Thursday, September 25
St. Francis and the miracle of the first Christmas creche.
Giotto, Upper Basilica, Assisi. (Image Credit: Storia dell'Arte).
I'll Say Hi to il Poverello For You
Well, I'm off tomorrow (leaving at some unholy hour of the morning, especially by Italian standards) on a field trip with my class to the quaint cities of Umbria and Tuscany for a week. I will not be back until October 6, and trust me, by then I will have reams of notes and adventures to pass on. Knowing my mile-a-minute professors, hitting internet cafes will not be an option. And perhaps the break will do me good.
We'll hit Orvieto, Assisi, Gubbio, Urbino, Lucca, Siena and finally Florence, the city that gave to the world a weirdly schizoid array of saints, sinners and none of the above. Names like Fra Angelico, Savonarola, Michelangelo, and Nicky Machiavelli spring to mind. I'll be covering territory both new and old to me.
Assisi will be beautiful, a city where I will finally experience the sights and sounds of the real St. Francis rather than that crumbly concrete garden-gnome avatar we're so used to. Florence will be like visiting an old friend again, and I can finally get over to the Boboli Gardens and see what I've been missing all this time in the way of grottos and charming Medici self-glorification. I'll watch out for wolves in Gubbio, of course. Perhaps I'll even catch a glimpse of the Volto Santo (sometimes thought to be the Holy Grail) at Lucca. It's a long hall, but I shall, to continue the MacArthur theme, return. A doppo. Ciao ciao.
![[SMMMHDH]](http://www.mgilleland.com/music/smmmhdh.png){kind=small}
