Hiking to Bagnoregio

 

My Girl wants to be the first female Eagle Scout in Rome and she is close.  She needed to finish up the cooking merit badge which involves planning and preparing meals for backpacking which must then be eaten on a hike or backpacking trip.  We didn't have any backpacking adventures planned so we went with the hiking option.  I've wanted to go to Civitta Bagnoregio for awhile.  The pictures are pretty cool.  So off we went for our somewhat urban hike.

The lower town where we parked is still a viable town, but the old town, the civita vechia, is dying, with just a handful of residents remaining.  It is kept alive by day tripping tourists eating lunch in local restaurants.  It started as an Etruscan town and was quite prosperous in its day.  In the late 17th century the bishop and the municipal government moved out of the old town after an earthquake and by the 19th century erosion was impacting access.  Today the old donkey trails are replaced by a modern bridge while the cliffs continue to crumble away.  The bridge is mostly for pedestrians, but residents and, I assume, business owners can get a permit to drive a vespa or mini truck up the hill.

It was a beautiful day, perfect for hiking.  We took our backpacking lunch and nibbled at it on the steps of the church, then found a restaurant where we ate some really delicious food, parpadelle with chigiale ragu and pasta with pistachio pesto.  That's Italian hiking.

Later that week we packed up our little stove and took another urban-ish hike to Cafarella park for another merit badge meal.  We cooked our backpacking meal and identified birds and bird songs with the Merlin app.  

Another great day for our non-ski ski week.  My girl was just getting back from a week at the DODEA European basketball tournament and I had been out and about traveling while she was gone, so a week relaxing at home and catching up was nice.

A bit of Bologna

 I chose two cities for my four night trip.  I really wanted to see the mosaics of Ravenna and I needed to change trains in Bologna so I made that my second destination.  Bologna is the major city of the Emilio Romagna region where you also find Parma and Modena, cities you may have heard of for their famous cheese and balsamic vinegar.  It isn't a city that makes the short list for many tourists.  In fact, it isn't even included in the guide book I have.  But there were certainly plenty of people out and about on the weekend I was there and I really enjoyed my short stay.

Bologna was Etruscan, Gaulish, then Roman.  As the empire fell it was frequently under attack by the Goths and Lombards.  It survived and became a prosperous medieval city and an intellectual center.  

It used to be full of medieval towers, perhaps as many as 180 or more, but more likely 80-100.  Most were destroyed or fell and now only about 20 remain.  The towers were built mostly in the 12th and 13th centuries initially for defensive purposes as a final redoubt within a compound of connected townhouses.  This was a time of city states and fierce inter-familial feuds.  The towers which were originally practical, also became status symbols among the wealthy and powerful.  The taller the tower, the better.  

A pair of towers in the city center are the most famous, partly for their height and partly for the rakish angle at which they stand.  These are the tall slender Asinelli tower and the shorter Garisenda tower, with a more dangerous tilt.  They have been in the news lately as they continue to lean and threaten to fall.  The leaning started early.  Dante Alighieri mentions leaning towers in Bologna in his writings.  As of last fall, visitors are no longer allowed to climb the towers and traffic is limited around the base in an effort to preserve the city land marks.  It's just as well.  A local tradition says that if a student climbs the 498 steps of the Asinelli tower they will never graduate.  Since Bologna is a university town, this is a serious threat.

Bologna's leaning towers

Bologna's towers

Video: What happened to Italy's sky scrapers

Another famous feature are the porticos that line the streets.  In a crowded city these covered walkways came about as a way to increase the floor space of the upper levels.  I appreciated them for the wide covered sidewalks, often a couple steps up from the street level.  In the era of horse travel the separation was probably quite nice.

Piazza Santo Stefano

Evening under the porticoes

The Basilica of Santo Stefano is a unique treasure.  It is a medieval warren of seven churches with the accompanying halls and cloisters.  It's easy to imagine a life of monks and priests in this place.  The oldest part of the church that is still standing date to the 4th and 5th century and was built over a temple to Isis.  As you might expect the church was added onto and rebuilt over the years as the church aged and was damaged by invaders.  Much of the current structure dates from the Benedictine work during 11th and 12th centuries after extensive damage from the 10th century invasion of the Hungarian armies.  

