Italy:
Byzantine to Baroque
March
5 – 16, 2009
Led
by Professor Ori Z.
Soltes
As we travel from Assisi to Venice, this spectacular new
tour will offer a unique opportunity to trace the development
of art and history out of antiquity toward modernity in
both the eastern and western Christian worlds. The tour
begins with four days in Assisi, including a day trip to
medieval Cortona. It then continues to Arezzo, Padua and
Ravenna, where we will see churches adorned with some of
the richest mosaics in Europe. We will complete our tour
with three glorious days in Venice, gateway to the Orient.
Throughout we will experience the sources of visual inspiration
for a thousand years of art while sampling the food and
drink that have enhanced the Italian world since it was
the center of the Roman Republic and Empire.
Thursday, Friday, March 5 & 6: ASSISI: Independent
arrivals into Rome Friday morning. We then transfer to the
walled city of Assisi to spend the next four nights at the
lovely, centrally located Fontebella Hotel. During our stay
we will have ample time to enjoy this medieval town’s
wonderful piazzas and sample the regional cuisine and Umbrian
wines. This evening we will meet with Professor Soltes for
our opening dinner and orientation lecture.
Meals: Dinner
Saturday, March 7: ASSISI: Assisi
is associated with the legacy of St. Francis, buried here
in the magnificent Gothic Basilica di San Francesco, decorated
by the most important artists of the time, among them Cimabue,
Pietro Lorenzetti and Giotto. We will spend the morning
studying the multitude of treasures housed within these
buildings, including the most famous, Giotto’s cycle
on the life of St. Francis. After viewing the 15th-century
frescoes by Gualdo decorating the Pilgrims’ Oratory,
we stroll past the medieval and Renaissance houses to the
Piazza del Comune. Here the facade of the Temple of Minerva
is integrated into a church, and the remains of the Roman
forum can be visited beneath the Piazza. Afternoon visits
include the Basilica di Santa Chiara, burial place of St.
Clare, the Romanesque facade of the Duomo San Rufino and
Gualdo’s triptych in St. Peter’s Church.
Meals: Breakfast & lunch
Sunday,
March 8: ASSISI: Today
we will travel out of Assisi to medieval Cortona, to see
the Church of Santa Maria del Calcinaio, renowned for its
stained-glass window by Marcillat, the remarkable collection
of paintings housed in the Diocesan Museum, most notably
the Ecstasy of St. Margaret, by Crespi, and the Museum of
the Etruscan Academy.
Meals: Breakfast & lunch
Monday,
March 9: ASSISI: Touring
in Assisi’s outskirts begins at the Monastery of St.
Damian and the Carceri Hermitage, in isolation amid a thick
oak forest. It is believed that St. Francis and his followers
withdrew from the world here as if they were incarcerated
(carceri). After visiting St. Mary of the Angels Basilica,
which houses a polyptych by Robbia and a fresco depicting
the history of the Franciscan Order, the afternoon will
be at leisure to experience Assisi’s special atmosphere
on our own.
Meals: Breakfast
Tuesday, March 10: AREZZO/RAVENNA: Although
our final destination is Ravenna, we will spend the day
in Arezzo with visits to St. Francis’s Church to see
the fresco cycle of Piero della Francesca (providing permission
is granted) and the stained-glass windows by Guillaume de
Marcillat in the Duomo. During our walking tour in the old
town, we will visit St. Dominic’s Church to see the
painted crucifix by Cimabue. We will also stop in Monterchi,
home to Piero’s Madonna del Parto, a rare depiction
of the Virgin Mary nine months pregnant, and in Sansepolcro,
the birthplace of Piero, where his paintings, as well as
other wonderful works by Bassano, Signorelli, and the Della
Robbia school, are on view in the Municipal Museum. Lastly,
we will visit the Romanesque-Gothic Duomo and the medieval
city before continuing to the Ravenna Hotel Bisanzio.
Meals: Breakfast & lunch
Wednesday, March 11: RAVENNA:
This incredible day introduces us to the wealth and riches
accumulated during Ravenna’s years as the capital
of the Western Empire. The mosaics that adorn the city’s
churches and mausoleums from that period are the finest
in Europe. Our visits will include the Neoni Baptistry and
Ravenna’s oldest mosaics at the Tomb of Galla Placidia,
which are still within the traditions of classical art and
precede the rigid stylizations of the Byzantines, the National
Museum, in order to view the Murano Diptych and the Coptic
ivory of “Apollo and Daphne,” which was probably
carved in Alexandria, and the mosaic floors in the House
of Stone Carpets. At the Church of St. Vitalis, one of the
grandest built under Justinian, we will see a progression
from an interest in movement and realism to the solemn symbols
and majesty of Byzantine art, while at the Basilica of St.
Apollinaris the New, the mosaics are of several periods.
We will view Badalocchio’s fresco Christ in Glory
in San Giovanni Evangelista, Theodoric’s unusual tomb.
built without mortar in 520, and the Basilica of St. Apollinaris
in Classe, consecrated in 549 in what was once the port
of the imperial fleet.
Meals: Breakfast & lunch
Thursday, March 12: VENICE: The
full morning will be at leisure to return to our favorite
sites before lunch. We then continue to Venice, stopping
in Padua to view the marvelous frescoes by Giotto and other
major works in the Cappella degli Scrovegni. Our next four
nights will be at the centrally located Hotel Luna Baglioni.
Meals: Breakfast & lunch
Friday, March 13: VENICE: Our
tour could only end in the gateway to the Orient, Venice,
recipient of riches from the East and still considered to
be one of the most beautiful and romantic cities. Nowhere
are the glories of the past more evident than in the monuments
of the Piazza di San Marco. Touring begins at the Basilica
San Marco, where, after studying its facade and its 17th-century
mosaics, we enter the main sanctuary and visit the interior.
Our full morning here includes the Treasury and the Museum
of the Basilica, which houses the Bronze Horses that once
adorned the facade. After lunch, our Piazza visits continue
at the Doges Palace and the Correr Museum.
Meals: Breakfast & lunch
Saturday,
March 14: VENICE: Our
day begins with visits to the icon museum at the Orthodox
Church of San Giorgio dei Greci and the fabulous Galleria
dell’Accademia. The remainder of the day will be at
leisure. This evening we will meet for our farewell dinner
at one of the city’s fine restaurants.
Meals: Breakfast & dinner
Sunday,
March 15: VENICE: Our
day begins with a walking tour of the former Jewish Ghetto,
one of the oldest parts of the city. Accompanied by a member
of the Jewish community, we visit the three old synagogues
and the museum. A vaporetto brings us to Murano, an ancient
settlement famous for its glass. Our visits will be to the
12th-century Romanesque Santa Maria e Donato, renowned for
its mosaic pavement and its Veneto-Byzantine chevet and
a glass factory. Continuing to Torcello, we see the Byzantine
mosaic depicting the Last Judgement at the Cathedral of
Santa Maria dell’Assunta, the serene Santa Fosca,
built in a Greek-cross plan, and the Museo dell’Estuario.
Meals: Breakfast & lunch
Monday,
March 16: We
will transfer to the airport for our flights home.
Meals: Breakfast
|
|
