Virtue and Vice and Everything Nice

A Mosaic from the Baptistry at the Florence Duomo

This week has been a busy one so far; the Gruppo Dante has arrived back from Rome, held a double-header class (six hour day of study), returned to Florence for another day trip, and visited the museo at the Duomo in Siena, then held a few more days of class.  (Tomorrow, we are off to Orvieto!)

We began Purgatorio on Monday, and while I've never read the poem before, it all seems quite familiar-- mostly because of the many Biblical allusions.  Unlike the Inferno, which is almost an equal combination of Biblical and Classical references, Purgatorio is primarily Christian (oh, and lots of historical allusions).  Today, I read a few cantos dealing with the idea of vice vs. sin.  It made me wonder if there was a difference, and of course Virgil had an opinion.  Vice, he explains to Dante, is the natural inclination to be selfish and to have the urge to commit a sin; whereas, sin is when you actually commit the transgression.  I find this concept alluring...so I can think about sinning all of the time as long as I never do it?  Hmmmm.  :)

Along with these ideas, we've also discussed virtue at length.  So, virtue and vice... the first name to pop into my head? Florence.  We visited there Tuesday; it was around 100 degrees, full sun, and not an air conditioner in sight.  No amount of fanning myself with the paper distributed by the church (thank you, little lady with the pamphlets) helped.  While I'm giving thanks, I should also give a shout out to two gelato places and a bar that had frozen arancia (orange) bars. I probably ate ten euros worth of frozen treats.

Virtues of Florence:

1. It's Dante's home town (even if they did exile him and almost ruin his life).  They have so many streets named for his work, and I ate at a pizza place called La Divina Commedia yesterday.  The food was named for characters and places in the poem.

Oh, yeah, we working working off our sins of eating too much

I kept looking for Virgil, but no luck!

I kept looking for Virgil, but no luck!

There are many plaques throughout the city with passages from The Commedia!

2. The beautiful Basilica di Santa Maria Novella is located in Florence!  Much like the Duomo in Siena, Santa Maria has the dark green and white marble stripes and patterns.  It's gorgeous.

Outside of the church, these poor turtles are forced to hold the weight of the pillars. :(

 

3. There is a very romantic atmosphere in Florence!  At the bridge, lovers place a lock on the chains to symbolize their eternal love.  There are thousands of these locks.

 4. The Florence Duomo's baptistry-- this small space houses some of the most intriguing mosaics I've seen yet.   Notice the "rows" of the pattern in the ceiling? Each one tells a specific story from the Bible.  The first row illustrates the orders of the angels. The second row: Genesis. The third row: Christ's life. The fourth row: the life of John the Baptist.

More mosaics from the ceiling:

Christ

I am sure that there are more virtues of Florence... maybe I'll add a few more next week. :) And in the spirit of ONLY enjoying this trip, I've decided to NOT list its vices, though I assure you there are quite a few. :)