Saluti a Tutti,
We have been here eight days now. Living here is so different than visiting. In eight days most of us would have done the round of magnificent sights while recovering from jet lag, eaten many meals in restaurants, and collapsed into bed nightly of sheer exhaustion. While we have seen a couple of wonderful places, mostly we have been getting settled, figuring out which stall in the Mercato Centrale has the best tomatoes, and trying to understand the geography of the streets. The tomatoes, oh, oh, oh, the tomatohs Our apartment is spacious and if it were any more centrally located we would have to celebrate mass in the living room. Susan’s piano was delivered yesterday, as you will see below. A scene reminiscent of Bernardo Bertolucci’s film, The Piano. Four men massaged it up the ring of stairs. I am quite sure they were grateful we don’t live on il quarto piano. Carry My Own Suitcase, the two-act opera she is writing with Roberta Gumbel is going very well.
The first photograph herewith is the view from my classroom, overlooking San Lorenzo. This is three blocks from the apartment. The atelier is on the top floor of a fifteenth century house. The ceilings throughout are painted in gorgeous patterns. They bothered with the ceilings even on the top floor. I have just four students so we accomplish a lot in the studio then have time to get out.
Yesterday, for instance, I took them to the Brancacci Chapel, which many of you may have seen. But none of us has seen it this way in the last sixty years because that was the last time there was restoration scaffolding in place. As you can tell by the photograph, one can now get eye level with the astonishing frescos. I was even able to capture an adorable monkey climbing along the window sill of the fifteenth century Florentine piazza. The intimacy one gets with this humanist masterpiece is truly breathtaking.
We are also three blocks, in a different direction, from Brunelleschi’s exquisite Spedale degli Innocenti. Since we were last here (15 years ago?) they have renovated the top floor and put a bar up there. A photo of its view is enclosed. We did sit there one evening and watch the sun set behind the Duomo.
Susan has joined the gym a few blocks away. And while her Italian has been serving us exceptionally well, it slipped momentarily when she walked into the gym to sign up for three months and somehow managed to ask for strawberries instead. The gym manager was most amused and graciously asked in perfect English “How many strawberries would you like?”
From the top floor of the Spedale degli Innocenti by Brunelleschi.
Arrivaderci
Warren e Susan
