On Monday we went to the Cimiano church in Milano for new missionary training
These missionaries are playing a team-building game.
I gave them my almost hour long presentation about finances. And then we went to Alessandria for zone conference on Wednesday.
This was taken from our seat, at the back, where we usually sit, during zone conference in Alessandria, during the recitations of memorized scriptures.
This was taken out my window while driving. If you enlarge it you can see a church on a small hill and a guy on his motorcycle out in the field. On Friday, for about a half hour break from paying bills, I went out to the old abbey (Abbazia Mirasole) near Opera, because I have not been there since before Christmas. I found that they have changed a lot of things there and opened the abbey up somewhat, all for the better, and saw things that I haven't ever seen.
Like the inner garden of the abbey, where the monks strolled as they meditated.
They have a new conference room within the abbey, which I came back and told the president about. I learned by talking with the new caretakers that you can use it, for a small donation, for meetings. Perhaps we will have a missionary meeting there sometime--the missionaries will be able to say they once had a meeting in a medieval abbey.
They now have a small museum and more interpretative signs with more information than I have known before, although it is all in Italian. (They aren't starting to cater to tourists yet.)
This is their most precious art, a large altar painting within the church.
It is a nativity, from the school of Leonardo, painted in 1575.
And old frescoes on the ceilings (these used to be on the walls too)
And they even brought in an old electronic organ, which I learned that I could play anytime, but it plays poorly, although the acoustics are so good in the church, everything sounds beautiful in there.
They had this new sign in the entry way, which shows the plan of the abbey.
Looking at the church, on the right, and the abbey outside on the left.
The main gate, which is always open, to the abbey about 10 minutes of our office.
On Saturday, for p-day, we decided to drive the hour to Brescia, so I could see the pipe organ, built by Antegnati, that I play almost every day on Hauptwerk.
The address, on the Sonus Paradisi website, was on this street, to which the GPS took us, but there were three churches on it, with a large nunnery between them (the yellow building), and none were open, and they didn't have signs with the name of the one I was looking for, San Carlo Borromeo.
One of them had this sign, also in Greek, taped on the door, about Easter service, which was last Sunday. But I still wasn't sure which was San Carlo, so I asked people on the street, and no one knew for sure.
I saw this on a door, the Ancelle (I think this may mean "handmaids" but Google translate says it means anchovy!) Sisters of Charity, so I rang the bell.
And this little window in the door opened, and a little nun, wearing a white habit, peeked out and, when I asked, said she wasn't sure where San Carlo was, so she had to go back in and find another sister (suore), who came out the main door and pointed out the street in the opposite direction. These nuns were old, well, perhaps my age, but very kindly.
And so I kept walking and found this church, which also didn't have a sign, but the nun said it was the right church, and matches the picture on the website--not very impressive on the outside.
It appears to be associated with this Foundation of the House of God Onlus, which, the sign says has "small protected lodgings," with rooms for rent (separate sign), also served by video surveillance (separate signs).
And inside this church is supposed to be this organ (from the website), although I wasn't able to see or play it. All these years I thought this organ was in the old duomo, where there is another Antegnati organ.
On the way back to where the car was parked, with Myrna inside, I took this pix as a reference, the street of Santa Croce. There was an African (they are everywhere in Italy, but Brescia also had a lot of Muslims, with the women wearing burkas) getting a drink from roadside fountain. We had to park down the street (blue arrow) because the red circle with a line through it means "one way," which is where the church is. Parking is always a challenge in Italy.
Our GPS took us to an underground parking lot, three stories below the street, from which we emerged from under the stairs in the center of the pix.
This horse in front of the telephone headquarters became our landmark for the day.
It was Saturday morning, and the outdoor markets were in full swing. I considered buying new socks (package of 3 for €6), but I didn't want to carry them around all day, but when we went back to the car several hours later, the markets had folded up and were gone.
We walked over to the two (yes two) cathedrals (duomos) in Brescia, which are side by side. They were both closed when the bells were ringing 12 noon, when we arrived, so we couldn't go inside.
As most down towns do, they had nice clothing stores; this one with an old Singer sewing machine--wonder how they got that?
And down a side street (see the big building at the end of the street, is another landmark) were two Turkish Donner kebap joints, almost side by side.
Their menus include pictures on the walls, and you can also see the food through the windows.
We both had kebap pannini (only €2.50 each and delicious), and we shared a bowl of very spicy (think red chili) beef, for which they brought me another panino (fresh hot bread like the sandwiches are in) to eat with it. It was a very filling, and cheap, lunch--and this place had a clean restroom too.
Most kebap joints in Italy have serve yourself cool (never cold, and no ice) drinks, and many are decorated in early red plastic Coke.
With our bellies full, we walked up the street to see the castle on the hill overlooking Brescia, which is bigger than I remembered. (Missionaries without cars, as I didn't have 50 years ago, tend to think of the entire city as the area where they live, go to church, and walk around.)
The paths and stairs were fairly steep, but then we were going up a steep hill with switchbacks, etc.
From which we could see the city of Brescia unfolding below.
I took this when we got closer to the main gate, with a drawbridge, of the old part of town on the hill, with the castle.
