Tuscany Journal: Cortona

The merlons on top of the bell tower in Cortona’s main square remind you that it was once a Ghibelline city. Remember the Guelphs sided with the Pope and the Ghibellines, the Emperor. Below these are the red standards emblazoned with the lion which is the symbol of Mark, one of the patron saints of this medieval town (the other is Saint Margherita whose Basilica rests at the top the hill overlooking the verdant Chiana valley—the once swamp lands being the breeding ground for a wonderfully flavorful form of Tuscan beef). It can be said about Cortona what some therapists often inform complicated patients, it’s got a lot going on. Just walk up the street to the Basilica of St Francis. It’s the second Franciscan chapel, following the footprint of the first designed by Brother Elia. His body along with that of Luca Signorelli is buried in the church (along with relics like the piece of wood from the True Cross). Then there are the frescoes under the walls, which were covered up at the onset of the Counter-Reformation when the church was attempting to redefine itself in the wake of Luther’s 99 Theses. “In Hoc Signo Vinces,  “in this sign thou shalt conquer,” echoing Constantine’s famous dream that brought Christianity to the Roman Empire in 330 A.D. It’s hard not to take a step in Corona without coming upon some historical legacy. During the renovation of a house in 2009, a wall built by the Etruscans in the Second Century BC evidences their architectural legacy (which included the advent of the arch) of a highly evolved civilization. As you descend Cortona you'll pass the gated Villa Laura where Under the Tuscan Sun was shot.

N.B.: read Francis Levy's short story, "Pet Buddha"in Vol. 1 Brooklyn. 

Tuscany Journal: Arezzo

"Santa Maria della Pieve" (drawing  by Hallie Cohen)

Arezzo is Piero della Francesca territory. You pass streets named after paintings like “Via Madonna del Prato.” “The Legend of the True Cross,” one of the painter’s masterpieces, graces the Basilica di San Francesco. If you walk to the park at the top of the hill on which Arezzo rests the view looks like a Piero della Francesca. Arezzo was once strong-armed by the Medicis, in particular Cosimo, which may account for an almost genetic feistiness in the character of the populace. It’s something that’s contravened by the legacy of Francis which is that of poverty, chastity and obedience. The Church of Santa Maria della Pieve, with its three-tiered columned facade includes a moving paen to the working man in its entranceway. Both impulses infuse the atmosphere. Structures like the Cattedrale dei San Pietro e Donato in which the remains of the early Christian martyr, Donatus, who was beheaded, are buried attest to a dream world in which the deeply Christian spirit of sacrifice still remains a very real part of everyday life. Yet Constantine’s dream with the famous words “in this sign thou shall conquer,” could be the credo of this city. 

N.B.: read Francis Levy's short story, "Pet Buddha"in Vol. 1 Brooklyn. 

Tuscany Journal: Il Borro

For $40,000 per week you can rent Il Borro, a villa and grounds owned by the shoe magnate Ferruccio Ferragamo. It should be mentioned that the villa fits 40 people so it’s just another one of those expensive luxury vacation spots like say St. Bart's. This one take place on storied grounds with structures dating from medieval times and once occupied by Duke Amedeo, d'Aousta (he sold it in l993). It’s just a hop skip and a jump from the Ponte Buriano, one of the famous Settiponti  (Seven Bridges) which appears in the background of “The Mona Lisa." There on a June afternoon a statue of Da Vinci sits modestly overlooking the reservoir over which the bridge runs. It’s a magical but remarkably inauspicious spot and one which it’s hard to imagine provided the setting for one of the greatest and most complexly ambivalent works in the history of painting. Freud famously opined about "The Mona Lisa" and the enigma of her smile and here you can place yourself in the shoes of the artist. "The Mona Lisa" is the apex of the Renaissance in which the full humanity and complexity of the human form evolved dramatically from the pale, flat images of medieval times. 

N.B.: read Francis Levy's short story, "Pet Buddha"in Vol. 1 Brooklyn. 

Tuscany Journal: Settiponti

 bottles of I Bonsi oilive (photograph by Hallie Cohen)

The Settiponti is the main drag running through the Arezzo region of Tuscany that lies just over the hill from Florence. The name means seven bridges which may refer to the old Via Claudia which led from Florence to Rome, though the number remains a mystery considering the real number that actually exist. You pass through hilltop towns with names like Regello and Loro Cuifenna (where you can visit a museum devoted to a local painter and sculptor, Venturino Venturi). There’s even a place called the Settiponti which advertises itself as an American Bar right down the road form the Villa Cassia di Baccano in Guistinio Valdarno. By the way, this area of Tuscany can be accessed by taking a 30 minute train ride on the Rome train to S. Giovanni di Valdarno. Your modestly priced 5.7 Euro ticket will take you a long way into a universe of luscious sleepy towns which still produce olive oil through centuries old pressing processes that avoid the use of chemicals. Commodification, division of labor and economy of scale are another language when you visit the Fattoria I Bonsi, an establishment whose product sets the standard for what real extra virgin olive oil should be (acidity O.8 by the way). The landscape surrounding the ancient castle where the olives are harvested can reputedly be seen in the background of the 15^thcentury master Fra Filippo Lippi who hailed from nearby Florence.

