Monday 28th
May
In 2017 I spent a week in Bologna and was
inspired to make a new page on
Churches of Venice dealing with this city's
churches. But it was just a start, and another week was essential to get
it presentable. I know - the sacrifices I make! A 14.45 flight meant I
wouldn't be heading to Heathrow at the crack of dawn, and it being a Bank
Holiday led me to hope for an easy journey too.
And indeed the tube journey
involved only the shortest of waits, and there were no queues at all for
the (automated) bag drop, security or at Pret for a brie and tomato
baguette and a mango smoothie. Perfetto! I had the excitement of
sitting in the exit row, too, and being asked at the desk if I was OK with
that, but then we sat waiting for 50 minutes for a slot.
Refinding the stop for
the Aerobus into town (just past the central escalators) and the ticket
machines (back inside the terminal) was no trouble. Last year I wondered
if I'd missed a stop near the Piazza Maggiore as we'd ended up at the
railway station, but it turns out there isn't one, and the route map that
I'd found then was a tissue of lies. So after the trudge into the
centro
I checked into the old Commercianti (just before 8.00) then headed out for
some pesto, green bean and potato pasta from Adesso nearby, followed by a
stracciatella and ginger/cinnamon gelato from San Crispino whilst
strolling.
Tuesday 29th May
The Commercianti's pastry selection
was well up to spoilt-for-choice scratch this morning. The cherry tart
slice had to lose its place (in my belly) to the apple and cinnamon slice.
And then it was down to church business.
San Giovanni Battista is very near the hotel and
was really just a small baroque warm up. San Procolo is more monumental
and plain, but still a bit unexciting. Corpus Domini has the mummy of a
locally venerated Saint called Catherine sitting in a glass case in a
small chapel which you have to be buzzed into - it's full of gilding,
relics and chubby putti, and is all very Catholic (see right).
Over the ring road where
the town walls used to be, SS Annunziata was another bare one, with fresco
lunettes in the outside arcade by G. Lippi and P.
Carracci.
San Michele in Bosco involves a trek uphill, but is worth it for the view
and a much more interesting and likeable church, with a very raised
presbytery, a variety of frescoes of many ages and degrees of damage, and
a highlight brightly-frescoed sacristy (see right) that is worth the trudge uphill in itself.
Then the bells started chiming for 12.00 and the lights in the chapels
went out.
I
walked back downhill a different way, and passing the unvisited Santa
Maria della Misericordia found it still open! It has no great art but I
liked the fresco-decorated arches and ribs. And the Lippo di Dalmasio
Madonna and Child
in a box. Back to the hotel via three more firmly closed churches, and
into shops for a mozzarella and tomato panino, a packet of lime and pepper
crisps, and some decidedly artisanal fresh-baked biscuits.
After the doze, more
churches. A revisit to SS Vitale e Agricola, but I didn't have a €1 piece
for the crypt light, and the approachable chap attending in the sacristy
didn't have change. Santa Maria della Pietà next, where three women seemed
to be doing their own service in the nave, and the man in the dog collar
did not seem happy. Santa Caterina di Strada Maggiore to finish, where the
atmosphere (and interior) was lighter and the Lavinia Fontana altarpiece
impressive. It was raining heavily when I left, but the plenteous arcades
lessened the problem. Things got torrential however, and even picking my
route I was more than damp by the time I got back to the hotel, even with
some drying bookshop lingering.
I went out again swiftly, as the rain had
stopped, and found that one of the restaurants we liked last time closes
on Tuesday and that the McDonald's here doesn't do the veggie burger. I
ended up in Nichola's Pizzeria in Piazza San Martino, which may have been
recommended to me for last year's trip, and if not it should have been! An
excellent cipolla
pizza was had, with fresh mozzarella, and a bottle of Franziskaner
weissbier. I tried the other gelateria by the towers, Gianni's, but their
limone and coco was not special.
