Highlights-Florence Day 6 (last day)
I attended the Pentecost service at the Florence Cathedral (no line, no fee). It took place in a chapel on the right transept (Or was it a semitransept? Church architectural terms can be confusing.). Unlike the cathedral in Pisa, the main nave wasn’t roped off from the chapel so I could whip out my camera for some quick shots before the service while reverently contemplating Jesus behind the main altar. There isn’t much to photograph inside the Cathedral. The outside is more impressive, but even it was left bare for three centuries. I did a gelato-on-a-cone trial. It didn’t go well (a cup was better). I climbed the Duomo bell tower, all 414 steps (exact count depends on whether you count the last step as you reach a level). I learned a new pasta variety: penne mostaccioli (small mustaches). It’s slightly icky to consider eating mustaches regardless of their size.
Why travel is hard for adults
They want to nap, but can’t.
Aren’t books and desks already covered with paper?
414 steps!
But what a view!
Notable Items
When I sit in a room for a presentation, I’m normally a sit-in-front guy. I feel like I connect better with the speaker, making it a better experience. Not in Catholic Mass in a foreign country, like the Pentecost service I attended. First, I don’t know what the speaker is saying, so the connection is limited. Second, I was raised a Methodist and have no idea what is going on most of the time. I never know when to stand, sit or kneel. The Eucharist and Offertory are easier to recognize by their support equipment.
I sat a few rows from the front and noticed there were nuns in the pews to the right. Bingo! Observation models. You can’t go wrong at Mass copying nuns.
Just before the Eucharist, I watched more carefully because there can be regional variations. At an Episcopalian service (not Catholic, but similar in some ways), I ate the bread far too early and the priest had to get me another piece. What a noob! Today, there were two lines, to the left and right of the altar. The priest serving the right-hand line must have been lax (procedurally, not spiritually) because he allowed parishioners to walk away before consuming the wafer. Thinking that I could do the same thing in the left-hand line was a massive error. I turned with the wafer in my hand and got the hand-on-the-arm warning (busted!). I slunk back to my pew, ceremonially chastened.
At the end of the service, the priest explained the significance of Pentecost to attendees in barely accented, flawless English. It was jarring after not being able to understand the spoken parts of the Mass. I felt like I was in a movie and could suddenly and unexpectedly hear the narrator.
Climbing the Duomo bell tower’s 414 steps, I nearly bumped into a man coming down on “my side.” I didn’t see him coming because the tower steps have many right-angle turns. There wasn’t room to maneuver because the passage got narrower as I climbed. He just stood there. Where was I going to go? “Uphill traffic has the right of way,” as they say. I pointed for him to go left.
At the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore (not an opera, but the Duomo museum), there was a partially reassembled Pietà by Michelangelo. It had to be reassembled because, after working on it for ten years, Michelangelo broke it up and threw it away. How do you dispose of a huge marble sculpture anyway, large trash day? This is one of those “we don’t know why he did it” historical events, but there are theories. What we do know is someone with money found it in the large marble trash, hired someone to replace the missing parts (except one of Jesus’ legs), and displayed it. It’s rare to find a work by Michelangelo in the rubbish.
I nearly came to grief as I exited the restricted museum area through the one-way turnstiles and entered the museum shop. It seemed reasonable to expect that the toilets would be accessible from the shop or lobby. Nope. The turnstiles were temporarily lacking supervision, so I squeezed past them to inspect the toilet plumbing. You know I was caught on the security cameras. I felt like such a scofflaw! New museum rule: bathroom before books.