In Pursuit of Beauty

Mater Misericordiae (Mother of Mercy) icon in the church of San Marco. The original icon in the middle was brought in from the East and the saints around the edge were added later.

Dony McManus, an Irish Catholic artist living and working in Florence, showed us around town and gave us the complete history of Art with the theology behind it. He works in this studio that belonged to Fra Angelico (who is now Blessed and called Beato Angelico) before him.

This was one of the original painting on the walls of San Marco that was damaged in the flood of Florence a while back. When they renovated the church the style did not match, so another painting was placed on top of this one with a hidden handle to pull it away and see the original underneath.

Dony pulling back the painting to reveal unexpected beauty.

Me by the S. Annunzione church and courtyard.

Anna, Joan, Sam, Peter, and Mary-Kate all listening intently to Dony's explanation of frescos.

Dony McManus, trying to evangelize through Art. Check out his website!

Beautiful courtyard in the Museo d' San Marco. I did not intend to have the camera on black and white, but it turned out nicely. (FYI, I didn't mean to have any black and white pictures, but I kept forgetting to check the setting before I snapped the picture ;-)

This is for you Amy... the figure on this fountain was the model for the flying monkeys in the Wizard of Oz.

A "Sacred Conversation" sketch by Fra Angelico.

Me in the First Public Library, designed by Michaelangelo.

Peter trying to slice a plum in the Florence Art Academy's Mensa... run by none other than our oh-so-dear Sodexo food service! (I am not joking. Someone took a picture of their logo for proof!)

Heather and Mary-Kate in the Mensa

Joan relaxing with the Italian Panda. We took an hour-long break to snooze and talk art philosophy with Dony in a park.

Helen and Sam.

Mary-Kate, Heather and Anna.

A 300-year-old bench in Fra Angelico's/ Dony's studio that I sat on...

... without realizing that this little sign meant Do Not Sit

The entrance to the LOVELY convent guesthouse we stayed in.

The bedroom I shared with Anna and Heather. There were wardrobes, four beds, a little table with four chairs, a nice bathroom with a really weird vacuum-like hair dryer, and french doors that led out to a little porch outside.

A painting of Dante by the Arno River when he first caught sight of Beatrice... as much as I love Dante, I liked Peter's explanation of the painting better... ask him sometime ;-)

The leprechaun met with some of his cousins, the Gnomes.

Heather and Peter waltzing in the garden. ;-D

No, Anna did not drink the whole thing... she did finish it off though.

Me by the Arno.... DANTE'S RIVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

According to Peter, the largest chess piece in the world.

The Ponte Vecchio at night.

A quote from Dante's Inferno inscribed on the Ponte Vecchio bridge.

The staircase in the guesthouse.

Joan at the little shrine to Our Lady out in the garden.

Buildings in the Sante Croce piazza.

Me with my larger-than-life buddy Dante.

Santa Croce, which charges you to see the tombs of famous artists and geniuses... we were cheap and didn't spend the money to go in and see a few things. A lot of stuff was being renovated so we wouldn't even have been able to see much of it anyway... someday I'm going to go back though!

Prof. Healy and Joan.

Me contemplating Santa Croce and avoiding pushy scarf vendors.

WE FOUND THE RED BOOK OF WESTMARCH!!!!!!!!

Another wedding! The groom wore a top hat and tux and the bride was wearing a scarlet gown with matching glasses. They both got pelted liberally with rice.

The Duomo

The Baptistry

San Lorenzo, right by the fun open market

Inside the Duomo... we went to Mass here, under the mantle of such Beauty. Alleluia!

The belltower.

According to Dony and everyone else in the long line, the best gelato place in Florence. Although it was DELICIOUS, I had to disagree... the strawberry gelato from the place right at the end of the Ponte Vecchio I got the night before was absolutely divine. It tasted like I had just gone out to the garden and picked a perfectly ripe berry from under the warm sun and bitten into it with some cream.... I was extolling its praises for a long time, probably to the annoyance of my companions ;-)

Gandalf directs the Nine in the ways of gelato.

Aragorn and Pippin.

The doors to the Baptistry.

A really interesting statue of Jesus and Doubting Thomas.

The Arno.

A lamppost right out of Narnia (see the clawed feet?)

An Alfa-Romeo for Pepere and the boys.

Peter, Joan and Sam on the train. Peter was sitting on top of air conditioner, which didn't exactly help keep down the heat from 8 bodies squished into the Party Car. ;-)

Heather and Sean. Sean is one of three Maltan youths we randomly met at the train station. They were traveling through Europe evangelizing and saw we had Bibles. We ended up sharing a compartment with them and a Scottish guy and talking through pretty much the entire 12-hour train ride.

Sean and Tara, Maltesians? ("What is it with you Americans and '-sian'??? We are MaltESE!)

Sam the Maltese and Peter.

Julian was in the quiet car next door.

So were Anna and Mary-Kate, along with Heather.

Sean was able to sleep a lot more than most of us... I hope his neck didn't hurt too much.

Helen and Dale the Scotsman literally spent the entire night talking in the hallway.

Anna, Peter and Julian on the bus from one train station to the next.

Joan, Tara and everyone else on the underground to Westbahnhof.

We saw Michaelangelo's David on Saturday and spent an hour contemplating and drawing it. Dony had a lot of insights into the nature of Art and Beauty and their relationship with Truth. Dony explained the difference between pornography and art that involves nudes.... as JPII said, "It is not that pornography shows too much, but that it shows too little", namely the soul. True Art shows the glory of God and beauty of Truth through the depiction of Form. My drawing was not that great (Julian's was amazing!!!), but the experience of just sitting there and -looking- in order to be able to draw anything really enabled a deeper contemplation of beauty than what I would have gotten through standing there for five minutes and snapping contraband shots of the sculpture. This made me realize that taking 600 pictures in a weekend is not necessarily a good thing if I want to actually gain a deeper understanding of the art I'm seeing. I will be a bit more frugal in my picture-taking from now on, but there will still be plenty for you to see what's going on out here. Ciao!