Wednesday 30th May
Cities have their prime
periods, do they not, and the standard of the art in those times tends to
rise to reflect. So...Bellini, Giorgione & Titian in Venice... For Bologna
it's the 17th century, the baroque and the Carracci, and it's a rare
church here that wasn't built, or at least rebuilt or remodelled in that
period. As a man with little love for the baroque, although at least the
Carracci are famous for shunning Mannerism, I therefore needed a visit to
the medieval museum after just one day, slipping into Santi Gregorio e
Siro on the way to kill time. I also found the ex-church of San Giorgio in
Poggiale, now a library (see right), open and welcoming and scrubbed looking, and with
some surprisingly lovable big modern paintings of an architectural nature.
The medieval museum is a bit of a confusing mix
of buildings and floors, but has some nice tombs, taken from the
aforementioned remodelled churches, ivories, Murano glass, and illuminated
choir books. Also (yawn) rooms of armour, but no panel paintings or fresco
bits, which was disappointing. Then to San Colombano, a collection of
three church spaces, with some lovely frescoed walls, but full of
historical musical instruments. The frescoes are a treat, though, even to
the constant tedious background clank of harpsichord tuning. An
information-top-up visit to Santa Maria di Galliera, which at least has
some good baroque stuff. For lunch I found a supermarket tofu and olive
tremezzini vegetali
- a bit worthy (and vegan even) even for me, but
q. tasty.
After
the doze I headed east for an early-evening run to tick off some closed
and other-use churches, including the enormous and ramshackle SM del
Baraccano. On a whim I ventured beyond the walls to check out a church
dedicated to Saint Anthony of Padua. It looked plain and 20th century on
the outside but I thought I'd look inside anyway and - blimey! If you can
imagine that Pugin wasn't just high church but a fervent Catholic, and a
bit bonkers with it. To calm my nerves I picked up some chocolate from
Lindt on the way back - a bar each of dark choc almond and orange and
almond and lemon, and both on special-offer even!
To the old fave restaurant that was closed last
night, the Inrocio Montegrappa, for a margherita pizza, with onion, and
then to the fave gelateria for an apricot sorbet and honey coppa.
Thursday 31st May
I suppose it's logical that after visiting the
best churches on previous visits a trip to see the rest is going to tend
towards the second rate and a bit of baroque weariness, shall we say. I'm
hoping that the phenomenon of San Michele in Bosco, which I'd not been to
before, as it's a way out and uphill, and which has been the
highlight so far, might repeat as I trek out (and up) to San Luca today.
But that somewhat
grumpy intro to the day was revealed as just that by two churches visited
on the way. The Madonna dei Poveri was just a cross on my map, but turned
out to be baroque, but sweet with it - small and odd and nicely not too
gilt. There's a mini 16th-century
Madonna and Child by Passarotti,
peering through a window in a flat box over the altar, which seems to be a
Bologna thing. The middle chapel on the right had a likeable
Madonna and Child with Saints John the Baptist
and the Evangelist by Massari and
the first right even has a 14th-century detached fresco fragment of the
Madonna and Child.
See what I mean? Sant'Isaia was a last minute discovery in my pre-trip
preparations, but it's hard to miss. Much bigger, six bays long, with
chunky pale rectangular pillars with buff-colour marble bases on streaky
monochrome marble plinths. All very tasteful with just a little, and quite
dull, gilding. A soft baroque
Annunciation panel in the second
right chapel was worth a linger. And I liked the bright and unusual
stained glass narrative scenes in lunettes either side of the apse,
depicting The Pieta
and The Last Supper.
The trudge up the famous arcade with 666
arches was too long and stairfull and steep to be fun and I finally
arrived at the Sanctuary of San Luca a mass of perspiration. And it's
basic baroqueness makes the church really not worth such effort. Even the
miraculous Byzantine
Madonna and
Child icon is kept behind glass and
with a considerable revetment covering all but the faces. It's kept in a
raised and gold-cherub infested chapel up behind the altar. The walk back
down was almost a relief after the up. Less people, more birdsong and
butterflies, and even a couple of small lizards (we don't get them at
home). I picked up a sizeable mozzarella tomato and rocket panino on the
way back, and some almond baklava.
