Donatello and Peche Ripiene

by Haley Conway

(written May 29, 2018)

Hey everyone! It’s week 3 in Florence! We’ve been enjoying the past few days of warm weather after a week of clouds and rain. Overall, our IU East group has been enjoying the pasta, pizza, and gelato, but we are all craving Mexican food and burgers. When we’re not walking around Florence, visiting museums, or participating in class, we like to watch movies or just talk about our day. I’ve learned that Meagan has a beautiful voice. She sang for me one night and I can’t wait to hear her performance on Thursday! I’ve heard from Shannon that she has had a lot of success in her photography class recently and I’m so excited to see her work. Laura is in love with the color orange and whenever we see something orange, we point it out to her. Grace and I have become really good friends. We share a love for dogs, food, and exploring. This has been a great experience for me and I will always consider these lovely ladies as lifelong friends.

My health and class at FUA has been a blast. Since I’ve last blogged we went rowing, biked, visited Coverciano (training facility and headquarters for Italian’s national soccer team), and cooked some delicious Mediterranean meals. Grace and I have made some friends in our class and they are from Iowa! There is never a dull moment in that class when the Iowa boys are around.

Here are a couple pictures from Coverciano:

Here is a picture of the pesche ripiene and some of the pasta that we made:

Bargello

Today we visited the Bargello. The Bargello is a national museum and one of the oldest buildings in Florence; it dates back to 1255! The Bargello was previously a residence for the police (“bargello”, which is an Italian word, means sheriff or head of police). It was also a prison during the 18^th century. It’s crazy to think that I was standing in the middle of the courtyard where executions used to take place. Here is the picture of the beautiful courtyard:

One of my favorite sculptures in the museum was the David by Donatello. This bronze statue was one of the first nude statue since antiquity. I like to compare Donatello’s David to Michelangelo’s David. They are two very different looking statues that focus on the same subject. Here is a picture of Donatello’s David:

Another one of my favorites from the Bargello was San Giorgio, which was also sculpted by Donatello. This piece was sculpted between 1415 and 1417 and was commissioned by the Art of Armor and Sword. San Giorgio was a holy warrior and a military figure. Something I found interesting about San Giorgio was that he looks northwest, which was the direction in which there were the traditional enemies of Florence (Milan and Lucca). Here is Donatello’s glorious marble masterpiece: