Procrastination

So a half hour before the stated due date, I'm posting my homework. My room mate has graciously allowed me to borrow her internet.

Anyway. Some last observations regarding my first week and a half in Florence.
  Living here for me has not been a very hard adjustment yet. Maybe it will gett more difficult later, idk. I find that it is difficult to find a quiet space for reflection or peace. A space that I did find that I liked very much and was the church and the cemetery at San Miniato al Monte. I have posted pictures and a sketch above, but I wanna write more about it because I like it. I spent some time in the church writing down my observations and I got lost in the cemetery.
First, there was one smaller church which was very plainly decorated. Very mediaeval looking. I liked it very much. It was very peaceful. From there I traveled farther up the hill and found a larger, more decorated church, also a mediaeval building. As I entered I immediately noticed that there were mostly intact frescoes on the walls (depicting saints, the Crucifixion, and the Virgin Mary) and that the ceiling was wood, rather than stone vaults, which was common in mediaeval Italian architecture. Both the inside and the north facade are decorated with a geometric pattern using green and white stone. The facade also incorporated a mosaic towards the top. This is also often seen in Italian gothic architecture because it is a better climate for mosaics (I think? Trying to remember what I learned in art history last year). I also noticed that the vaulted ceilings were decorated in  a geometric pattern with abstract floral and animal designs. I noticed that the right hand aisle ceiling was plain and lacked the decoration of the other vaults.
There is a little chapel to the right, probably dedicated to a specific saint. There is an alter in front of the raised choir which is surrounded by a small arched structure to house the alter. It has a honeycomb pattern of raised stonework on the underside of the vault (barrel vault?) with little rosettes in each box. There are two small statues of eagles on the top of the arch. I noticed that the image of an eagle was used frequently in the decoration of the church.
I proceded under the raised choir to the crypt, which I noticed had gothic additions (vaults and a gothic screen in front of another alter). The vaults had frescoes of saints on them. I think that this was a gothic addition to the romanesque structure of the church because there were large stone pillars which supported the building, with the vaults (plaster covered stone?) built around them.
  When I entered the main part of the building I recognized it as an originally romanesque structure because of the wooden ceiling and the small roman style arched windows.
   When I got to the raised choir, I noticed another altar to the back of the choir. There are gothic style pews in the choir (original? they smelled really old). To the right of the choir, there is another, larger chapel, which was probably another later addition. There are gorgeous frescoes inside with more gothic style pews and a gothic arched window with stained glass.
   It was at this point that the chapel became overrun with French tourists and I had to leave.
My conclusions were that the church was originally constructed as a romanesque building and added unto in later times, probably with little additions over the course of many years. The different parts of the church blend well together because the different designers of the church used the same motifs and decoration in designing the additions. I like how the romanesque ceiling was preserved. I think that it is more common to see the wood ceilings preserved in Italy because designers held unto the more Roman traditions in building (basilican style buildings, Roman arches and the wood ceilings). The abstract animal and floral design of the ceiling also reminded me of the preserved romanesque ceiling of Peterborough Cathedral in England which also retains the romanesque wooden ceiling, while blending romanesque and gothic features on other parts of the church.

SO. After my little art history diversion, I have to write a reaction to the assigned reading (The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism). I have mixed feelings about the reading. While I think that it is a great thing to move forward and create totally new ideas based on our reactions to the present, it is an equally good thing to respect and learn from the past. Without knowledge of the past, we can't learn from our mistakes and failures and we can't build on new ideas. I understand that Futurism was a reaction to the passive study and imitation of the old and the traditional, but that does not mean that it is worthless. I think that focusing on contemporary problems using new ways of thinking while also understanding the perspectives of the past is probably the most open minded and effective way of solving a problem.
How did people before me solve problems? How/why did they fail? What can I do in this contemporary context to build off the discoveries of others? I think that these are very valid questions which the author of the reading seems to disregard because they involve the study and understanding of the past. Also I felt that the reading had strong nationalist undertones. While being proud of your country and heritage is great, I think that through past failings, we can see that too much can be a very dangerous thing (take Germany a couple years after this was written).
  So basically my feeling is that building of older ideas and understanding them, not passively imitating is a productive way to solve problems. Progress for pregress' sake is not necessarily good or productive. A respect and understanding of the past and also using completely new and radical ideas to solve contemporary problems, I think, is the best way to go about problem solving.

That was my little rant.

Anyway. Awesome week and a half in Firenze so far. More stuff to come.