Before exploring new-church leads in a westerly
direction I went into SS Salvatore, a fave which looms in a Palladian way,
and has a quirky mixture of art from a good range of periods, and even
some oddities. Also the tomb slab of Guercino in the centre of the nave.
As for the following findings: San Nicolò di San Felice looks a ruin;
Santa Maria di Grada seems to have history, and a canal running under it,
with a gate (grada) to prevent entry by
indesiderabili;
and the oratory of San Rocco (another nameless blue cross on my map),
looks to have a sequence on the life of the Saint on the first floor by
Guercino and others.
Back to the
fave old restaurant of last night, for the gnocchi in a parmesan cream and
balsamic sauce, with a side salad and an adjacent Japanese couple, with a
small daughter who had yet to take any lessons in sitting down, it seems.
Gelato was a vanilla and mango from
Venchi, and a wander.
Friday 1st June
Some Pinacoteca air-conditioned cool and calmness today, I am
thinking. Into San Bartolomeo on the way, my prior doubts about it ever opening
being down to its entrance being at the South (ecclesiastical West) end. I
accidentally found San Sigismondo too, near the University, which it
serves, and visited just long enough to be creeped out by the waxwork saint
in a glass case.
This Pinacoteca visit saw me reawaken my devotion to the Pseudo Jacopino
(whoever he was), love some panels of the life of St Anthony by Vitale da
Bologna (see detail right, the Madonna and Child with Donor
is by Simone dei Crocefissi), come to like Francia as a bit of a Bolognese Bellini, and realise
that not all parties of small children are noisy, but some gallery
attendant's phones flipping are. Also the Guido Reni
Pieta is
just so darn big! The Carracci are admirable for failing to embrace
Mannerism, Annibale especially looking more like Andrea del Sarto, but are
not yet loveable, for me. Santa Maria Maddelena, the church opposite the
Pinacoteca, was open, so got dutifully done. I got another packet of those
supermarket tofu and olive sarnies for lunch and some
sultama
(sultana and raisin) biscuits.
Later in the afternoon I headed for the
neglected north. But first to Santa Maria della Vita, famous for the
screaming terracotta figure group of The Lamentation
over the Dead Christ by Niccolò
dell’Arca. It's in a chapel to the right of the high altar and you now
have to pay at a tubular cash desk to see it, cunningly now hidden by a
screen. A doorway out of the left side of the church leads to stairs up to
an oratory (You need to buy a joint ticket in the church.) In here is
another group of terracotta statues - fifteen of them, over-life-size -
the work of Alfonso Lombardi, depicting the apocryphal episode of
The Funeral of the Virgin,
at which a Jewish high priest attempted to overturn the bier but was
thrown to the ground by an angel. The oratory/sanctuary used to have rows
of seating facing the tableaux, but now has tall exhibition boards
(telling of the city's water works) around the walls, which tends to
difuse the focus more than a little. Two more ticks off of my list -
Santa Maria della Mascarella and Santa Maria del Soccorso - both turned
out to be uninterestingly modern and clean and white inside. San Benedetto
looked more promising and grubby, but I'd only just sat down when I got
chucked out, as it closes as 6.00. The Piazza dell' Otto Agosto, in front
of the park that always seems full of loudly lounging African men, was
full and overflowing with a cheapo clothing market. It also has a clean
and modern McDonald's which still didn't do veggie burgers, but had a good
unthreatening atmosphere and a very swift way with a Filet-o-Fish McMenu.
One of my tasks for the trip was to see if a big book called
Le Chiese di Bologna
was comprehensive and worth the 40-odd quid it would cost getting it via
Amazon.it, or whatever I could get it for here. Well, I finally found it
today in Feltrinelli. In fact they had two copies, one priced at €29.99
and the other €49.99. Guess which one I bought! And it even has some text
in English. The celebration coppa was ginger/cinnamon and lemon sorbet,
consumed on a chair outside the Gelateria di San Crispino watching the
crowds pass and circle the towers. And all of this before 7.00!
