Field Trip to Pienza

Once upon a time, there was a little boy named Enea Silvio Piccolomini. He was born in 1405 in Corsignano, Italy and was the eldest of eighteen children. His family was impoverished and needed to help out. He went away to school and studied at the universities of Sienna and Florence. He later became a priest and cardinal and was elected Pope in 1458. He became Pope Pius II. Pope Pius II loved his family and wanted to make the place where he grew up beautiful forever. To give back to his family, he created the city of Pienza (Pius). He demolished his family house, and built a palace, a church, and belltowers. Today Pienza is one of the only functioning cities that was designed in the middle ages and still has original architecture and building structure. Note: Pope Pius II cannonized St. Catherine of Sienna!!! Too bad she wasn't St. Katherine..Anyway, My Italian Renaissance Architecture class took a fieldtrip to Pienza. We went inside the palace and the church. The palace housed Piccolomini descendents for over 400 years, up until the 1960's and still has a lot of original architecture, furniture, and artifacts.

The top two pictures are the papal church and the bottom is the facade of the palace. The exterior is nothing impressing, Pius didn't want it to be too extravagant, all about being humble. The inside, however was gorgeous, but of course we weren't allowed to take pictures....The town probably has a population of less than 300. It is located in the Sienna region of Tuscany and has a 360 degree view of rolling hills and fields of sunflowers. The 2.5 hour drive to get there was gorgeous. I would definitely want to retire there..

More amazing solo pictures of me.. totally not tacky.

Of course there were storybook windows with little flower boxes on every building.
A good place for thinking as you can see by Devon's pondering pose.

A fairytale view.

These buildings have character, notice the dilapidation.
Some people would call these outdated and decrepit, others would say they are charming.

Naturally we got gelato. I got carameldeliciousness.

This is my homework for my Michelangelo, Carvaggio, and Bernini class. I had to recreate a Michelangelo work with friends and photograph it. This is one of his frescoes located in the Sistine Chapel. It is a 1509 representation of David and Goliath. I am David and my roommate Lindsay is Goliath... I am decapitating her with a baguette... it was a little stale so it could be a sword. Now I get to write a 3 page paper... yay me! It's not exactly like the painting, but hopefully my amazing writing skills can make up for it...