Siena and San Gimingnano

A few weekends ago we went to Siena with the Early Renaissance class and IT WAS SO MUCH PRETTIER THAN FLORENCE. It was really exciting and lovely and I wish I could be studying abroad there!

The first thing we went to was a small brick church that was St.Catherine's church and our TA, whose doctoral thesis was on St.Catherine talked to us about the chapel where her head is kept in a reliquary. In there:



Yeah. The fact that her skin hasn't come off (with o without outside help, no one knows) is considered a sign of her divinity. ANYWAY, a good view of Siena from there.



Crazy winding streets messing with your perspective! Maybe this has something to do with why the perpective of Sienese Gothic painting is so off looking for a while?



some sights along our route to the next thing on the agenda...



which was the MOST AWESOME PIAZZA EVER. This is Siena's central piazza with their palazzo vecchio right there in the center. Their piazza however is scallop shaped and huge and awesomely on an incline with a drain at the center which reminded me of Lord of the Rings, where the orcs have to blow up Helm's Deep. TERRIBLE.


a cool fountain with drinkable water at the top of the piazza.





The front of the cathedral's Baptistery. And the interior:






OK GUYS. SADDLE UP. BECAUSE this is ohsocool. This random wall with random holes in it is where they were going to expand the church by putting in a new nave, but then something was structurally wrong with one of the side walls, so they just stopped. AND UM. yeah., here it is. Great planning guys.


That was right outside their Duomo museum, which had some pretty cool things in it, Namely werewolves...


and old guys...


and Duccio's Maesta. NO BIG.


and you can climb up to the top! actually right before we climbed up to the top Ricardo and a friend Dave actually got lost for a while and ended up here by themselves, only to go up again right afterwards!





THE STRIPEDY CATHEDRAL. My favs.












We got a cool lecture from a friend of Helen's here about one of the fresco's in this room being falsley attributed to Simone Martini for ever, and he's fighting against that. It's too complicated to go into, it was a pretty long lecture but it was really good.

That top fresco is the one he was talking about.


Good Governemt and Bad Government and the effects of Good and Bad Government by the Lorenzeti Brothers! WHHOAOAOAOAOAOA. A lot brighter in person than I thought. SO HUNGRY at this point in the day.




YESSS. Picnic lunch! we were so happy some other people decided not to eat in a restaurant because we always bring lunch on these trips to avoid buying food in super touristy areas but we always end up eating by our selves. sad face. But not this time!


Dave and Nikki decided to try smoking for the first time? here? now? really? what? HILARIOUS.


hmmm. Somehow my pictures end after lunch. OH YEAH BECAUSE I WAS RETARDED. and didn't charge the extra battery to my camera so when I put it in because the other one was dead. it was dead too. Dave's pictures will soon be mine and we will post.