The Tower of Pisa and a cute (really) baby sloth
When we think of “cute” animals, sloths do not usually come to mind. But here is a brief video of an undeniably cute baby sloth in the London zoo, who has a stuffed toy as his surrogate mom. http://www.nbcnews.com/video/baby-slo...
On the historical front, Rania and maybe Koby will post about the grand sweep of events on August 9th. Only one caught my attention, though. On this date in 1173, construction began on the Tower of Pisa. I’ve not seen it in person, though I’d like to, so there is yet another reason for going back to Italy.
On the historical front, Rania and maybe Koby will post about the grand sweep of events on August 9th. Only one caught my attention, though. On this date in 1173, construction began on the Tower of Pisa. I’ve not seen it in person, though I’d like to, so there is yet another reason for going back to Italy.
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Ernestina
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Aug 10, 2015 01:38PM
I look forward to having you in Italy, maybe it will give you the inspiration for yet another masterpiece...
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Ernestina, if you have not read David Blixt's Starcross'd series set in 14th century Verona and Padua, I highly recommend it. The main character is Dante's son, Pietro, and another fascinating character is the Lord of Verona, Congrande della Scala. While I have some knowledge of 12th century Sicily, I was not very knowledgeable about the rest of medieval Italy, so I found these books fascinating; there are four to date, with more in the works.
Great.. another book to my huge list of want to read :)
IF it is any comfort, Janine, we'll all go happily into book bankruptcy together.
I have Her Majesty's Will and the two Colossus books by David Blixt, but I haven't read them yet. I think I will never be able to read all the books I keep buying!
I've been to Pisa, on a half-day trip when I was in Italy and staying in Florence for a couple of week. A lovely little town, but it would not stand out among so many lovely Italian towns with a lot of beautiful medieval and Renaissance buildings, if, ironically, they had built the tower better and it was not leaning! The entire old part of the town, which is on one side of the river, can be walked through in about an hour. Aside from the Campo dei Miracoli (Field of Wonders), the tourist centre that everyone visits, what I remember the most is a beautiful little white cathedral in 'flowery Gothic' style. The "Campo dei Miracoli" is a rather small field surrounded by medieval town walls on two sides, which contain the Leaning Tower, a Gothic cathedral next to it, a Romanesque round baptistery next to the cathedral, and a cemetery behind the cathedral. There's also a museum, a little apart, which had an exhibition of ancient Roman art or something like that. You buy a ticket for a round to see it all, but unfortunately, when I got there it was already about 7 p.m. and the museum was closed. I went to the cathedral and the cemetery and then to the tower - a group of people is allowed to go in every half hour.
The first thing that struck me is that the tower is not nearly as high as I expected it to be. It has some 6 or 7 floors, but photos like this... http://www.constructionweekonline.com... http://www.cittadiniditwitter.it/wp-c... http://media.indiedb.com/images/group... were intentionally shot to give a false impression about its relative size compared to the cathedral and the baptistery. Most of the photos on the postcards from Pisa are also heavily Photoshopped to give the same impression. In fact, all three buildings are about the same height. The tower is no higher than the cathedral (which in itself doesn't seem that big, especially after you've seen Santa Maria della Fiore in Florence, which is one of the largest cathedrals in the world), which makes it seem smaller. These pictures give a more realistic idea of the relative sizes of these buildings: http://www.molon.de/galleries/Italy/P... http://cmapspublic.ihmc.us/rid=1GG35P...
The first thing that struck me when I was inside is how narrow the round stairs are - two people would not be able to climb them any differently than one in front of the other. They are also quite steep. But when you get to the top, the view from the tower is amazing, because you can see the entire town and all the surrounding forests and hills, for miles. It must have served its purpose well as the watchtower! No one would be able to come anywhere close to Pisa without being spotted. While I was at the top, I felt really dizzy, and I don't have a fear of heights or anything, it was a physical sensation - maybe that's the effect of the tower leaning. So, all in all, it was quite interesting.
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