Map showing the growth of the San Stefano complex over time

Intricate stone work in a cloister

Pulpit in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre

San Petronio

San Petronio, on the main square, is one of the largest churches in Italy.  Construction started in 1388 and continued in to the 17th century, but it was never fully finished, as you can see from the partially covered facade.  In spite of its semi finished state, it was the site of several historically important events, including the coronation of Charles V as the Holy Roman Emperor (1530) and two sessions of the Council of Trent (1547), a temporary move to avoid the plague in Trent.

The most interesting part of the church is the Chapel of the Magi.  It was one of the first chapels built and features frescoes telling the story of the visit of the Magi who traveled to visit the Christ Child.

Chapel of the Magi

Me in front of the statue of Neptune, Piazza Maggiore

I missed several of the important churches of the city, but I did climb the bell tower of San Pietro which overlooks the main square.  The air was hazy that day, as it often is in Bologna, but the views were still magnificent.

Steps up the bell tower

Terra Cotta figures by Lombardi in San Pietro

My first association with terra cotta is garden pots.  However, in Bologna during the 15th and 16th centuries it was a material for finely detailed and very expressive sculpture.

Cheesy appetizer typical of Northern Italy

The region of Emilio Romagna is a foodie center and Bologna is right in the middle of it all.  I took a food tour of the city and we tasted all of the regional goodies.  Mortadella is from Bologna itself.  Parmesan cheese is from nearby Parma and balsamic vinegar from Modena.  Tortellini are traditional in this region, made in the shape of the belly button of the goddess Venus.  The little pasta buttons are filled with meat and served in a rich clear broth, not a heavy sauce.  Tortelloni are larger pasta cousins filled with ricotta cheese.  The parmesan cheese is aged for years.  It's rich and crumbly and contains crunchy crystals when done well.  It is a treat by itself, not just a powdery pasta topping.  The balsamic vinegar is syrupy and sweet and used to top strawberries, ice cream, and parmesan cheese, not salads.

Here the bread is salted and delicious compared to the unsalted bread of Florence and much of central Italy.  I love to visit the different regions of Italy and see just how much the food changes.  There isn't one single cuisine in Italy.  It is incredibly regional and diverse.  When I am out of town I sometimes test restaurants by checking the menu for carbonara, a strictly Roman dish.  If there is carbonara it's a restaurant that caters to tourists.  I also look for the nonne, Italian grandmas, out for lunch.  That's a good sign.

Dante references all over Bologna

I loved my visits to the University of Bologna.  There are many different things to see including a series of interesting museums.  The university has long history.  It claims the title of the oldest university in the world, having started in the 10th century when a group of wealthy young men organized their tutors and book collections into the Alma Mater Studiorum.  It wasn't so much a physical location as an idea.  Students met where they could throughout the city in rented rooms, private homes and palaces, monasteries, and under the porticoes.  The university became a center of power in the 13th century as it continued to attract wealthy young men from influential families.  In the 14th century the local and papal authorities took more control and students lost some of their autonomy.  The university flourished during the Renaissance of the 15th century.  After the council of Trent in the 16th century the university was centralized into a single physical location under strict papal control from Rome.  With the religious restrictions, the university faded.  In the 19th century the university was revived as a public institution during the time of Napoleonic control and later the independent Kingdom of Italy.  Since the official relaunch in 1888, 800 years from its legendary founding, the university has grown to occupy a large section of the historical center and expanded into modern campuses in the region. 

 

Biblioteca Comunale dell'Archiginnasio

The Archiginnasio, built in the 16th century, was the first location of the forcibly unified university under papal control.  (It is now a city library now that the university is centered in Palazzo Poggi.)  Remember that Italy as we know it today was not unified until 1871.  At this time central Italy was known as the Papal states and Northern Italy was divided into many different city states who were constantly at war.  In 1506 Bologna came under the control of the army of Pope Julius II.  By the mid-1500s the university was the center of the counter reformation and a temporary home to the Council of Trent.  As such, many protestant students from Germany were forced to leave.  