You could get an idea of how secure the castle was by enlarging this pix and seeing the lady talking on her red cell phone down in what was the moat.
A closer up pix of the gate, showing the drawbridge. When we came back down several hours later, there was a group of people dressed in costumes making a home video at this point.
In this highest part of the castle was this Roman era tower, which, in addition to flags, has cell and internet discs.
And this museum of arms--body armor and weapons of war.
For only €3 each, we saw more suits of armor and weapons than we knew existed in one museum. Brescia was very well known for being a place where this metal stuff was fabricated in the middle ages, so when guns were invented, they easily branched out into making them, and still do. Think modern upscale Italian firearms, like Beretta, Chiappa, Gueini, Zanardini, Uberti, Bosis, Tanfoglio, Perugini, Fratelli Poli, to name a few, all made in Brescia or nearby.
They also had these wicked looking spears.
The details were beautiful. Italians love to decorate.
Period paintings of how these weapons were used.
This was from the lower left corner of the above painting.
They were pretty daunting, and beautiful at the same time.
There were signs showing what was worn on which body part.
This chain mail does not look particularly comfortable.
At the top of the rooms in the old castle, which has been modernized, they preserved some of the decorations (frescoes) on the walls, where it didn't come off.
They had lots of different periods of arms on display on three floors of the museum.
And a napping guard (left corner), to make sure you didn't touch anything.
They didn't forget their cavalli, they had armor for them too.
Some of the pieces were really works of art.
Detail from above.
This brass helmet was beautiful,and probably pretty heavy.
There were small and large crossbows.
And small pistols
Another with less reflection (all were behind glass)
And some longer guns.
These may be 8 feet long. How would you like to carry that into war?
This shows some of the old fresco decorations on the walls.
A lovely view of the city of Brescia down below-it goes for a long way on each side.
An enlargement of a church with a monastery or abbey, far away from the duomo area. Brescia has hundreds of churches like this.
When we went down we saw this troop of folks, actually older people, in interesting costumes
The ladies taking videos were yelling, "ragazzi, vai, vai" or "kids, come, come," as this batman guy did. They all spoke to us, in their best English, as we passed them--they were having fun making their video.
Descending the steps was easier than going up (we went another way down). Spring flowers are everywhere.
We walked through the courtyard of the Palazzo del Governo (palace of government), which had some interesting faces above the arches.
These are your friendly government officials, smiling at you, with missing teeth.
Or sticking out their tongues.
More tongues. Maybe trying to scare you from going in to complain..
In front of the government building is a fountain, and you can see the cupola of the new duomo behind on the next block over.
Turning the corner we walked in front of the new duomo, which was, by now (3 pm) open. (It was closed from a little before noon to 3 pm, nap time, in case you ever need to know.)
Looking down the central nave of the new duomo.
And, of course, the organs, one on each side.
A close up of one of the organs, shows the smaller pipes behind the larger ones in front.
A tomb of a bishop, with him laying dead on his bed, with a mother with suckling naked children, in white Carrara marble, mourning for him.
On the front steps of the duomo were a couple of Italian tourists, oogling each other.
And from across the street, one can see the old duomo (Romanesque), to the right of the new one.
Within the old duomo one can see the scaffolding around the Antegnati organ, near the high altar, which, we learned when we went to the Mascioni organ workshop, is currently being restored. This is the organ of which I held a pipe a few weeks ago at the workshop.
This large poster, near the front door, says: "Help us to not stop this music. You can sustain the restoration of the Ategnati Organ of the Old Duomo, a symbol of our city from 1536--make your donation" with the website listed, and a pix of the old organ. They also had little cards, with pictures of the organists, etc., who must be known quantities in Brescia.
This is one of the side altars (chapels) in the old duomo, which is still being used. In fact, they were having a wedding there and there were a couple of women practicing for it on the electronic organ that had been brought in.
This is the ceiling and dome above the chapel shown above, but wasn't the highest dome,which was plain, with no color.
Also on a side chapel was this large painting of some miraculous happening during the Baroque era.
However, this old church was built on a foundation from the Roman era.
There were several places in the floor where there was glass so you could see the old Roman era mosaic floors below.
And you could walk down stairs to the area below the high altar, where there was this cross, probably more modern. I am not sure this was even a Christian church. There are Roman ruins in Brescia.
You could also see Roman age decorations on the stones. This looks like snakes and a pan pipe or perhaps an early organ.
As we were leaving to go back to the car, I snapped this last pix of the old duomo with the new one to the left.
And then, further to the left of the new duomo, the bell tower, which further to the left of is the city hall with its grotesque faces.
Also we passed some shops in the "high rent" district (near the duomo). This is from a window showing a fountain pen desk set. Looks like something from the 1940s. Italians still like to write with fountain pens and liquid ink.
When we got back to Opera and parked our car and walked down to the mission office, we passed in front of an apartment building where they had just poured what looked like rock salt on the crack between the sidewalk and the concrete wall. I don't know why they did this. Perhaps it is to keep slugs from going over the wall or Myrna thought perhaps it was to keep weeds from growing in the crack. Maybe we will learn why.
Ciao for now.
No comments:
Post a Comment