Saturday 2nd June
Today's plan was to fit visits
around the special Saturday morning opening of special chapels in
San Giacomo Maggiore and Santa Maria dei Servi
by the Touring Club
of Italy. But an unusually open
door to the baptistery of San Bartolomeo turned out to signal that there
are now four specially-opened
chapels
on Saturdays.
But before I got there I had a quick visit into San Petronio to pay to sit
in the Bolognini chapel and confirm a theory. I had been told that the
massive Last Judgement
hell fresco in there features a figure of Mohammed being devoured by a
devil, and the fact that Muslims might be upset by this is why there has
been a constant armed presence on the doors to the church these past few
years. And it's true! And was even mentioned by a private guide while I
was in there.
Anyway...the specially opened chapels - the San Bartolomeo
baptistery is just OK, but the other new one, the Sacristy of San Martino,
is prettier and includes a sweet cloister, and had a very helpful
attendant who proved that the shared language of art appreciation trumps
other language barriers. I had a good explore and page-revision session in
the rest of San Martino too, and a longer time spent definitely raised it
in the favourite stakes. The Bentivoglio chapel in San Giacomo Maggiore
was the only one of the four specials previously experienced, and it was
again. The chapel with the Cimabue in Santa Maria dei Servi being open
means much closer access, much better lighting and so much better
appreciation. Having finished with the specials, with spirits high, and
the streets having quite a bit of that deserted weekend city thing about
them, I decided to trek out to Santa Maria del Baraccano, as it was
supposed to be open Saturdays from 11.00 to 1.00. Cruelly disappointed, I
made my way back to the centre and decided to treat myself to Santo
Stefano. I fully 'did' it last time, but did some handy error-correction
and information-adding this time. And I do love the place (see
fresco right, which is in the
museum). A hot
mozzarella, tomato and rocket foldy thing was bought and scoffed on the
hoof.
San Paolo Maggiore was my evening destination,
with some wandering back through the exhausting holiday (Republic Day)
passeggiata.
Back to the Montegrappa for a Saracena pizza, because there isn't enough
mozzarella and tomato in my life.
Sunday 3rd June
For today a list of last-minute list-tickings
clustered in a westerly direction has been prepared, ending up at the
Certosa cemetery, maybe. Santi Gregorio e Siro I had a writing wander in,
before a service started. Santa Maria della Pioggia, Santi Filippo and
Giacomo, and Santa Maria della Carita all had well-attended services on.
Santa Maria della
Visitazione al Ponte della Lame
looked as
closed as ever and Santa Maria del Buon Pastore seems to now be a smart
art and partying venue called SYMPO - it's even too smart to bother with
lower-case letters, and is very near to MAMBO.
So a lack of lingering left
enough time to trek hotly out to the Certosa cemetery and have my socks
knocked off. The old (19th century) parts are all big cloisters surrounded
by huge looming halls the size of churches full of wall tombs, floor
tombs, monumental tombs, dead flowers, crumbling plaster, dust and
cobwebs. And all cool, quiet and empty, with only the sound of bird song
and crisp dry leaves underfoot. I loved it. As did Dickens, who also visited
on a Sunday morning, as quoted from
Travels in Italy on a plaque in the
entrance cloister. Then the hot trudge back, finding an excellent brown
seedy bread mozza/tom baguette source near my hotel, as you do on your
last day.
Monday 4th June
My regular morning routine - wake
up before the alarm to other people's water works, doubt I'll get back to
sleep, wake again when the alarm goes off, open window and lie there
listening to the swifts swooping and squeaking for a bit, cleanse body,
get dressed, fill belly with breakfast - went off as well as usual, with
some added packing. I then checked out, walked to the railway station,
queued at the only airport bus ticket machine, waited, felt hot, caught
said bus...well, all went pretty eventlessly. But why do people start
queuing at the boarding gate so early, why do they make screaming babies
and take them on aeroplanes and am I ever going to be on a BA flight that
isn't delayed by 45 minutes? This time it was a non-closing baggage door,
and waiting for an engineer to come and fix it.
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