My Cut-Rate Grand Tour: Day Twenty-four

Thursday, 29 December, 1988
From Florence to Ravenna and on to Austria

Got up to catch the 6:40 train to Ravenna. I should do so well at home.

We got above the fog for a time on the way there but plunged in again as the train approached the sea. There’s a parable there . . . the clouds can be so oppressive and all encompassing, but if one can find a way of rising higher, one can find the sun still shining there above . . . and once the sun is seen the clouds no longer matter.

Definitely cold and cloudy in Ravenna. Consulted the maps posted in the train station and blundered my way to the tourist office. There they gave me a city map of my own (in French, I discover) and I walked the short distance over to the basilica of San Vitale.

The mosaics there are definitely worth the trip even with the inevitable scaffolding. They’re all in the chancel and the apse (barring those on the floor). The clever Ravennese have installed a coin operated box where you can drop in 200 lire and so turn the spotlights on. A definite improvement over the Uffizi.

The iconography of the ensemble places its emphases on the Old Testament forerunners of Christ, like Abel and Melchezedek (the first sacerdotal figures), and Abraham with the three "angelic" visitors, and the sacrifice of Isaac. There were prophets, too, in the covered up portion, but the theme seemed to be that of the Lamb of God, slain for the sins of the world. And then in the half-dome of the apse you see Christ triumphant with angels. It’s thoroughly glorious.

I noticed something interesting in the basilica. There is a baptistery pool opposite and to one side of the apse. It has water in it and people had thrown in coins. Two Italian girls there did the same. Now, Americans do that, too, throw coins in fountains (though this was not the place for me to do so), but the French do not. So do we follow the Italian tradition in the States?

The tomb of Galla Placidia is in the same compound. There, too, you feed in coins for illumination but here I could take advantage of the presence of a group of Japanese visitors (I wonder what they thought of it all?) whose guide provided the money.

The mosaics here, too, continue the Agnus Dei theme, with the evangelists and the martyrdom of St. Laurence. The pattern work is magnificent. Keble Chapel is nothing to it.

After Galla Placidia (where I had to make myself remember there’re people buried there) I went out the gate and across to what I’m sure was a tourist trap shop for some postcards. I was after all limited on time. Bought an art guide to the Byzantine churches of Ravenna and several postcards. Going through the rack, I noticed that the Sant'Apollinare with the mosaics is the new one,† in town, not the other one in Classae.‡ Well, good thing I didn’t go out there the minute I got into town, even if it is more architecturally significant. Would have run out of time for anything else.

In my spastic Italian I clarified which Sant'Apollinare was which with the non-English speaking proprietress. She seemed to be telling me I’d better hurry, because the church closed at noon (11:45 then). As I was hurriedly getting my cameras and purse slung back over my shoulder, she raised her hands to heaven and exclaimed, "Inghlesi! Mama mia!" Hilarious!

I’m not sure what she was trying to tell me would be closed, but it wasn’t Sant'Apollinare Nuovo. The apse has the usual scaffolding but the rest of it, the nave at least, was open to be seen.

That double row of saints is amazing. All of them (except for St. Laurence, whose robe is gold) are dressed in nearly identical white garments for the men and purple and gold for the women and there are no iconographic identifications. Very considerately, then, the artist worked each saint’s name in mosaic above his or her head. On one side of the nave they carry their palms and their crowns to offer Christ in majesty and, on the other, to the Baby Jesus with the Virgin Mary. The interesting thing is that the female saints all seem to be processing out of the old church in Classae.

Above them and up to the wooden coffered ceiling is more marvellous mosaic work with scenes from the lives of Christ and the saints. I don’t care what Renaissance chauvinists say. The Byzantine artists knew exactly what they were doing.

Visited Dante’s tomb after that . . . funny, but Lukas’s* father was sure that was in Florence. As I contemplated it I noted a sight typical in this country-- a stunningly-groomed, high-class Italian woman in a blonde fur coat buzzing past on a tiny little Vespa scooter. It doesn't fit, but it does, if you know what I mean.

Then I wandered around trying to find something to eat. Odd, that in this perfectly good Italian town I couldn’t find anything that didn’t look like it came out of the vending machines at [the office building where I worked in Kansas City]. Finally located some by-the-slice pizza with some guts to it at a place near the station; bought some and a can of Italian orange soda and hustled over to retrieve my bags and catch the train for Ferrara.

Needn’t have bothered. Stupid train from Rimini was forty minutes late. The Italians are almost as efficient as the Americans where it comes to trains. Then when it came it wasn’t marked, so I had to take it on faith that it was going where I wanted.


