The Palazzo Pitti and Boboli Gardens

On July 16 students participated in a special lecture on the Palazzo Pitti. The lavish building was started in 1458 by a Florentine family called the Pitti. They wanted to construct something to rival the grand palaces of the Medicis. Ironically, the huge funds pumped into this palace were to be the ruin of the Pitti Family. They were forced to sell it to the Medicis (the very family they were trying to outdo), a century later in 1549. The palace remained in the hands of the rulers of Florence until 1919 when the Savoy family gave it over to the state.

The buildings underwent extensive changes. One of the most famous of these was the work of Giorgio Vasari, who constructed a corridor to link the Palazzo Vecchio (the old Medici residence) to the Palazzo Pitti (the new Medici residence) in the 16th century. The corridor passes through the Uffizi, over the top of the Ponte Vecchio, through a church and several other buildings, before arriving at the Palazzo Pitti. The idea was that the Medicis could go from one building to the other without having to mix with the commoners in the street. It was around this time that there was a big change to the Ponte Vecchio. Up until this point, it had been full of butcher shops and the Medici women found this part of the journey so smelly and, therefore, disagreeable that the butchers were forced off the bridge and instead the jewelers who still occupy all the shops on the bridge today were obliged to take their place.

The main museum is the Palatina. It houses a rich collection of 16th to 18th century paintings. At the end of the tour, students were taken to Appartamenti Reali--the living quarters of the Medici family members. They also viewed the Boboli Gardens where one can get a wonderful view of Florence.

Chianti, Italy

One of Italy's most desirable properties is found in Chitanti, about 20 minutes from Florence. It is here where American stars come to find their getaway home. Here, on July 23 students got an education in wine and olive oil production. Our first stop was Castle di Trebbio built by the Pazzie Family, who were business competitors of the Medici Family. It was here that the Pazzies plotted to kill the Medici brothers, Lorenzo and Juliano, so they could rule Florence. The pope at the time was aiding the Pazzie Family. They were successful in killing Lorenzo but not Juliano. The death of Juliano could have changed the course of history because several of the popes were part of the Medici Family afterward. It was bought in 1960 by a private family who established the winery.

That night faculty and students dined at Florence's Open View, where they surprised Professor Fellow on his birthday with a Florence leather book containing pictures and letters from each of them. He was very touched and something that will be long remembered!

Molejon, Spain

Before leaving to teach in Italy, I ran into Professor of Modern Languages and Literature Reyes Fidalgo and explained to her my wife’s desire to explore her family roots in Spain. The family of my wife, Clara Potes-Fellow, heralds from Potes, Spain. When Spanish Queen Isabel the Catholic came to power and united the kingdoms of Aragon and Castille, Jews and Moors either joined the church or fled. Those that stayed behind changed their names to the Spanish town where they lived, as in the case of the Potes, or a fruit.

Reyes said she would take care of it. While groups of my students explored Berlin and Capri last weekend, we took a flight to Barcelona then to Oviedo followed by a taxi trip to Luarca, a delightful fishing town on the northern coast of Spain. There we met not only Reyes but Angel Mateos-Aparicio, who was with the Fulbright program at Cal State Fullerton in 2006.

He is now an American literature professor at the University of Castilla-La Mancha, a region about two hours south of Madrid and10 hours from Reyes’s Spanish casa. Matoes-Aparicio was our guide as we explored the ruins at Castro de Coana, which was inhabited by the Celts before the Romans arrived. There we learned how they used local slate-type rock to build their communities and curved homes. The Romans would teach them to build square houses from the rock that would be similar to what we would see in Molejon, the city where Fidaglo purchased her farm home 12 years ago.

It is a piece of work that many CSUF professors have visited. As a matter of fact, Chiara Gratton-Lavoie, CSUF lecturer in business and economics who also had been teaching in Italy, called while we were having dinner and said she would be coming to the farm house three days later.

Fidalgo is known at CSUF for her outstanding dinner parties. At Casa de Molejon, it is no different except we have dinner at midnight because the days are so long—and everywhere else in the country so hot. And there is never a shortage of Spanish fare.