  

The galleries and hallways are lined with heraldic symbols from the families of former students.

Anatomical theater

One of the rooms I really wanted to see was the Anatomical theater.  It isn't a particularly large room, but it is arranged so that medical students seated in rows, theater style, could watch the dissections being performed at the central marble table.  The room is elaborately decorated and includes sculptures of famous physicians.  On either side of the lecturer's elevated desk are Spellati, sculptures of skinned men.  It's rather gruesome, but appropriate for the setting.

I also visited the Palazzo Poggi, built in the mid 16th century for the Poggi family it later became the center of the Institute of Sciences in 1714.  It is now one of the main buildings of the University of Bologna.  Part of the building is now a museum which houses historical laboratories and educational collections.  It's fascinating.  There are rooms of collected animal specimens from around the world, wood printing blocks for scientific botanical prints, and models of star forts from the study of military defenses in an age when cannons were the latest military technology.  There were also extensive anatomical models of normal and abnormal human physiology and incredibly detailed models of sailing ships.  The whole thing was amazing.  Definitely worth the visit.

Models of star forts and cannons

Drawing of the specimen rooms

Specimen collections today

Printing blocks for botanical prints

I loved my visit to Bologna.  It's a lively city thanks to the students.  It gets a share of tourists, but wasn't overrun.  Will I go back?  Maybe, there is definitely more to explore in the region with Parma, Modena, and Verona nearby.

So many mosaics - Ravenna

I had a few extra days during the basketball championships to take a longer trip so I headed north to Ravenna and Bologna.  I really wanted to see the famous Byzantine mosaics of Ravenna and Bologna was the city where I needed to change trains so I stopped there for a couple nights as well.  I knew nothing about Bologna other than what I'd heard in the news about leaning towers.

We talk about the Byzantines empire as if it were separate from the Romans, but they saw themselves as the continuation of the Roman Empire after Constantine moved the capital east from Rome to Constantinople in the 4th century.  With Constantine's acceptance of Christianity, the Eastern Romans/Byzantines adopted it as their official religion.  Greek language dominated as Latin use diminished with the fall of Western Rome in the 5th century.  With time the Eastern Empire changed as you would expect.  Territory was lost and regained and borders shifted while Constantinople remained a large and important city for all of Europe until the city was defeated by crusaders in 1204.  The empire was divided, but the city recovered and was a regional power until the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453.  During the centuries of upheaval parts of the Italian peninsula, particularly Venice and the more distant island of Sicily, were repeatedly lost and restored to the empire, but maintained a cultural connection.  While in control of western Italy, emperors built churches and palaces.  When the empire lost control of the peninsula, refugees, including many artists, artisans, and scholars came from Constantinople and other parts of the empire to escape the destruction.  The artistic traditions continued on after the fall of the empire in the surviving Eastern Orthodox church.

I took a walking tour of Ravenna and then went back to see some of my favorites again to spend more time looking and even sketching a bit. Each site is magnificent and tells a lot about the history and artistry of the time and place.  

From the outside, the chapel of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo (not the same as San Appolinare in Classe) was built in the first quarter of the 6th century and is pretty nondescript, with a plane looking brick church and a matching round bell tower.  The building was originally the chapel for the palace of Theodoric the Great next door.  As a child he had been held hostage in Constantinople to satisfy the terms of a treaty and through his education there gained an appreciation for the culture of his then captors.  Later, Theodoric was the Ostrogothic king of Italy.  Even though king of the Ostrogoths, he was still subservient to Constantinople.  His Arian Christian beliefs were heretical to the Orthodox Christian church in Constantinople and would be a source of political tension.  It is much different inside.  The chapel walls have stunning mosaics. They are partially original, although there were notable changes in 561 when the church was renovated and rededicated to the anti-Arian St. Martin. By this time the chapel was an Orthodox church.  The changes in the mosaics were probably for both religious and political reasons.  The processions of the martyrs on either side are from this renovation.  The palace and scene from Classe were also changed.  We don't really know what the originals looked like exactly.  We do know that after Theodoric's death, images of him and his family were removed.  You can see traces of the original mosaics in disembodied hands in front of the palace pillars.  What is now a portrait of Justinian may have originally been Theodoric.  Sadly, the apse mosaics were removed during 16th century renovations and replaced with dark and dull Baroque decorations.  