FERRARA-- I’ll say this for the Italian railways: At least originating trains start out on time-- regardless. The train from Ferrara to Venice had pulled out ten minutes before the one from Ravenna got in, and that was that till 5:17 PM. So there.

So I used the time seeing if I could get a berth reservation for Vienna tomorrow night from Venice. No, booked full. So I asked about sleeping cars. They were full, too, and it wouldn’t’ve mattered if they hadn’t been because they run to the ghastly sum of 123,000 lire, or around $100. You have got to be kidding. Just wondering, I asked about tonight, too. Same conditions. There was 2nd class seating but they’d make no reservations for that.

Well. Damn.

Found the WC (this one had paper, unlike that in Ravenna), then had a very good cup of hot chocolate at the station bar. Then returned to the waiting room to consider the options. If I'd caught the connection I wanted I would've been in Venice by 4:00. But now, I won't get there till after 7:00.

I'll decide what I want to do when I get there.


VENICE--Was able to sit in 1st class to Venice, thank God. The train from Ferrara was only ten minutes late.

Once I got here, just in case I checked to see if anyone had cancelled their berth. No such luck. But, the man told me, I could get on the train to Vienna an hour before departure (half hour from then) and reserve myself a seat.

I needed to make a decision. Do I stay or do I go? I marched to the front door of the station and stepped outside to peer into the darkness. The fog was so thick you couldn’t even see the sidewalk, let alone the street.†† I made up my mind: If I was going to sleep sitting up all night and come into Wien exhausted, better I should do it now and have another day to recover. I know San Marco has wonderful mosaics of its own but I’d rather see them under better conditions.

So I spent the last change I had on postcards and the time till 7:35 writing them. Then I found myself a seat in a second class compartment and then, hoping nothing would happen to my luggage, went back to the station for some water at least.

In the wonderfully intricate Italian system you have to decide what you want and pay for it at the cashier’s before you approach the counter. I realized it was such a place and got my ticket, then stood at the counter for ages being ignored before I was finally served. Then they have the cheek to tell me the little plastic cup is extra and I have to pay for it at the cashier’s and come back. At that point I could’ve made a famous Italian gesture but it wouldn’t’ve been Christian and it would’ve gotten me into a lot of trouble besides. So I decided to be a barbarian like everyone else here and drink my water out of the bottle.


ON THE VENICE TO VIENNA TRAIN-- I made it back to the train, ten minutes to spare. Thing started up and it came to me to see if the vestigal 1st class car had anything unreserved, now that the lights were on and I could see.

Oh, good, there was room. I settled into one compartment with an Italian family, but moved when a couple came along and asked if I’d change to a single two compartments down and let them have the two seats where I was.

The people in the other 1st class compartment were all young Americans, with one Canadian. Like me, they were all travelling on Eurail passes. We didn’t converse but still shared a mild laugh when the Italian customs man came in at the border. Only two of us had just started to hand him our American passports, but he said in Italian, "Oh, you’re all Australian," and left. One girl hadn’t even gotten hers out yet! It was the same with the passes.

The Austrians, a few minutes later, were a little more efficient. They saw and inspected everybody’s.

Worked on the journal and listened to Beethoven, Berlioz, and Schubert till after the border crossing. I seem to have lost my Extra Fine Straight Osmiroid pen. I had it with me when I went to the WC just after I changed compartments. So someone either pinched it from the car-- or it went to the Bad Place.

Skies clear and starry in Austria. Ist gut.
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†"New" to refer to its rededication to Saint Apollinare in A.D. 856. It was originally dedicated in A.D. 504 to "Christ the Redeemer"-- if an Arian Christ can be said to be a Redeemer at all . . .
‡About four miles southeast of Ravenna.
††The fact that I couldn't see that the Santa Lucia train station in Venice fronts on a canal shows you just how blindingly foggy it was.

My Cut-Rate Grand Tour: Day Twenty-three

Wednesday, 28 December, 1988
Firenze [Florence]

Tired, so I slept till nearly 10:00. Got up, hit a pastry shop/snack bar for some breakfast (Italian pastries aren’t as good as French ones) then a bank for some Italian currency for some traveller’s cheques.

Then, since my main personal reason for coming to Firenze (apart from the external feeling that I "ought" to see it) was to do a bit of shopping, I hit the open market.

After about three hours of wandering up and down the Via dell’Ariento I came away with a brown leather belt for 15,000 lire (the man put a different buckle on for me), some four-button-length silk-lined black leather gloves for around 22,000 lire (to replace the pair I lost the left hand to in Lyon), a dark wine red leather dress purse for 35,000 lire, and a large (120 cm square) wool navy, gray, and red scarf for 27,000 lire.†

The young man who sold me that might be going to Philadelphia in the next year-- to study at Wharton. Ye gods. That’s where Mort Levi* [one of our best architecture clients back in the States] went. He’s not sure he wants to leave his friends and family, though, since he feels that if he goes to America he goes for good.

