Primary Sources vs. Secondary Sources

One thing that has been nagging at me during this brief (2+ month) study of Renaissance art and culture in Florence is that I don’t consult many primary sources. I tend to, rather, use a lot of secondary sources. Okay, given that I’m not intending to be a scholar in this field maybe it isn’t that important, but the question remains of how to balance the use of primary sources with secondary sources. (For more on sources, read here.) I was even chided by a librarian at the British Institute when I checked in a philosophy book (The Stoics, Epicureans, and Sceptics by E. Zeller *) and glibly declared, I only read the introduction, not the actual writings (the primary sources). 

A primary source is a work produced during the period you are studying. For example, reading Dante’s Divine Comedy itself would qualify as using a primary source. A secondary source is an interpretation or analysis of a primary source. For example, reading the Wikipedia page about the Divine Comedy would qualify as a using a secondary source. The challenge is that with the “way” information is available to us today reading secondary sources is very easy, addictive (think Amazon book reviews), and a huge time saver. But when does it not help? 

I was of the mind that primary sources are hard to find, especially on the Internet, but this really isn’t true. There are a number of sites like the Gutenberg or Internet Archive that have texts available. The rest you can find easily at a library. (Gutenberg even has texts read aloud. I have On the Origin of Species as an mp3 on my phone – for long train or airplane rides – fantastic!) 

So, I tried the Divine Comedy (written between 1308 and 1321) and got through several pages before I yawned, and wondered if anyone created a nice image showing Dante’s concept. Then I searched and found Paul Laffoley’s vision of hell, purgatory, and heaven. I spent more time reading about this artist than I did reading the Divine Comedy. So the problem is me. 

My next attempt was with a small book called Oration on the Dignity of Man by Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, written in 1487. This speech is considered a key text of Renaissance humanism. This time, I was successful. I finished the 70 or so pages and I think reading it was better than reading about it – though there wasn’t a Wikipedia page on it, honestly, I checked. 

A Room With a Smell

 

Okay, there have been way too many Room with a View references popping us these last few days. Here they are: 

Reference 1: Our apartment on Via del Canneto may not have a room with a view, but boy does it have beautiful smell. There is a garden (here, approximately) full of roses and jasmine and the smell cascades down the wall to our windows. It seems to go all day long. We are literally below the garden. It truly has been a pleasure to smell for the past two weeks. (Okay, tangentially related, but the references get getter.) 

Reference 2: The other day I was touring the Bardi and Peruzzi chapels in Santa Croce and the teacher says, you guessed it, “these chapels were in Room with a View.” 

Reference 3: At the bike shop, a person working there was telling us about the Fattoria de Maiano and said, you guessed it, “part of Room with a View was filmed there.” (Not sure about this.) 

Reference 4: Today on our bike ride, we were riding through the Tuscan countryside on a small dirt path through waist high grass full of red poppies and just for a second I was Lucy Honeychurch, but then thinking about how slow and cautious I was going I thought Charlotte Bartlett (the rain-on-your-parade chaperone) was more appropriate – darn. 

Wow, was this movie really from 1985? Yes.

A Bike Ride in Florence

The bike map shown with this post is a map produced by the comune. The map has a lot more detail on the back side, so pick one up. The comune has a program that’s called Mille & Una Bici where you can rent bikes with good rates (Web site – may not work). The tariffs partially shown on the attached image are for that program. However, after spending two afternoons looking in the spots they said you can rent from and not finding anything we decided to use the very professional Florence by Bike - which is easy to find and is open every day. For three hours, for two of us it came to 15 Euros for “city bikes” – though we did use them off road a bit. The folks there gave us good advice and maps. They have a heck of a selection of bikes and biking gear.

If you are not familiar with Florence, it lies in a valley with mountains to the north and south, approximately. Going east following the river you are going upstream. Going west following the river you are going downstream toward Pisa. Our advice, get out of the city (which is better walked) and follow the river trails with the bikes. We walked east a few miles one afternoon a couple of weeks ago and saw the extent of trails in that direction. Today, we went west with the bikes, ending up in Parco dei Renai. Here is one spot in the park we stopped at just to get an idea. (There were lots of folks fishing.) The park is about 8 km from the city center. We went through the Cascine Park and then when we got to the Indian Monument we took a small foot bridge over the Mugnone river (just before it merges with the Arno) (location) and continued on the north side of the river on dirt/paved roads. If you don’t want to go that far, you could just tool around in the Cascine park. There are sunny paths and shady paths to choose from.

If it’s sunny and you go past the Cascine heading west bring suntan lotion, hat and glasses – we have lobster arms because we forgot it and there isn’t that much shade on that side of the river. If you go on the weekend you’ll find plenty of refreshments and food in the Cascine open-air market on your way going or returning. (We stopped and ate roasted chicken.)

Mostra Internazionale dell’Artigianato

This is the 72nd year for Mostra Internazionale dell’Artigianato - a festival of arts and crafts. There’s food (of course), clothes, household goods (all sorts), people working on their craft in front of your eyes, kiddy rides, and more. Much of the exhibition space (from what we could tell) is devoted to Italian arts and crafts, but International is represented as well. This year it was from the 25th of April to 4th of May at the Fortezza da Basso.

We spent 90% of the few hours we were there in the food section. There were just too many samples to try. We walked out with a number of salamis and chocolate, what else did you expect?