Smart History Video

Hands from the time of Theodoric visible in front of two pillars

Dante Alighieri has a special connection to Ravenna.  Modern street artists honor him with their work around the city.  It is believed that he completed his Divine Comedy while staying in the city.  There is also a tomb where his remains are (probably? possibly?) interred.  For centuries Florence and Ravenna fought over his remains, so much so that they were lost or hidden between the 16th and 18th centuries.  Are the remains in the chapel dedicated to Dante his?  I don't know and I'm not sure that it is really that important.

The mosaics of San Vitale are magnificent and some of the best known in the city.  In addition to the mosaics there are so many details that are incredible, alabaster windows, intricately carved capitals on the columns, and a labyrinth in the center of the octagonal floor.  The interior was decorated shortly after the Ostrogoths were expelled from Italy and the area was reclaimed by the Eastern Roman/Byzantine emperor, Justinian, in about 553.  The mosaics in the main chapel tell stories of offering and sacrifice by Abel, Melchizedek, Moses, Abraham, and others.  Emperor Justinian and Empress Theodora are also shown with their courtiers offering the sacrifice of the Eucharist to Jesus who is at the center of the apse.  The whole thing is so detailed and so beautiful.  I went back a second time to have more time to look closely and to study the mosaics by sketching them.

Labyrinth

Apse - note the beardless Jesus

Justinian with soldiers, courtiers, and priests

Theodora with courtiers

Smart History - San Vitale

Note the bearded Jesus at the top of the arch

My sketch on yellow because of all the gold

The vibrant colors and all of the gold are quite impressive even centuries later.  It is no wonder that Gustav Klimt was inspired by these mosaics to incorporate gold and geometric forms into his work.

Behind the Basilica of San Vitale is the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia.  Galla Placidia was the daughter of Theodosius, the last emperor to rule the entire Roman empire, and his wife Galla.  When the empire split, her father ruled the East from Constantinople and her brother ruled the West.  She was married off to a king of the Visigoths in the West.  After his death she married Constantius III, eventually ruling the Western empire as regent until her son came of age.  

The mausoleum, built after 425, is fairly small, with an interior covered in colorful marble and more spectacular mosaics.  It is built of recycled Roman bricks and is one of the oldest buildings in Ravenna.

An image of Christ as the Good Shepard is over the entrance.  It quite interesting to compare the style to the classical mosaics and the Byzantine mosaics.  You can see the connections between the two and the things that make it uniquely early Christian.  The images are much more natural than the later Byzantine style in San Vitale, but not as much as the Classical Roman work.  The gold tesserae mark it as newer than the classical works.  The beardless Jesus as a shepherd is a common Early Christian image.  I compared it to the mosaics of Santa Pudenziana from a similar time, about 415.

Stars in the center ceiling and stylized flowers in the arch.

Smart History - Mausoleum of Galla Placidia

The mosaic tour I took also included the Neonian, or Orthodox, baptistry.  Not to be confused with the Arian baptistry which I learned about later, after I left the city.  I wish I had been able to see both.  They are somewhat similar, but there are definitely two separate buildings.  The Neonian baptistry was built adjacent to the Domus on the foundations of a Roman bath during the late 4th and early 5th centuries, about half a century before the Arian baptistry was built by Theodoric.  It was refinished in the late 5th century by Bishop Neone, who commissioned the mosaics inside.  It is one of the oldest buildings in Ravenna and one of very few surviving ancient baptistries in the world, and one of the best preserved.  

