Hello everyone!
My name is Anna and I am going to give you a small piece of what I and my fellow students are experiencing in Florence.

Today I went to my second only Apparel Design class. To give you some background yesterday I learned to draw fashion sketches. Today my classmates and I were neck deep brainstorming. We gathered information and inspiration to create our very first fashion collection portfolio. Our teacher provided us with a group of fabric and a collection theme. We were responsible for looking at the fabric’s color and texture and, keeping our theme in mind, deciding what items we wanted to make and who we wanted to make them for. With this information we created a stunning mood board. After we made the mood board we began another section of the portfolio that we dedicated to the color and texture of the fabric we are going to be working with.

After so much brainstorming on future creations I was ready to go back in history and visit the Great Synagogue of Florence or Tempio Maggiore. The Great Synagogue was built between 1874 and 1882. To this day it is one of the largest synagogues in south central Europe. In 1848 the Jews of the Duchy of Tuscany were granted free citizenship and to symbolize their new rights and status as free citizens they wanted to build a synagogue. Unfortunately, they lacked the funds until David Levi bequeathed his estate following his death in 1870 for the purpose of building a synagogue. With his estate, the Jews were able to build Tempio Maggiore. The Great Synagogue was designed by Mariana Falcini, Professor Vincente Micheli, and Marco Treves. The architects combined Italian architectural tradition with the Moorish style to create designs on the walls floors, and ceilings. The Walls and ceilings were covered in amazing geometric patterns in red, blue and gold. The floors were also geometric in their design but were either blue and red mosaic or pink limestone combined with white travertine. Lillian and I had a great experience listening to a tour guide who was explaining about the Jews before they were granted free citizenship. According to the tour guide the Jews lived in a ghetto and were allowed only one profession. She said that, even though they were living in a virtual prison, they had to pay taxes. The tax money they paid was then used to pay the guards that patrolled the ghetto. They were paying their own jailers! Learning more about the people who would eventually build Tempio Maggiore gave me a greater understanding of the symbolism of the Great Synagogue.

This morning at breakfast I met another study abroad student from Seattle. Turns out we had both read and watched the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit series! We had a great discussion analyzing our favorite characters and why they were our favorites. Later today Kady and I browsed through several stores looking for a sweater. I was cold! Unfortunately, we did not find a sweater but we did find a store that carried some of Kady’s favorite brands. We stayed several well spent minutes looking through the clothes and shoes. We were also able to catch a glimpse of a really neat sewing room that was in the back of the store. You never know what is waiting around the next corner or, in our case, what is waiting in the next store!

Below is a picture of Tempio Maggiore: