An Expedition to the Baroque in Sicily

There are three famous little baroque villages in Sicily - Ragusa, Modica, and Noto. We had thought about going to all three, but decided (sort of on the fly) that one would probably be enough. Well, we figured we would start with one, and if we hadn't seen enough of the baroque, then we would go on to another.

So we started with the town of Noto. This was a pretty easy drive, about an hour, from Ortigia. Mostly on a four-lane toll road, that had no facility for taking the tolls. Besides, it had construction on it. In any case, it was a toll-free toll road.

We have been lucky with parking this whole trip, and Noto was no exception.

Here is our car, parked on the wrong side of the street (VERY Italian) in a free parking zone. At least we HOPED it was free when we left it.

Right around the corner from where we parked was the gate to the city:

 Which opened on to much baroque splendor.

This was a convent, now a church;

This is the cathedral, or the Duomo. More about the dome a little later.

A closer view. There is a dome, it is obscured in this photo.

Here is another church

And the city hall. It was described as being a "celebration of columns" and indeed it is:

 A panoramic of the area:

Inside the city hall they have a couple of optical illusions.

One is the ceiling, painted as if it were plaster:

and the second is two mirrors set up opposite from each other.

Here are some of the famous baroque corbels of Noto:

 The streets are full of them

And you can't get away from St Lucy in Sicily:

You can walk up to the top of one of the other churches nearby. Here you can see the dome of the Duomo.

It collapsed in 1996 (!) but it was rebuilt:

Panoramic from the top of the church:

I am a sucker for church bells:

I like this shot because you see the dome of the church right behind the dome of that guy's bald head:

Doreen, taking in the view:

More, many more, corbels.

 and more street scenes.

This is the old agora, or market courtyard. Very nice shape and a good feel to this space;

A lot of churches in Noto:

Lots of them

 And cute little Putti!

 Here is a better view of the reconstructed dome:

Then we decided we had enough baroque and drove back to Ortigia.

An Expedition to the Piazza Amerina Villa Romana del Casale

Driving in Syracuse is an adventure. It reminds me a lot of when I was driving in Venezuela - the right of way belonged to he who took it. So I was taking a lot of right of way on this trip.

This is our route, roughly. We learned a lot from our driving in France a couple of years ago. It is better to have a map than to rely solely on a phone's GPS. And yet a phone's GPS is a critical piece of the navigational equipment, as it tells you where you are. Doreen navigated, I drove. The map below is not exactly correct, as we got off track a couple of times before we realized the value of the phone telling you where you are. We went over the top of some mountains (hills, maybe) on very, very narrow two lane roads. Sort of scary. But a good trip.

And if you like mosaics, well worth it.

The villa had been covered in a mud slide, which protected it from looters. (And, as I said in my fb post, the British Museum. One of my good friends, and the Queen's Own Apologist, took umbrage with that. The truth is a harsh mistress). The excavations started in earnest in the 1960s and the results are spectacular.

 My photos can't really do them justice, but here you go anyway.

This is an image of a tiger who was given a mirrored ball so she would think it was her kittens in the ball, but it was just her. Then the hunters would steal the kittens.

These are "The Bikini Girls" but they are really athletes who have been competing in various sports:

Here I am examining the outside mosaics, which are available for touch.

Astounding work:

Antelopes did not fare well in these mosasics:

 And neither did most wild animals. But I suppose that is to be expected as the hall was named the Hall of the Hunt

Elephants. But not miniature elephants.

These are the big dogs telling everyone else what to do

 For example, wrangle the ostriches.

 This is the cyclops looking for Jason and the Argonauts.

A bull.

The surrounding hills:

 and various broken tiles.

There are so many mosaics it is impossible for me to capture them all. As a matter of fact, they had a "No Photographs" policy here. But I did not see anyone abiding by it. So  won't even count this as a "misbehaving" post.

More, as always, to come.

An Expedition to the Syracuse Archaeological Museum

The Archaeological Museum of Siracusa is just down the street from the park.

And it starts with prehistory. First, the geology of the island (A lot of volcanics, think Mount Aetna. But then also sedimentary. They discovered oil here in the 1950s. There is even a refinery on the island). Then, the fossils. It is sort of hard to see, but here is Doreen standing in front of two FULLY GROWN ELEPHANT FOSSILS! They were about the size of St Bernard dogs.

Then the bronze age. Lots and lots and lots of pots.

Almost all the pots were marked like this:

by the guy who discovered them. Shameful. But of course, Queen Victoria had her seal put on all the Leonardo books that the Crown "acquiered"  (I had better be careful. You never know when Her Majesty's Apologists will jump into the fray!)

Most of the pots here seem to have come from burial sites.

The big pots below were filled with human remains:

They have so much stuff, that they have some Greek slabs lying around, encouraging you to touch them:

This is a frieze from something or other. Uncurated, just lying around

And more statues. Sometimes with people walking by:

Sometimes without:

We came across these small sphere of all descriptions, and were very curious as to their use:

and it turns out they came from the tomb of a man known as "The Spherist".

So I guess that explains that.

It is somewhat disconcerting to see bones in a museum. I always think about the individual, and his relatives.

But I took this photo anyway. I tried to get Doreen to lie in there with the bones, but around that time a guard came by and fussed at me. She did laugh when I said I wanted Doreen to get in the crypt, though.

It's not a diorama, but it will have to do. This is the original temple to Minerva, which is now the Duomo (which see) and the temple of Artimis, the Artimision that I will write more about by and by. (That temple has some chairs for sacrification. Just wait)

This museum is big on crypts. Here is a fantastic crypt from the early Christian catacombs.

She must have been very rich. We want our friend Randy to make something like this for our gravestone.

A head on view:

OF course, is that is too complicated, we can do this:

Sort of like a big bathtub.

Here is Dan with a big head that is the Greek God of Medicine Aesculapius.

Here is a statue of Priapus, staring at his missing attribute:

Those niches I mentioned earlier would have been filled with these:

Very nice

They had lots of funerary pots:

And little crypts

Here is the church of the Weeping Madonna in Syracuse. They have a statue of Mary that cries real tears. That has been scientifically proven.