Neonian baptistry

The mosaics are interesting.  The central scene is of Christ's baptism by John.  The grey bearded figure to the right is a personification of the River Jordan.  This type of figure is common in Roman art and sculpture.  It is usually an old bearded man reclining and holding a cornucopia of some sort.  You can tell which river it is by the objects in the cornucopia and surrounding the figure.  It also helps that this one is named.

How Christian baptism was performed anciently varied with time and place.  Water may have been poured over the person's head from the hands of a priest or deacon, a bowl or cup, or fountain, or they may have been completely submerged under water.  The area in the center of this baptistry could certainly have been filled with water and used for baptism by immersion.

We also visited the palace of the Archbishop which is now a museum.  I loved the stone and ivory carvings and of course more mosaics.

Details of an ivory throne from the Archbishop's palace.  (Throne of Maximius 6th century)

Christ as a Roman soldier

It is quite interesting to look at how Christ is depicted differently at different times.  Very early on in the catacombs of Rome Christ was depicted as a beardless shepherd.  Later depictions like the mosaic of Santa Pudenziana and San Vitale depict Christ like a judge and emperor.  Here in a little hallway on the way to the Archbishop's chapel, Christ is depicted as a soldier vanquishing a serpent and a lion, representing the heretical Arians.  This chapel was built in the Orthodox Episcopal palace during the time of Theodoric and is reported to be the only early Christian chapel of its era to survive intact. 

It is always interesting to see which motifs get adapted into the tourist merch.  Here in Ravenna there are countless glass and mosaic do-dads along with the expected post cards of the most famous images like the royal couple in San Vitale.  My personal favorites were the socks with the derpy ducks from the ceiling of the vestibule of to St Andrew's chapel.  There were also socks, umbrellas and little fabric pouches that adapted the floral-ish mosaic ceiling design from the mausoleum of Galla Placidia.  The socks and umbrella came home with me.

Our first stop on the mosaic tour was one of the more recent buildings we saw.  The original church of San Francesco was built in the mid 5th century, but little of this structure remains.  The highlight of the building is the 10th century crypt beneath the altar.  Because Ravenna is built on marshland, the church and crypt are sinking.  Rather than fight the rising water the crypt was allowed to flood and is now the home to goldfish.  It's beautiful   You can see the mosaics and coins on the floor and the bright orange and white goldfish through the clear water.

Next to San Vitale I found the National Museum of Ravenna.  It was delightful!  The collections were housed in an old Benedictine monastery.  Rooms branched off quiet cloisters.  The examples of intricate stone carving were impressive.  There were even a few more modern pieces among the ancient bits and a room with items from an 18th century pharmacy.

Ancient Greek bust

Hanging wire sculpture next to ancient Roman funeral stone

18th century pharmacy

Underneath a small rather nondescript church is an amazing series of Roman and Byzantine floor mosaics discovered in the 1990s and opened to the public in 2002.  It is called the Domus of the stone carpets.  I saw a sign on the street and followed it to this.  Glass walkways lead you around the floors so that you can get close and see the floors.  They aren't flat anymore, but roll and wave, after several centuries in place.  A highlight is the center panel of four dancing figures called the Geniuses of the Four Seasons.

The Geniuses of the Four Seasons

Something unexpected that I really enjoyed was the MAR, the Ravenna Art Museum.  A large section of the collection focuses on mosaic art, but modern.  I loved the exhibits that included the 20th century cartoons drawn by the artist and the mosaics made from them, usually by a different artisan.  It is truly a partnership.  

Mosaic and cartoon

Cartoon by Marc Chagall

The last church I visited in Ravenna was San Giovanni Evangelista.  It was originally built after 424 BC by Empress Gallia Placidia and remodeled and rebuilt several times. most recently after extensive damage from bombing in WWII.  The most interesting part of the church that survives are the medieval floor fragments from 1213 AD that now decorate the walls.  This series has been called the Bayeux tapestry in stone.  Some of the fragments depict the attack and siege of Constantinople during the fourth crusade.  They are simple and quite rustic, not as flashy as their older and more colorful and more realistic neighbors, but they still tell quite an interesting story. 

Crusaders from the 4th Crusade

San Giovanni Evangelista