Plans

Since I haven't written lately, I have to gloss most of what has been happening.  I am currently finishing two research papers, and I have one more left.  These are due next week, so I have spent most of the past two weeks working.  We finalized the plans for the church apartments today, and I am now managing them.  I will post a link to their website soon once I fix a few things on the site.  Activity for the Bronzino Conference should pick up as grants come due this summer, and the archaeological dig in Gaiole begins on May 15th.  After the dig, friends are coming to visit in early July.  Then it's Paris before house-sitting in Chiati during the ferragosto, when I plan to write my Master's thesis.  September brings more visiting friends and thesis work.  I head back to South Carolina for a week or so in late October to celebrate a friend's wedding.

Classes are nearly finished, though documents extends well into May, and I am glad about both.  Florence is beautiful, and when I am not writing away, I spend most of my time strolling and people-watching with friends or reading in the Boboli Gardens.  The girls have rediscovered their spring wardrobe, and life is good.  I have been studying at the Biblioteca Oblate, which has a open loggia on its roof that overlooks the cupola of Santa Maria del Fiore and gets lots of sun.  It's warm enough to start eating gelato, and I have grown to like particularly the amareno and ricotta and fig flavors.  I am growing my beard and gave myself a haircut today.  I was relatively successful.

Nukes

Regarding the nuclear disarmament talks in Russia, nuclear weapons should be better recognized for their contribution to world peace.  The Cold War would have been much hotter if the looming threat of nuclear war didn't exist.  It's that threat that prevents world powers from amassing troops for invasion, unless, of course, the country to be invaded does not have nukes of their own.  Regardless, conflict isn't going anywhere; it only must be more precise or covert.

Galleria Palatine

Over the past three weeks, my cohorts and I have met with the directors of the Uffizi, the San Marco Museum, and the Palatine Gallery at the Palazzo Pitti, where they gave us tours and explained the philosophy behind the museums and their organization.  Since these buildings were never originally conceived as public museums, their architecture and any decor or works left in situ present a singificant and obvious connection with the buildings' past.  In these museums, the amalgamation and display of their works become a work in itself.  Every museum creates a unique experience with its space, its collected works, and the classification, arrangement, and overall organization of its collection (issues with which modern theory has tremendous problems).  A museum in itself is open to examination as a form of art.

The Palatine Gallery was particularly interesting, as it was originally a private Baroque gallery whose current display remains true to its past.  There is hardly a foot of space between the pictures, which, stacked in heavy, gilded frames, reach from eye-level to the carved, golden ceiling.  Many of them are attached to the wall so that they may swing outwards in order to catch the sunlight, the only healthy source of illumination before the dawn of electricity.  Panels and canvases have been expanded or cut down to fit the measurements of frames or wall space; time periods are blended together to better express certain sentiments in different rooms; and the collection's greatest works are scattered so haphazardly that it can be hard to find them.  Without some form of guide, the Gallery, dominated by tastes and pholosophies of display of past centuries, would make little sense, but that fact lends it charm.

Otherwise, on my way back from the New Sacristy this morning, I saw Converse All-Star wedges.  What a stupid idea for a shoe.  I bet it will make millions, like Uggs or leggings.

New flatmate moving in tonight.  We're all making dinner once the vicar cleans me feet.  I'll be working for the majority of the weekend, except for Easter Sunday, when I have church and then Mexican Brunch with my fellow graduate students and TAs.  I refuse to eat Mexican Brunch on Easter, so I bought quarter a lamb today at the Mercato Centrale.  I am going to roast that puppy in a mustard, rosemary crust.  Isn't funny how all blogs devolve into food?

Back to Bronzino.