JAFMHT- Just Another Medieval Hill Town

I like things to be on a human scale. When I enter a magnificent church, I am not reminded of the glory of God (well I wouldn't be would I?), and of the insignificence of human life. Quite the opposite: I marvel at human endeavour and ingenuity throughout the ages. Why do people ask "Is this all there is?" What more do they want? The amazingly rich variety of human life and culture over the millennia since we started to think and talk, plus the wonders of the rest of the universe, should be enough for anyone methinks.

So what is this all about? I am trying to analyse why I hated the Sistine Chapel (artistic as well as religious blasphemy I fear), St Peter's Basilica, and the vast and vulgar piazza outside it, where a funny little man comes out every so often and thousands of people fall to their knees in awe. And on the other hand, why did I love the original Benedictine monastery at Subiaco, and all these charming little hill towns we have been visiting?

It's partly to do with scale- it's a lot easier to appreciate something that is your sort of size, but it is also to do with intent. I believe that much of Renaissance architecture and art was intended and designed to aggrandise both the rich and powerful and the Church which in turn bolstered and legitimised their power. At the same time it is meant to make ordinary people feel little and insignificant.

Anyway, be that as it may, here are some pics of some of the lovely little towns we have encountered in our travels, so many and so picturesque that they tend to merg in the mind, hence the title of this blog.
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Better than the Sistine Chapel- reflections on Italy

We visited the Vatican- St Peter's and the Sistine Chapel etc- the first time for me. I was impressed, but not, I suspect in the way I was meant to be. It was impressively big, overpoweringly powerful and ultimately ugly. Designed I think to make the viewer (worshipper) feel small and worthless. I have no doubt that Michelangelo's paintings are extremely wonderful works of art, but they were so far away that they were difficult to see. Add to the distance the fact that you need to dislocate your neck to see them at all and the result is somewhat over-awing. Bossy papal officials shushing everybody didn't help me to feel respectful! What I did get a sense of, was the technical difficulties and skill of painting at such a height and flat on one's back- and all into wet plaster in a limited amount of time. I now want to find more about it. (Sarah Dunant's The Birth of Venus is an interesting take on the subject which I will now re-read.)

However, the Monastery of Saint Benedict at Subiaco was altogether different. It was quite simply the most beautiful and interesting church I have ever seen.







Clinging to the hillside like the swallow's nest that an early visiting pope called it, the building is difficult to fix in your mind. You enter by a corridor which skirts the side of the mountain and overhangs a small rose garden which sticks out from one of the caves. Staircases wind up and down, and chamber clings to chamber like an accretion of limpets on the side of a boat. Rock and building often merge, and frescos of great humanity and narrative power cover every surface.