Abbey Mirasole,within walking distance of where we live in Opera, about 7 miles from downtown Milano. This church was built before 1,000 AD, and the abbey a few centuries after that. It (the abbey) had a moat around it for centuries. The Umiliati, who were associated with the Waldesians, who Lorenzo Snow came to Italy to teach (after they were baptized then went to America, for example, the Cardon family from Mesa were included, and there are a lot of them in Idaho), were associated with the Umiliati for a while, then the pope excommunicated them in about the 1400s and gave their property to another order.
Inside the abbey one finds the old church, where we are going to take the senior missionaries when they come to the mission office in Opera for conference, the day before Elder (Apostle) Christoffersn comes to see us on March 7. We want our seniors to sing hymns together in this old church because the acoustics are so amazing, although it does not have an organ. I am going out this week to check with the monks to see if we can arrange for this to happen. They encourage pilgrims, people who come to worship.
Entrance to the rich man's house, in the courtyard off the road, which is now a museum. It cost 7 euro and took a couple of hours to see, but we walked fast. I took hundreds of pix, but am only posting a few. You were not supposed to use flash, although occasionally I did when I had to because it was fairly dark in side.
From his collection of suits of armor, etc.
A painting, from the 1400s of Jesus after scourging.
I couldn't use flash in this museum and I shook the camera a little when I took this altarpiece (sits on the altar). What is interesting are the paintings on the back of this work of art, definitely to scare those who want to bother it.
Italian painters loved to paint pictures of the Madonna holding the baby Jesus. He was always shown naked, but here he is with his little cousin John (the baptist), and the artist put a very thin cloth around his midsection to make him somewhat modest, although it still shows everything. I guess they could weave really thin cloth in the 1500s.
A casket (sarcoughagus or how ever it is spelled) into which the body would be placed and it would be placed in a church.
That museum had this original painting of Martin Luther, which I have seen before. The rich guy who collected this stuff was apparently sympathetic to Protestants.
This is an original by Michaelangelo, He apparently painted several similar to this. The most famous is in the Louve in Paris, and has St Anne (John the Baptist's mother) standing behind Mary. The city in the background is a real city somewhere, I can't remember.
Near the museum is this street, typical of Italian side streets in the city. It is a one way street (you can never drive around the block in Italy) and there is a no parking, your car will be towed away sign, with graffiti (which is everywhere) but people still park illegally, and if the car does not fit, e.g., the truck, they just park it on the sidewalk. Sometimes they double park on the sidewalk and road. There are way too many cars in Italy and no place to park them, even when we go to church. (Churches do not have parking lots.) That is why we take the metro (subway) to Milano and not drive our car. There is a parking garage at the subway station, it cost 2 euros to park all day.
Within walking distance of the museum is another old church. There are at least a dozen famous and old churches like this within a half mile of the duomo in downtown Milano. Of course, I was interested in the organs, but all of the churches have beautiful old art and statues, and they have signs that tell what it is, who painted it, etc. Churches are generally free to enter. However, the very famous and very large duomo has two lines (yes you have to stand in line to go inside churches). If are going in to pray, it is free, but if you are a tourist and just want to see the place and maybe take pictures (there are lots of guards to watch what you are doing, no touching, no flash), it cost 6 euros, which is about $7 to go in a church.
This old organ (built in the 1600s), is typical of Italian organs. About a half block away there was another old church, even older than this, in which the organ was destroyed during the war, so a few years ago they had a brand new pipe organ installed. It looks like those typical of German organs, not Italian,, although this one was built in Italy.
Currently my favorite old church in downtown Milano, built about 500 AD and is currently my favorite church, because they let me play the new pipe organ. Man of the old Italian pipe organs don't work, they need restoration, which is expensive.
New German style (trackier=all mechanical) pipe organ in that church above. The company, from Udine, Italy, near the border with what used to be Yugoslavia, that made this organ about six years ago, donated a small pipe organ to this church, which they keep in the altar area. I played it and it's sound filled the church.
This small portative pipe organ, makes enough good sound to accompany the congregation, but has only one manual and no pedals. It is all mechanical, electricity only supplies air for the bellows. There are three ranks of pipes in this little pipe organ.
We left about 10 in the morning and got home before dark at 6 pm. It was a nice day, although it rained most of the day.
Today we went to church in our ward, called the Naviglie (named after the waterways on which they used to bring marble into the city of Milano) Ward, our fifth Sunday--how time flies. The ward pianist (we actually have an organ, but it does not work) didn't come today and they asked me to play for sacrament meeting and priesthood, I am now always playing for priesthood. (Before me they put a smart phone playing from LDS.org, near the microphone for accompaniment.) After church today we had choir practice (our ward does not have a regular choir) because we are going to join with the other wards for the stake conference coming up in March. There were about 10 women and one other man who came for choir. I was asked to play the piano, so I did not sing today. They tried to learn the melody line of "Lead Kindly Light" which no one had apparently ever heard before. It will be interesting to see how we sing. Elder Christofferson, a new member of the 12, is coming mid March, and we are also getting new missionaries. It will be a busy time. We are having a mission conference with him and he is also speaking twice to the members. He also wants to see the Leonardo's Last Supper (which we still have not seen because we are waiting to get tickets through a member, whose daughter works there), and a few other things while he is here. He is then going to Rome and then back up to Florence for meetings. Florence is in our mission, so some of our missionaries will see him there. Elder Bednar came last year and wanted to see Lake Como. It rained the entire time he was here. This afternoon the senior couple with whom we went sight seeing yesterday stopped by our place for dinner. They had to go south to church today in a city called called Pavia. That is one of the places we are supposed to go within the next few weeks to check missionary apartments. We have never done this because we are too busy at the office, but will need to do soon. Pavia is about an hour drive from here. they said it is a beautiful, old, city. We drove our car to church today, about a half hour, in the rain. You should have seen Myrna out guiding me into the parallel parking spot we were fortunate to find within about a block of the church, then the front door was locked and we had to stand out in the rain waiting for people to open the door.
