Submitted by Lauren Coar on the 2019 summer session program in Italy sponsored by the Department of Behavioral Health and Nutrition…
On Monday, June 10th we woke up, ate breakfast, and headed straight to Florence for a day trip. The first thing we did after having a bit of free time to explore the city was a tour of the Duomo. If I am being honest, prior to this tour I had little knowledge of the Duomo besides it’s beauty and fame so I was extra interested. First, after laying eyes on the gorgeous and huge church I learned that this Cathedral is the fourth largest in the world, and even though its colors are green, red, and white this is not meant to symbolize the Italian flag colors. In this case, white symbolizes faith, green symbolizes hope, and red symbolizes charity. I think it is so interesting that churches are not ornate just for beauty reasons, but instead to tell a story. We actually learned that this was made to accomodate the merchant and lower classes because they were unable to read, but able to understand symbols. After admiring the outside of the cathedral, we took a trip inside the baptistry which was located directly in front of the cathedral. This was placed strategically, the same way it was in Volterra, because people would become baptized and exit through the gates of paradise which lead them to the doors of the cathedral. The most fascinating part of the baptistry for me was the ceiling. It is made out of glass and is painted to tell stories. In all cases, the right side of Jesus is depicted as heaven while the left is hell. This was clearly shown in the baptistry as well as on the duomo ceiling which we were able to observe nice and close after climbing up endless steps to the top of the duomo! I found that I could not stop looking at the paintings that were supposed to be describing hell as they were pretty graphic and cruel; I could understand why it was seen as such a horrible place. I guess this was the most attention grabbing aspect to me because it is nothing I had ever encountered in the modern churches that I have visited. Though trekking up the 400+ steps to the top of the Duomo definitely required some work, the view was well worth it. This, which I am sure many would agree, was hands down one of the most eye opening experiences in my life and my favorite part of the tour. I have never seen a city from so high up before and the view was incredible. The amount of things I could see in such a far distance gave me such a perspective on the city and all of the beauty it had to offer as well as how much work was put into creating it. I did not see many older adults while we were on this tour, which makes sense because it was very physically taxing. My legs were shaking when we finally got down! The tour came to an end in the museum where we got to see many original and replicated statues and learn the history behind them. All in all, this tour impacted my outlook on the beauty and history of Florence so positively to make it my favorite city I have visited in Italy so far.