N.B.: read Francis Levy's short story, "Pet Buddha"in Vol. 1 Brooklyn. 

Tuscany Journal: Exit Morandi

"Natura Morta," 1954 (photograph by Hallie Cohen)

“Exit Morandi” is the eulogy that the art historian, Roberto Longhi, gave for Georgio Morandi when he died in l964. It’s also the title of the show at the Museo Novecento in Florence. Morandi was a super classicist, famous for what the curators describe as his “still, silent” compositions and the emphasis on “form, color and light.” Paintings of bottles which might make you exclaim “what else is there” are one of the things he’s known for. Many of his paintings include "Natura Morta" in the title and to say that still life was his medium is an understatement. It was his message too. This contravention of the expectation for a certain level of complexity is one of the most transgressive aspects of Morandi’s endeavor. He sticks to his minimalist guns. But there's also an evanescence to the work that almost makes the objects recede from you as you gaze into them. It’s a little like Plato’s “allegory of the cave," in which the world of appearances are just shadows of ideal forms. Here is Morandi himself: “I believe that nothing can be more abstract, more surreal, than what we actually see. We know that all we can see of the objective world, as human beings, never really exists as we see and understand it.”

N.B.: read Francis Levy's short story, "Pet Buddha"in Vol. 1 Brooklyn. 

Tuscany Journal: Florence on $5 a Day

La bistecca alla fiorentina, 55 Euros per KG (photograph by Hallie Cohen)

When you think of Florence, you may recall barely being able to notice Michelangelo’s “David”due to the crowds swarming around it like gawkers at an accident. The Uffizi, the Duomo (designed by Brunellesci), Berenson’s I Tatti in Fiesole and the Pitti Palace are all the Florence of the official imagination. Florence is also famous for its Fiorentine steaks and for Ribolitta or bread soup. But what is it like to live a city that's the Fort Knox of artistic masterpieces? And what about the flood in '66 and the army of art restorers who constituted a virtual crusade? But there’s also another story and that lies in the evolution of tourism to this famous mecca in which every summer in particular the city is flooded with seekers, after what? A destination, beauty? Sometimes it’s just a party in one of the small locandas, situated on one of the winding cobblestoned streets down from one of the many landmarks. Package tours to Florence merit the same kind of scholarship allotted to the studios of the masters. Remember Arthur Frommer and books like Italy on $5 a day and Let's Go? And lurking behind the whole panorama of a modern Italian city is the history of the great families who were the patrons of artistic production. Back in the l9th century another tourist the Swiss art historian Jacob Burkhardt wrote The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy which is required reading for anyone journeying to the capital of Italy’s Tuscany region. Like Amsterdam and Venice, Florence’s importance as a center of commerce set the stage for the emergence of great painters and sculptors who, if nothing else, found many of their subjects amongst a growing merchant class. 

Amsterdam Journal: Mozes en Aaronkerk

watercolor by Hallie Cohen

Mozes en Aaronkerk is the name of a Roman Catholic Church in Amsterdam (in addition, there's a Mozes en Aaronstraat). It could also be the title of one of Rembrandt's biblical drawings. However ever since 1578 when the formerly Catholic Habsburg Netherlands followed William of Orange and rebelled against Phillip II of Spain, Amsterdam has been not only Protestant but religiously tolerant. Amsterdam is Reformation territory. Everything is clean, unembellished and unpardonable. Despite the ubiquitous sex shops the city is upright and profoundly moral in its sensibility. The morality just happens to be insistently liberal and mercantile. These are just a few of the contrarieties evinced in the permanent exhibition about the history of this ever-changing metropolis (whose name describes its inception—the damming of the Amstel River) at the Amsterdam Museum. After all despite their democratic attitudes at home, the Dutch were harsh colonizers.  The smell of pot is everywhere and may explain the crowds in the streets at night eating French fries and slices of New York style pizza at an establishment of the same name. Scoliotic 17th and 18th century townhouses line ancient canals and there’s a guttural sound to the language. The mixture is an unlikely but enduring recipe for beauty.