Tuesday-Wednesday, 18-19 november 2025, Florence and Rome

On Monday evening we had a good time with old friends, both longtime residents of Florence. They encouraged us to see the work of Fra Angelico (a monk in the early 1400s) at the Dominican convent of San Marco, so we went there on Tuesday. He painted a fresco on one wall of each of the 44 monks’ cells, giving the occupants something to meditate on. Here’s one example:

The frescoes throughout the convent are soft and warm, but also colorful, as in this Annunciation:

We liked Fra Angelico’s Last Supper a lot, and it’s much easier to see than Leonardo’s in Milan. I learned that the cat, sitting near Judas (who’s on the ~wrong side of the table), symbolizes treachery.

The San Marco complex also houses a library, which was funded by the Medicis and became a public institution.

The illuminations are stunning, as in this musical work:

On Wednesday, we took the high-speed train to Rome, and managed to get the National Museum of Rome into our afternoon. Many (many) sculptures are shown here, with good signage in English (including detail about Roman hairstyles). I’ll give you just two works that impressed me.

Here’s a second-century AD copy of a 450BC bronze. I wonder if today’s athletes study the form:

And this one blew me away, partly because it is so old and lost for so long, and partly because it’s just so real. The Boxer at Rest is a Hellenic bronze sculpture, dated to between 350 and 50 BC. It was found in a Roman excavation in 1855.

I’m not an archaeologist (duh), but I cannot imagine the thrill of finding this guy.