22 January 2017, Como Baptism and Bologna Chapel and University

This was another full week in the office, with the President gone most of the week for zone conferences.  On Thursday evening we went to the bishop's house for home teaching and then on to Naviglie (or ward) for our weekly keyboard lessons.  A new, teenage, girl came, so I had to start her at the third lesson, but she caught on fast and I hope will make good progress.  Today at church the bishop's wife asked me to start a little boy, maybe 10 or so, and I don't quite know how I will do it, because I am not giving them private lessons, but I will see if he has any natural talent.  If so, he may be able to keep up with the others.  I only have two more keyboards that I can give away away, but perhaps he will have one at home.  I don't give them a free keyboard at the first lesson, I want them to "earn" them by showing up and having studied the first things in the book, for which you don't need a keyboard.  Anyway, I am enjoying this experience and hope they are learning good music skills.

The avocado and rose bush in my office window seem to be thriving, but it is still pretty cold outside.

Today at Sacrament meeting we, the missionaries, were asked to sing a special number. Italians love "If you could hie to Kolob," but they never sing "O My Father," so I put together a little choir of missionaries (we practiced on Thursday evening after the music lessons) and sang the O My Father words to the Kolob music.  It was a little tricky to get the words to fit the music (It fits perfectly in English, but not so easily in Italian.) We sang it today and I thought it went well, and several people, including the old bishop's wife, with whom we had dinner on New Years, thanked me, twice, for it.,  Myrna taught the Joseph Smith First Vision lesson in Sunday School, which went very well. We only had the Danzie family and me, our American students haven't come yet.

On Friday evening we went to the Salatino's apartment for chili before driving together, in their car, to Como for a baptism that Anziano Thompson invited us to.  He baptized Victor, the African we met a few weeks ago at a family home evening in Como, which was before Victor ever had a lesson.  He progressed quickly. He speaks a little English and is learning Italian. I suppose he is in his 20s, but will know more about him when his baptism certificate comes to Myrna, who records them.  I forgot to take my camera, and my cell phone was not working because I didn't know the SIM card PIN, but later got a new one. It was a good evening.

On Saturday we went, in our car, with the Salatinos (left) and met up with the president and APs, to attend a ground breaking for a new chapel they are building in Bologna.  It was about 2 degrees C. outside (almost freezing), and the tent, where the meeting was held, was not heated.

This is the artist's rendering of the new chapel.  It will be a beautiful freestanding building, bigger and nicer than even in some places in the US (for example, Superior, AZ).  To remember back 50 years, and I spoke with a member who has been in the Bologna branch, now ward, 40 years, there were not any members there 50 years ago, but now they have a thriving ward and will be able to meet in this beautiful new building, and may have a second ward.  It is amazing how the Church is thriving in Italy.


The ward had a nice choir, to which they invited city officials, who showed up and seemed impressed, and had two short talks, mostly about the history of the Church in Bologna, a prayer by the stake president (they are in the Venice Stake), and the ground breaking, first by those seated on the stand, and then by anyone who wanted to come up and play in the dirt with a gold shovel

President and Sister Allen on the far right.

A pix of the missionaries, who were in attendance, which included some from nearby cities.  They also had nice refreshments, typical Italian appetizers and sodas, but it was pretty cold.

The property is in a nice part of the ancient city, (the ground was probably pretty expensive) next to a large grocery store, called Gigante, which provides a lot of nice free parking, although I assume there will be dedicated parking within the gates on Church property.  It is also near public transportation, which is important in Italy, since few members have cars.

From there we went to the center of Bologna.  We had to find a place to park and walk about 20 minutes, because there is no parking in the center of town.  Sister Salatino has a Fitbit on her wrist, and said we walked 6 miles, in our Sunday clothes and shoes (in the snow and uphill both ways).  In the center of Bologna there are two ancient towers, one is leaning quite a bit,

as you can see from this picture of its base. We saw another leaning tower in Bologna, so Pisa is not the only Italian city with old leaning and towers.

We were hungry and cold, so we found, near the towers, an all-you-can-eat buffet, for €10 each, which includes drink and cover charge.  They had a bit of everything, including sushi, which the missionaries love, but we never eat.

But poor Sorella Hoopes does not like mortadella (bologna) which you should eat at least in Bologna.  You can enlarge this and see the pistacios in this traditional mortadella. I ate a piece, but preferred the lasagna and meat (roast pork with mushrooms), which was pretty good, for a buffet.

It isn't a large place, but was fairly busy.  The missionaries like to eat there and told us about it. Missionaries always seem to know about good, cheap, places to eat.

The restaurant from the outside, but no one wanted to eat outside in the frosty temperature. In good weather Italians love to eat outside and watch the people stroll by.
 
It was also near the old public market area, which was not in operation.

And was near this church, which is like three old churches all connected internally.

The middle one had this very large preaching pulpit, but was not large enough for a congregation to sit to hear the preacher. I thought it seemed like a rameumptum, or how ever you spell it, but you know what I mean.
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Actually, the preacher could probably have been heard out in this inner courtyard, with a well in the middle, which would have been pleasant, in warmer weather.

