this week in the odyssey
4.19.99 -- 4.26.99
rome, italy

Renaissance Woman

Journey with us northward to the Tuscan heartland, back to that storied flowering of culture, ideas, and arts that took place in the 14th through 16th centuries -- the Renaissance. No city is more associated with the Renaissance than Florence. No art historian can rassle better than Kristanne. It was time for the two of them to meet. Cage match time. No quarters asked, none given. Kristanne vs. the Renaissance!

On the face of it, it seems like a pretty even match-up. Sure, the Renaissance has the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Michelangelo, Donatello, Raphael, and Leonardo), but Kristanne knows how to tap dance. Yes, the Renaissance has a lot of really cool old buildings with evocative names like "Ponte Vecchio" and "Duomo," but Kristanne not only knows how to pronounce names like "Ponte Vecchio" and "Duomo", she also knows how to translate them into English where they don't sound quite so evocative ("Old Bridge" and "Cathedral"). And, finally, while the Renaissance can become quite wearisome with its implicit message that human progress was completely stagnant at any time in history other than the Renaissance, Kristanne can get quite cranky when she's weary. Cranky art historians, as everyone knows, are more dangerous than Miss Money Money with a credit card in the Prada Milano shop. Stone Cold Kristanne bodyslams the Renaissance's sorry butt into oblivion!

As the more skeptical of those of you out there have probably already deduced, having an Art Historian for a wife is not all World Wrestling Federation-style thrills and adventure. It does, however, take stamina, particularly when you've landed in a town as rich with cultural treasures as Florence. Kristanne actually went to Florence on Tuesday with her entire program, leaving me behind in Rome to concentrate on getting some real work done (and yes, thank you, I have learned how to play the guitar solo from "Purple Haze" with my teeth now). I came up on Friday, eager to learn some of the things I'd been missing out on during the last three days.

Silly man. I had no idea what I was getting into. I met Kristanne at about noon. She was foaming slightly at the mouth, but having not seen her for three days I thought nothing of it. I have to admit that my eyebrows did go up just a tad when she began speaking in tongues to the pizza vendor who sold us lunch, but this in itself is not totally out of the ordinary for Kristanne either. I guess it was when she began boxing me about the ears with the Michelin Guide to Italy that I began to realize that something was up. That something, as I soon found out, was the Art History version of the Long March.

We started out with a forced sprint up the 464 stairs to the top of the Duomo's dome, but were soon off to the Baptistry to goggle-eye the Gates of Paradise. That absorbed, we hotfooted it through the churches of San Marco, San Lorenzo, and Santa Maria Novella. There was some Giotto (there's always some Giotto) and Michelangelo going on, and I'm pretty sure I glimpsed a Caravaggio through the sweat pooling up in my eyes, but I can't be sure. I am sure that you have to cross the Ponte Vecchio before you can attempt an assault on the mountain where San Miniato al Monte is situated. That's San Miniato at right, with Kristanne giving me a little remedial work for not "toeing the line," as she likes to put it. You can see her pointing at the building and saying to me emphatically, "Now, Sid, this is a church. C-h-u-r-c-h. Now, you say it. And don't give me any Lippi."

That, by the way, was a carefully crafted and cunningly deployed Art History Pun on the name of noted Renaissance artist Filippo Lippi. Feel the burn, baby.

After hurtling pell-mell back down the mountain to Palazzo Vecchio and the Ospedale d'Innocenti, Kristanne was finally satisfied enough in my performance to relent for the evening. We quickly repaired to a pleasant cafe overlooking the Piazza della Signoria so that I could fall asleep with my nose in my beer and Kristanne could openly mock tourists. She'd had kind of a rough day.

Thanks to our slightly torturous pace on Friday, Saturday promised to be more restful. After a brief 90 minute wait in line, we started out our day with Kristanne taking some of the sculptures in the Uffizi art museum through a low impact aerobics session. Just enough to break a sweat really, working out the kinks from our time in line. The Uffizi, though time-consuming to get into, was an incredible experience. Each room held a new masterpiece to marvel at, works known to me previously only in textbooks. Slightly marring the experience was the glass the the Uffizi has had to install over the more famous paintings to protect them from vandals. Unfortunately, the glass is so thick that it distorts the colors of the paintings, darkening them significantly. The glare off the glass also makes it difficult to see the paintings as a whole, forcing you to shift your perspective continually to see different portions of the work.

Of course, it's hard to complain too much when you're at the Uffizi, particularly when you're explicity forbidden to do so by your Art Historian wife. After a few disciplinary push-ups outside the Uffizi, Kristanne marched me off to Santa Croce to see some more Giotto. This was her big mistake. Her achilles heel was within my grasp. You see, there among the tombs of more famous dead Italians (Enrico Fermi, Galileo, Dante, and Leonardo da Vinci, to name a few) than you can shake a stick at (three, if you're wondering, is the maximum number of dead Italians at which you can shake sticks) was the tomb of Machiavelli. Yes, Machiavelli, the man for whom power was everything. The master manipulator who fully believed that the ends always justify the means. So, in tribute to the old statesman, I put on my best Machiavelli face and decided to face down my oppressor.

Well, "face down" might actually be a bit of an exaggeration. What I really did was start to whisper subliminal suggestions while she was staring at some fresco or frieze or something.

"Gelllllaaaatttooooo. Passsstaaaaaaa. Vinnnnnooooooo rossssssooooo.

This was sort of working, but it was clear I had to break out the big guns.

"Nuuuuuteeeeellllaaaa"

That did the trick. In a trice (more than a dice but less than a fourice), we were out of Santa Croce and into the nearest romantic, candlelit Tuscan restaurant we could find.

And, oh, what a restaurant! We didn't have reservations, but we managed to squeeze into a warm little table near the corner of the room. Soon, the first of our four courses was on the way -- a traditional mixed Tuscan antipasto with prosciutto, warmed pate' on crostini, olives, and salame. Yummy. We were starting to feel human again, and the red wine was delicious. Then the primi piatti -- we both had a penne pasta with calamari and a light olive oil sauce. Delicately prepared and eminently satisfying, it left us satisfied but wanting more. A secondi piatti, please. More wine please. The menu again, please. More wine please. The menu again, please. A side of beef, please. Yes, do send out for it, if you must.

Four hours later, we managed to swallow down the last of Kristanne's gelato and my caffe' macchiato. It was not quite as easy to squeeze back out of that warm little corner table as it had been to get in, but we managed, troopers that we are. We definitely felt like real Italians, having been able to eat an entire traditional Italian four-course dinner in one sitting. Sure, it took a team of oxen to drag our swollen carcasses back to our hotel, but we did it. Woo hoo!

Being such a sophisticated town, Florence isn't really Mr. Scucherini's bag. Still, he's willing to make a road trip every once in a while, particularly if it means opportunities to groove with some new ladies. Mr. Scucherini was positively delighted to see that bimbos in Florence were forced to identify themselves with distinctive "Bimbo On Board" bumper stickers. If they'd had these back in high school, Mr. Scucherini would have never struck out.

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