Brian Visits

Our son Brian was already in Florence when we returned from Ireland, and we met him in the train station and had a nice dinner in town. After a few low-key days locally, we set out on a wine tasting and dining day trip to two of our favorite spots in Tuscany. The first stop was Radda in Chianti and the Castello di Radda winery.

Our good friend, fellow photographer, and budding travel writer Sandy Swanton accompanied us.

After sampling wines and topping up our supply, we had lunch in Radda at our favorite little osteria, La Bottega di Giovannino, where our friendly waitress Monica always remembers us.

Leaving Radda and these funky twin lion gargoyles, we headed for Cortona. We chronicled our first visit to Cortona in our post of 5 July, and our primary idea was to end up our day trip with dinner from Ristorante Nessun Dorma's eclectic menu. Now well into the warm summer, our dinner was delightful out on the patio. Before dinner, we had visited again the church of Santa Margherita (where I realized this time that Santa Margherita's remains were in a glass sarcophagus in the nave of the alter) and the Fortezza di Girifalco.

Church of Santa Margherita viewed from Fortezza di Girifalco

On Brian's last full day with us, we went into Florence with tickets to see the Medici Chapel. Whole history books are written about the Medicis, whose influence spanned the 14th to 18th centuries.  The chapel is testimony to both their power and their patronage of the arts.  The first room is a museum of small artifacts such as this reliquary:

I for one was unfamiliar with the concept of reliquaries before my first trip to Italy nine years ago, but they are quite common in churches all over the country. They typically encase in glass a "relic" of a saint, pope, or other notable. Santa Margherita's sarcophagus in Cortona is an extreme example. We did not do a good job of noting descriptions to go with photos, so I don't know whose relic is in this one, but given the size, I would guess it is a finger bone.

The chapel itself is dramatic in its use of a wide variety of colors of marble and stone, and usually for the statuary in wall alcoves. Unfortunately for our timing, most of the statuary was under renovation and removed, and there was a lot of scaffolding up.

And of course there was the art that the Medicis so vigorously supported.

Next to the main chapel is the Sagrestia Nuova, which despite its name predates the main chapel. The Nuova was designed by Michelangelo and contains much statuary by his hand.  The centerpiece is Michelangelo's tomb for Lorenzo the Magnificent.

I have always wondered if historically famous persons always had grandiose titles such as "the Magnificent", but one needs to look no further than Lorenzo's firstborn son, Piero, to refute the idea:  he was totally incompetent and became known as "Piero the Unfortunate." But another of Lorenzo's sons, Giuliano, Duke of Nemours, fared better and has an equally impressive tomb on an adjacent wall. It was Giuliano that held our fascination and led to our plan to see the Medici Chapel with Brian because, when we visited nine years ago, we were amazed by the resemblance between Giuliano and Brian. We have been planning this moment for nine years!  What do you think?

Brian is our last visitor, and il nostro anno Italiano will be over in two weeks. We still have one adventure planned here, and we are sure we will return again, if only for short visits. Brian will return someday also, as ensured by rubbing the nose of the bronze cinghale.