It was fun to explore the 200-year-old two-story house with its huge, really huge, cellar. The gigantic beams of our very spacious upstairs bedroom were made from the trunks of nearby trees. The scene from almost every window in the house is breathtaking as farm lands dotted with cows roll out to trees signaling a forest in the distance.

Saturday morning we took an hour’s walk around the neighborhood where we were greeted by more cows than people. There are no stores or restaurants in the neighborhood. Two cars passed us on the road. Only bright yellow and white butterflies accompanied us as did Johnny, the German shepherd of Reyes’s neighbor. Along the way, Fidalgo pointed out a three-story farmhouse that was on the market. She suggested we buy it and all of us open a gourmet restaurant. It’s an inviting offer.

Unlike the weather in the rest of Spain, Molejon offers a cool climate, and we could not have been happier since temperatures in Florence reached triple digits with a heat that seems to scorch one’s bones. There’s also a calmness about Spain. It’s organized. The airports are among the most beautiful in the world.

One of Italy’s charms, if you can call it that, is that it operates in a sea of chaos--whether it is her government, transportation systems or banking. Take our flight to Barcelona from Pisa. While waiting in line for our 4 p.m. flight, Italian airport officials notified those in a line to nowhere, that weather and air traffic conditions would delay flights for three hours. They would soon add that technical problems on the runway also were to blame. It was not what anyone, especially those in the most chaotic of lines, wanted to hear.

Yes, we were happy to be in Molejon with Fidalgo. It was a pleasant respite from Florence’s heat and crowds of tourists, though down 30 percent this year. However, we also were looking forward to returning to Florence, our summer home the past six years, where we were expecting to connect with Reyes’s acting dean, Angela Della Volpe, and husband, CSUF sociology professor Ronald Hughes. It really is a small world!

The Final Experience

The final paper on an Italian director is due August 5.

The final exam is due on August 8. Answer two of the following questions:

1) Define the realist tradition in the arts and explain why it is so strong in the Italian visual arts.

2) Explain the political and economic transformation in Italy from 1870 to the end of the 19th century and the impact it had on the country's cultural identity.

3) Discuss the development of neorealism and its impact on early Itlaian film.

4) Compare and onctrast Italian cinema from the 1960s to today.

Email papers and exam to afellow@fullerton.edu

Lerici, Italy

We took a bus from La Spezia to the beach city of Lerici on Sunday. The private beaches were closed so we did what the residents do. We found a giant rock next to the gulf where we planted ourselves for most of the day, soaking up the Italian sun and swimming in the warm water. We even saw the Italian championship game in water soccer. It was our first time to Lerici, a city we hope to return in the future. However, the bus ride up and back was an experience. The bus, designed for 50 people, was jammed with about 100 or more. It was worth the trip!

Palmaria and Portovenere

While students traveled to the French Riviera and Venice this weekend, we headed to La Spezia, Italy's important port city in Liguria. On Saturday we took a boat ride to Portovenere, but the boat could not dock so we were taken to the island of Palmaria. We spent a few hours exploring the beautiful island before realizing we had to find a water taxi to get across the gulf to Portovenere, a beautiful city on the water. It is said Lord Byron spent a lot of time here. A memorial marks the spot where he started his swim from Portovenere to Cinqueterra, many miles up the coast.

San Gimignano

San Gimignano was our second stop on the July 10 field trip. San Gimignano rises above the Elsa Valley. It was once a small Etruscan village in the Hellenistic Period. To many people it represents exactly what rural Tuscany should look like. It was founded by the Etruscans and developed its famed skyline of twoers through the 12th and 13th centuries due to the rivalries of noble families. Each family would try to outdo the other families by building bigger and taller towers as a show of their wealth. Only 15 of the original 72 towers still decorate the skyline.

It was controlled by two main families--the Ardinghelli and the Savucci--and feuding was common between the two. A combination of feuding and the Black Death of the 14th century finaly caused the town to lose its power and it was taken under the wing of Florence. Today the small village relies on tourism and on the production of its own white wine, Vernaccia, to get by.

Students found that the medieval town not only boasts of medieval architecture but has the best pizza and gelato "in the world."