This city is funny for the language. I’ll be struggling along in Italian and the Florentine will inform me he or she speaks English-- and so they do, often better than I.

Bought some dates and some black olives in the adjacent covered market. Interesting thing about that place. I’ve seen nudie posters in machine shops and car repair garages, but I’d never thought to see a picture of an all but naked woman hung up as an inducement to buy vegetables. Maybe I’m silly but I gave such stands no consideration.

My shopping accomplished, I went over to the Duomo and went inside. Very much a tourist church, though some people were managing to pray in a side chapel or two.

Paid the fee to go up Brunelleschi’s dome. The inside of it was covered with the omnipresent scaffolding so I have no idea how it’s supposed to look from the floor of the cathedral. But you can go up to a gallery around the springing point and then on up over the dome itself (someone had chalked on the upper surface of the inner dome, in English, "BRUNELLESCHI IS GOD") then up and outside onto a deck around the cupola.

Damned shame it was so blasted foggy today. The view must be magnificent when it’s clear.

I’d gone through most of my Italian currency at the markets and I still had to pay the hotel for tonight. So I went back, paid the lady, dropped off my purchases, and got more traveller’s cheques out of the money belt. Changed those at a different bank than before. Better exchange rate at the second. Oh well! Bought a very good hot proscuitto ham and mushroom sandwich at a snack bar and ate it on the way there.

Went by Santa Maria Novello to look at the façade but didn’t go in. Headed down to the Arno to look at the river from the Ponte S. Trinita. Ponte Vecchio to the east there, all lined with shops. Went and half-crossed it as well. This place is unbelievable like Toulouse and Paris. Jewelry and fashion and other high priced shops all crammed in one after another. Who buys all this stuff?

The Piazza Signoria next. And the woman at the lecture last night was right (not the Canadian I spoke to, but another Toronto native who either works for or lives with or is married to-- or all three!-- Mr. von Durer)-- the place is dripping with scaffolding. You can just see Cellini’s Perseus standing above it in the southern arcade. Nevertheless, this was the artistic reason I’d come to Firenze. Berlioz stood here, about where I was standing, and saw that statue. He was inspired by it and by the memoirs of its sculptor to compose his opera Benevenuto Cellini. He saw all this, that I was seeing (sans scaffolding), and he gazed on these very buildings and sculptures-- oh God!

OK, then, time to go home!

No, at least one museum had to be done and I chose the Uffizi. Saw everything there (that wasn’t being cleaned). I love the way they can afford to let all these Roman copies of Greek sculptures just sit out unlabelled in a dimly-lit corridor. Hell, they’ve got more where those came from.

When I was still in the early period galleries a girl came up and asked me if I spoke English. I said yes and she said, "Are you Blogwen*-- I forget your last name." I looked and it was Melissa* from the program in Oxford. Well.

We stood and talked for awhile. She’s travelling with Lucy*, another of the OOSC people, and is heading for Greece tonight. She, too, was in Paris the 18th and saw Darrell* and Harriet* [two more of our Oxford American contingent and fellow-lodgers at Coverdale College*] at the Louvre. They were looking for the Impressionist paintings . . . †† And if I think I’ve been having problems with French, they were really in difficulties. Melissa told me they knew none at all.

It was nice to see a familiar face like that. Very encouraging.

She'd been at the Uffizi for awhile already and was getting ready to leave. Me, I still had a lot to see. And so, dutifully, I did. I know it’s blasphemy to say it but, on this trip at least, I find myself unmoved by great paintings per se. Oh, it was nice seeing all the famous art history slide subjects in person, such as the Giottos from last night and the Botticellis and then the Raphaels and the Titians. But after awhile my eyes just glaze over. I got a pounding headache from staring at things and playing the intellectual. I ought to be more heart-stirred by these but . . . I don’t know. I did enjoy them, yes, but after awhile it’s like ticking off a checklist.

There was a Visitation scene that impressed me, by Mario-- damn, now I can’t recall his name; begins with an "A," I think‡-- anyway, I liked it for the originality of the facial expressions of the two women, neither hyper-humanistic nor "unco gude." Mary looks as if she’s wordlessly saying, "Oh, cousin, it’s all too wonderful for me, I don’t know how I can express it or even bear up under it!" And Elizabeth’s expression replies, "That’s all right, little one, you don’t have to try to tell me, I know!" This Mary looks as if she has an appreciation of the long centuries of Jewish prophecy leading up to this moment that now find their fulfillment through her. She has a happy lack of that sense of being herself the pivot of history so obnoxiously present in so many pictures of the Virgin Mary. I’ll admit the effect was more 19th Century Romantic than 16th Century classical Renaissance, but that’s the Renaissance’s problem.