In one of the chapels was this depiction of Jesus's body, as it would have been within the Shroud of Turin, the burial linen they have in the duomo of Torino, which I also saw 50 years ago.

There were many chapels, each with an altar, with different old and large paintings.

And displays of the old chalices used for mass.

They had a room full of ancient hymn books, very large, for the entire choir to read.

All hand written and well decorated. Music had not progressed to a 5 line staff yet, but the notes on the lines and spaces show how the melody goes up and down for chanting the words beneath.

There was this large oil painting, not framed, of the Son, on the left, and Father, on the right, with the Holy Ghost as a dove, touching the world they had created, with a few angels at the bottom.  Catholics may say they only believe in one god, but have a hard time otherwise depicting the Trinity.

This is a medieval Madonna and child,

And this is a newer one, with little Jesus holding a rose, about to receive an apple from his cousin, John the Baptist, with whom he is frequently painted.

Out that church and down the narrow street are these buildings, shops on the bottom and homes and offices on the upper floors,

The decorations on the side of the buildings include many, many heads (look at the top row).

Some pretty interesting.

We went to this inside passageway area, where Sorella Hoopes,standing in the corner, could hear me speaking softly, in the other corner (where I was taking the picture) because of the acoustics of the domed masonry area. I am not sure it was built specifically for this purpose, but someone figured it out long ago, based on the indentations on the stone pavement.

Going out the door in the picture above, and to the other side of the piazza, this is the building which contained the passageway, the middle door, without awning is the one above.
This piazza and church were out the other side of the passageway.  They started to put nice marble fascia on the large church, but must have run out of money (or had a war) and never finished it.

Behind the altar was the choir, which had this large wooden music book holder.  There was also a display of ancient violins, for which the entrance fee was 50 cents.  I happily paid it just to get closer to the organs, as can be seen in the right--there were two, one on each side.

One of the old hymn books, showing more decorations.  I would estimate the letters were at least an inch high.

To the side of that church was a building of the University of Bologna, which is very old and famous, at least in Italy.

We entered this courtyard of the university, which, look at the ceiling, has plaques of coats of arms.  These are for the students and teachers.  Everywhere you look there are these coats of arms for the different families, many with names and dates.

It was unbelievable how many there were, and the stories they told.

This dude graduated in 1750.

A hallway leading to a section of the university we visited

This is a large room, all in wood, where they laid out a dead body on the white marble slab and dissected him, with a professor at the high end, and students in their places all around, taking notes.

It was sort of spooky, thinking about what they did in there, for centuries.

Also, in this room the first woman university professor, Laura Bassi, did her thing, in 1732.

About which books were written.

Sadly, the university area part of Bologna was targeted during World War II for bombing, as shown in this picture taken from a plane.

They did take out some university buildings.  See the plaques in the middle right; don't know if they have ever been replaced.

More plaques with family names.

They actually had balls at the university, in rooms like we saw.

And lots of hallways, with many historic things displayed.

Including this newspaper when Giuseppe Verdi, the great opera composer, died in Milano.

We saw a library, with lots of ancient books, and more plaques.

And in this classroom there was some modern technology, because the university is still in business.

And this guy taking a break from re-finishing this more mundane floor in the classroom area.

There was this courtyard in the area where the museum is located.

There were tombstones from ancient Greece and Rome

And with statues...

Including this one of Neptune, who looked to be about the same size as Michaelangelo's David.  There is another Neptune like this, which is in a piazza in Bologna, at the top of a fountain. Sorella Salatino said there is a duplicate of this statue in her home town in California.  We did not go to that piazza because of time limitations, but hope to go back sometime.

The museum began with arrowheads from prehistoric Italy.

And pottery.  I thought of how Paul used to restore pots.

And they worshiped little gods, of which there were many.

Both male and female gods.

And some larger ones, like this smiley one

This statue of Eirene and Plutus was from 370 BC, in Rome.  Even though this was from before Christ, it is easy to see how the Romans just continued to make these kinds of mother and child statues over the centuries, but switched to calling them Mary and Jesus, which are still worshiped.

More female god statues.

But they also liked their athletes, like this gladiator.

And their theater.

There was an entire room of Greek pottery.

Of all shapes and sizes.

And weapons of war...

like arrow heads and knives, they also had swords, hatchets, etc.

There was this display of Roman coins,

including this one that was being used at the time of Christ.

These are the coins needed to buy this bag of wheat.

A collection of Roman oil lamps.

A lot of this pottery, etc, was found in graves. They had a few displays showing what the graves looked like when they were found and took out the pottery, coins, jewelry, etc.

A metal hat and some gold piece.

And lots of jewelry.

And a couple of entire floors from their homes

made of mosaics.

The way out to the busy street was lined with Roman tombstones.

It was 5 pm, and just starting to get dark, especially in those narrow streets where the shops were still open.

We will end with this large (but I have seen bigger) mortadellas (baloney from Bologna), in this meat and cheese store.

Ciao for now.