An interesting note is that the fair started back in the 1930s under Fascist leadership in Florence. The fascists were looking to give Fascism a cultural and aristocratic polish by sponsoring cultural events. It looks the fair survived Fascism, thankfully, and today has no political overtones.

Shipping Stuff Home

Yes, TravelMarx readers (all 4.2 of you) we have begun to ship stuff home. The first box went out today. We used the Poste Italiane. To ship a 13,2 kg box (28 lbs) by boat it cost 60+ Euros for 3-4 weeks delivery. (Probably 3 -4 times cheaper than Mailboxes Etc. which only ships by air.) To lighten the load we’ve been giving books and DVDs to the British Institute as donations. We anticipate no more than 3 more boxes. Yikes.

We used the yellow boxes you can buy at the post office. You don’t have to use them, but they are convenient to use and strong. The box we used holds up to 20 kg and is a couple of feet long, foot or so wide, and maybe a foot deep.

In Brief – The Great History of Florence

The book In Brief, The Great History of Florence, is by Pier Francesco Listri. Travelmarx advice: skip this book if you are just starting out with Florence history.

First, the book moves much too quickly, giving one sentence or two sentences at most to events or facts. With this quick movement, there is not enough time to develop any context or take a story away to help remember it. Really, a bulleted list during major sections of the books might have worked better.

Second, the book is at times hard to read, even when simply stating facts. I’m not sure if it is the translation or the source material. It states something and a couple of sentences later you are not sure you understood it. For example, there’s a part about the white and black Guelph’s and Dante. At the end I was confused as to which Dante was associated. It almost seems rushed, that it’s sloppily written.

Third, I don’t fancy myself an expert in Florentine history, but I’ve heard enough to maybe make it to round 2 in a quiz show and there are “facts” in the book that do not jive with what I heard. For example, the part about how power transferred from the last Medici, Anna Maria Luisa, to the Hapsburg-Lorraine in the book was not at all how I understand the sequence of events. The story in this book was completely different. I tend to trust my sources.

Fourth, and a big tip off, never buy a book with ads in it. Okay, the ads are in the back of the book, 16 or so full-page ads. They are listed in a section titled Protagonists of the City – huh, what does that mean?

Fifth, the black and white photos and maps interspersed throughout are of poor quality and hard to view. The color plates in the middle of the book are fine though.

One good thing I can say about the book is that it does have 1-2 page capsules on different topics, like one titled The Misericordia in Firenze or another titled 54 Floods in 8 Centuries. These capsules are generally well written and insightful. Too bad, they just didn’t make a book of these capsules.

Giotto and the Dawn of the Renaissance

Giorgio Vasari in his famous book Lives (1550 first publication) has this whopper of a sentence as an opening for the chapter on Giotto di Bondone (c. 1267 – 1337):

“The very same debt painters owe to Nature, which continuously serves as an example to those who strive always to do their best by selecting her best and most beautiful parts in order to reproduce and imitate them, is also owed, in my opinion, to Giotto, the Florentine painter; for when the methods and outlines of good painting had been buried for so many years by the ruins of war, he alone, although among inept artists, revived through God’s grace what had fallen into an evil state and brought back to such a form that it could be called good.”

Imitate: because imitating nature was one of the themes common in the Renaissance. Fallen: because since the fall of Rome, there were basically no good painters and finally someone was picking up where artists left off over 1,000 years earlier.

One of the places to see the new style in contrast to the old style is in Room 2 of the Uffizi dealing with Giotto and 13th Century Painting. In that room you can compare the monumental altarpieces of Cimabue, Duccio and Giotto. All painted panels of the Madonna enthroned with angels with similar pictorial layouts, but Giotto’s is different in that it emphasizes the human characteristics of Mary whereas the others don’t. Heck, Mary even has breasts in Giotto’s rendition. Remember this is the early 1300s still just at the dawn of the Renaissance, but who can say exactly?

Museo Nazionale Alinari della Fotografia

The Museo Nazionale Alinari della Fotografia is located in Piazza Santa Maria Novella (in fact directly opposite of the church). The original building dates back to the 13th century and had a few lives, as a monastery, hospital, convalescent home, and prison if I remember correctly, before becoming this current museum.

The Brothers Alinari, or Fratelli Alinari, was a business founded in Florence in 1852, and is the oldest photographic firm in the world. They are still in business and are the founders of the museum. If you are interested at all in photography, this would make a nice museum stop. It’s not a huge museum, but the photos, exhibits, and layout are well done and informative. Get the audio guide for an extra 1,50 Euro on the admission price.

One interesting point about the museum to call out is the “Touch Museum” for the visually or physically disabled. How odd you might think to have aids to help visualize a photo, but it useful to all people to tell the truth. The exhibits that have an aid literally have the photo duplicated in materials you can touch and explore with your hands. Also, all the normal exhibit labels have text and Braille on them (superimposed in a way that one label serves two audiences – clever). The Peggy Guggenheim touch aid was the best. Read more on the Touch Museum.

Before entering the main exhibit there was a temporary exhibit (13 April – 14 June 2008) called Indiscrezioni – photography by Giuseppe Tornatore, writer and director of the acclaimed film Cinema Paradiso among others. His photos of his native Sicily (Bagheria to be exact in the province of Palermo) immediately evoked memories in our minds of our time spent in Palermo.