I still can't get over how badly-lit the art is in that place. What with that, sensory overload, and maybe my feat of Alpinism earlier at the Duomo, by the time I left the Uffizi I had a raging headache. I’d thought I’d find a restaurant and sit down for a meal, but no way. I bought some cheese at a shop and ate it for supper with the olives and dates and more of a chocolate bar I bought in Dijon.
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†As far as I can figure it, the exchange rate was around 1,230 lire to the dollar.
‡Mariotto Albertinelli.
††Oh, dear. Those had all been moved to the Quai d'Orsay.

Kirk von Durer, Art Historian: A Memorial

These past few years I've come to notice that just about anybody and anything can be found on the Internet. Conversely, it now seems that if something or somebody can't be found on the Web, it's as if they've never existed at all.

In my post of March 8th, I reproduce a travel journal entry of late December 1988, wherein I write of being in Florence, Italy, and going to a lecture on early Renaissance art given by an American art historian and gallery owner named Kirk von Durer. I had thought it would be nice to link to something about him. But when I Googled his name, nothing came up other than a reference to a poster on his lectures tipped into a book on art in the Uffizi that some dealer has for sale.

True, I hadn't expected anything current. Maybe six or seven years ago I was reading that entry in my handwritten journal and did a Web search for Mr. von Durer. But I came up with only a remembrance written by a friend of his: he had died suddenly, of cancer or some other disease, in the early or mid-1990s.

But by now, even that webpage has disappeared.

So in my small way on my small blog, I'm going to perpetuate the memory and existence of a unique person.

I know of Kirk von Durer little more than I put in my last entry. He was an American national resident in Florence for I don't know how long. Certainly long enough to become an institution. He was thoroughly trained in the history and aesthetics of Italian Renaissance art. He pitched his lectures to the interested amateur, using humor and liveliness as his vehicle, so that, when the visitor stood in front of the actual work of art the next day, she would know and appreciate what she was looking at.

Kirk von Durer loved his subject and he loved to communicate on it. Constantly, in the best sense of the term-- with constancy. His effort and energy were astounding. As I recall, he gave his lectures on Italian Renaissance art every single night at 8:30 PM. Maybe not on weekends, but even so, every single weekday night any interested English-speaking visitor could climb the stairs to his flat at the top of No. 20 Borgo San Lorenzo and for little or no charge could drink his Chianti, admire his view of the Duomo, and partake of his slides and his knowledge.

Kirk von Durer was a fixture in Florence in the late 1980s, and could have been for many more years, had he been spared to us. I doubt he could have been older than his late 40s when I met him; I certainly was shocked when I read that he'd died.

I haven't returned to Florence these past twenty years, but if in the future I do, it will be odd knowing that Mr. von Durer is not still there giving his witty and informative lectures.

Though maybe, like so many other things that linger in the atmosphere of that ancient and storied city, in some ghostly way he still is, and he still does.

Kirk von Durer, requiescat in pacem. And if any others who knew you or your work should come across this inadequate memorial, I urge them to post their own fuller, more accurate accounts, and keep your name alive in cyberspace. Because these days, that seems to be the place it really matters.

My Cut-Rate Grand Tour: Day Twenty-Two

Tuesday, 27 December, 1988
Löhenthal* to Firenze [Florence]

10:36 train from Olten. Frau Renzberger* packed me a nice lunch and Lukas* took me to the station. He was gracious enough to wait with me till the train came but it seemed a real strain for both of us. I’ve been trying to figure out what I could’ve done to make him act like this and can come up with zip. But something’s happened to make him act like a вопреки and it’s really too bad. I need to make some good friends at Coverdale* this next term and I’d thought he’d be one. But apparently not. I’d thought we’d get to know one another better on this visit, but now he seems like a permanent stranger.

This was so frustrating and depressing I could’ve cried right there in the compartment. But instead I wrote a long letter to Janie*. Had cause in the course of it to think about Nigel* and that made me feel a lot better.

The Alps were quite lovely. Sun came out and showed them up beautifully. And I enjoyed looking at the little Tuscan churches in the Italian part of Switzerland.

Funny thing at the border crossing. Italian customs man came in and asked the guy opposite me a question in Italian. He answered, and then the official addressed me. Out of habit I said, "Pardon?" in French. At which the customs man rolled his eyes, lifted his hands towards heaven, and departed, without asking for passports or anything.

