A trip in Italy, Sept.–Oct. 2021
[While I upload photos from 2020, I am also trying to keep up with some of my more current works by uploading a couple of photographs every day, in the afternoon or evening.]
In September and October 2021, we spent three weeks touring the Italian regions of Abruzzo, Umbria, Marches and Emilia-Romagna, which we hadn’t visited yet.
Personally, I had my sights firmly set on a series of early Romanesque churches of high architectural and artistic interest, so you will see quite a few of those, in spite of the typical Italian administration-related problems I encountered, and which were both stupid and quite unpleasant.
There will also be other sorts of old stones, landscapes, etc., and I hope you will enjoy looking at them and have a good time doing so. If it makes you want to go, do, by all means, Italy is a wonderful country.
Today, I begin a new series on the church of Santa Pudenziana, near the town of Narni in the province of Umbria.
This is a very old church, a pre-Romanesque one from, I think, the 900 at least. Roman columns have been reused in the nave and pronaos, the way the arches are supported is typical of the archaic period, even though some elements are from the 11th and 12th centuries.
It also features a very nice bell tower, the base of which is dated from the 600s or 700s.
It is said that the church was originally part of a Benedictine priory.
It is absolutely lovely, restored and managed by a group of devoted volunteers worlds away from the persnickety and obnoxious bureaucrats that make up most of the Italian administration of beni culturali (Historic Landmarks).
A strange, labyrinthine motif on the pavement of the nave... The volunteer that was with me during this visit couldn’t explain why it is there.
Labyrinths were christianized from paganism, like many other symbols and myths, but they did not really appear in churches as floor motifs until the late 1100s, and usually only in large churches such as cathedrals, as they needed a lot of space to be laid out properly. The labyrinth in the Reims Cathedral was even used as the source of inspiration for the official logo of the French Historic Landmarks.
This one, which is much simpler, is also much older, and a very rare and noteworthy occurrence.
A trip in Italy, Sept.–Oct. 2021
[While I upload photos from 2020, I am also trying to keep up with some of my more current works by uploading a couple of photographs every day, in the afternoon or evening.]
In September and October 2021, we spent three weeks touring the Italian regions of Abruzzo, Umbria, Marches and Emilia-Romagna, which we hadn’t visited yet.
Personally, I had my sights firmly set on a series of early Romanesque churches of high architectural and artistic interest, so you will see quite a few of those, in spite of the typical Italian administration-related problems I encountered, and which were both stupid and quite unpleasant.
There will also be other sorts of old stones, landscapes, etc., and I hope you will enjoy looking at them and have a good time doing so. If it makes you want to go, do, by all means, Italy is a wonderful country.
Today, I begin a new series on the church of Santa Pudenziana, near the town of Narni in the province of Umbria.
This is a very old church, a pre-Romanesque one from, I think, the 900 at least. Roman columns have been reused in the nave and pronaos, the way the arches are supported is typical of the archaic period, even though some elements are from the 11th and 12th centuries.
It also features a very nice bell tower, the base of which is dated from the 600s or 700s.
It is said that the church was originally part of a Benedictine priory.
It is absolutely lovely, restored and managed by a group of devoted volunteers worlds away from the persnickety and obnoxious bureaucrats that make up most of the Italian administration of beni culturali (Historic Landmarks).
A strange, labyrinthine motif on the pavement of the nave... The volunteer that was with me during this visit couldn’t explain why it is there.
Labyrinths were christianized from paganism, like many other symbols and myths, but they did not really appear in churches as floor motifs until the late 1100s, and usually only in large churches such as cathedrals, as they needed a lot of space to be laid out properly. The labyrinth in the Reims Cathedral was even used as the source of inspiration for the official logo of the French Historic Landmarks.
This one, which is much simpler, is also much older, and a very rare and noteworthy occurrence.