castle, where we climbed up about 4 stories of stairs (way too many marble stairs) to see a school, admission free, where they teach how to make violins and other stringed instruments, with hand tools.
Raw ingredients for violins.
They weren't all violins, this was a hand held pipe organ, with keyboard, and a little drum to beat time, how about that.
I have no idea of what this thing sounds like, but I assume it sounds heavenly.
We came home and rested for about an hour, then went grocery shopping for the week, Myrna cooked up some pasta for dinner and we ate it with some Ragù alla Bolognese I made last week (we freeze it). Now she is up making pound cakes for the new missionary orientation, for about 30, we are catering on Tuesday. We will serve it with fresh strawberries and whipped cream. The main course will be chicken salad on croissants, which we have already ordered from the neighborhood bakery. (Myrna is making the salad, we are looking for chicken breasts on sale, which we hope to find on Monday afternoon, so we don't have to freeze them.). All of these new missionaries are sisters. Had there been some elders, Myrna was gong to make Cafè Rio pulled pork and she is going to try making flour tortillas, which you can actually buy (in the international section of the grocery store), but they are expensive and not very fresh. I also watered our "garden" out on the balcony from our bedroom today, it is doing well. The weather is certainly changeable. All week it rained and was a little chilly, but today it got up probably in the 80s and was sunny. We will sleep with the windows open tonight, and when it gets really hot we have air conditioning, which most Italians don't.
Ciao for now.
No comments:
Post a Comment