Train change in Milan. Found a first class compartment this time. Second is supposed to be so much more atmospheric and authentic; I just found it tiring. Seats are too shallow.

Hit the closest Frommer selection for places to stay in Florence. Unfortunately the city was pretty thick with students on holiday, like me, and I ended up renting a double room for around $24 a night. Couldn’t deal with schlepping bags any farther. So the Locanda Marcella it was.

In the Frommer book I’d read of a nightly lecture on Renaissance art given by a American art historian in Florence. It’s being on for this evening was confirmed by a poster in the railroad station, so as soon as I’d dropped my bags in the room on the Via Faenza, I headed over to the Borgo San Lorenzo.

Paid my respects to the Duomo first-- what I could see of it in the fog.

Streets of Florence are frequently narrow, darkish (yet people are on them anyway), and have very narrow sidewalks. The pavement is blocks of stone, cut rectangular maybe 12" x 15", and laid diagonally. Sidewalks usually have cars parked halfway on them, making it quite a game to walk along, what with the cars coming, and especially with the motorscooters whizzing by.

Quite a few people around the cathedral (at 8:00 PM) but still I didn’t feel comfortable going around back of the chevet. Too dark.

The Borgo San Lorenzo was lined with black men, apparently North African, selling belts, jewelry, and other souvenirs off mats and blankets spread out on the pavement. I wondered that they don’t worry about the motorcyclists coming along and destroying their goods.

There were also a lot of different languages to be heard there, including American English. Seemed quite odd, after France.

Waited for 8:30 and time for the lecture. It’s at the top of the house at No. 20 and given by a Kirk von Durer, who also runs a gallery at that address.

It was worthwhile going, more from a social than from an art historical standpoint. There was Chianti on the deck (view of Duomo) beforehand and I talked with a couple from Toronto, also students on Christmas break, about travels in France (she’s a student in Grenoble) and other things . . .

They mentioned it and I’ve become conscious of it, too, that my accent (English) has changed and become less "American." I honestly think that has intensified since last weekend with Lukas’s family. I knew they'd learned British English so I felt I should modify my speech with them so I could be understood (Lukas told me that at Coverdale he could understand me almost all the time and ditto Sam* [another compatriot in our year abroad program], despite his broad Oklahoma accent, because he speaks so slowly. It’s Darla* he could never make out. This surprised me as she seemed the most cosmopolitan of any of us. And now I can’t listen to her and discover what he means, because she’s returned to America).

In style the lecture, which was on the late Gothic/early Renaissance Florentine and Siennese painters, such as Massaccio and Giotto, was kin to Ed Eglinski’s Art History for Non-Art Majors at KU, but with even more of the stand-up comedy. I felt von Durer could have done with rather more content but I’m coming from an art historian’s viewpoint.

Not that I didn’t appreciate the humor; I did. When showing Giotto’s painting of the Stigmatization of St. Francis, he quipped, "For living such a holy life, St. Francis received the same wound marks that Christ had on the cross. Wouldn’t you rather have a Ferrari!?" "Well," think I, "only if Tom Selleck is driving it!"

The greatest thing I got out of it substantially was a realization first of how Italy was ripe for the Renaissance style, its Gothic being largely held-over Byzantine, and then of where many of the trademarks of the "Pre-Raphaelite" movement style came from. For here were the original preRaphaelites whose work inspired it.

The lecture got out at about 10:45 and I thought, I’ve heard this town is not too big on nightlife and no telling what the streets are like this time of night. So let us get back to the hotel presto.

So I set off walking very fast in what I thought was the right direction. But after awhile I realized that I’d walked for much longer than I had coming over and was nowhere that I recognised. I was using the map torn out of the Frommer book and couldn’t find the street I was on listed. And up ahead was a group of young guys who may’ve been perfectly innocent but I wasn’t taking any chances.

So I cut over to the right (after backtracking at a run) and came to a street called after St. Catherine d’Alessandria. Started heading up it, trying to get to the Via Nazionale, but decided maybe I should ask the desk clerk in a nearby hotel for his advice.

I ducked into the lobby and inquired where I was in my limited Italian: "Dove io sono?" He said something obviously contemptuous about the map I had and pulled out a better one. Turns out I hadn’t taken the radial layout of Florentine streets into consideration and was an appreciable distance away from where I wanted to be. He gave me to know I could keep the map-- grazie-- and I hoofed it back to the hotel, allowing the effect of two glasses of wine on no dinner to deceive me into thinking I could do that much running. Made it back safely but the experience was a little surreal.