Day 11 - Milan I

Today was our travel day and only major day of class that we had in Milan. We left Florence at 8:30ish this morning and we able to get on our train without any real problems and travel to Milan. We had a really nice train, so I was able to catch up on some of my journaling and stuff which was nice. We were all pretty tired from all our traveling and visits to museums and just everything, so some people decided to take advantage of it a little bit. Once we arrived in Milan, unfortunately, it was raining and would continue to do so throughout the day. We first went and dropped our stuff off at the hostel that we are staying at for 3 nights. 

Then we went and grabbed a quick lunch before going to Duomo di Milano or Milan Cathedral. It is the first French style gothic building that we have been able to visit, so it was quite fascinating. I really enjoy the gothic style of architecture with the pointed arches and just the way there are a lot of intricate designs that come to sharp angles and points. After we climbed as high as we could go and got pictures from the roof of it, we went inside the actual cathedral and  walked around taking pictures.

Then we walked through the mall that was there next to the cathedral. It was the first structure built with steel and glass to have a dome, which was interesting, and also the architect of it died by falling from scaffolding during construction. We found a vendor just outside the mall sell and interesting hat: Nebraska State. I’m not sure if that is just for the state, or someone made up that it is a university, but that was really funny to find in Italy.

Next we went to Sforza Castle or Castello Sforzesco. There was a nice fountain in front of it that we got to see as well. We only had the opportunity to walk through the courtyard and observe how it was all laid out. When we were walking through the courtyard we had a kind of unpleasant encounter with one of the many people trying to sell us crap, like pieces of string, and that was a funny and interesting event.

Next we made our way over to the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana museum. There they had some interesting art, but there were a few exceptionally cool things there. First was a preliminary sketch of “The School of Athens” by Rafael which was not even complete and was missing some very prominent people in the finished project. Just going up to see how big of a scale it was, it was difficult for me to even tell how things looked from as close as you would need to be to draw it. It is incredible the vision that you would have to have and how you would need to be able to see the big picture the whole time you were working on it. It was interest to notice that Rafael did not have himself in the original sketch of the painting, but then added his own head into the right side on the actual painting. The other cool things that we got to see were some drawings and notes by Leonardo da Vinci, one of my favorite people in history. We were not able to take pictures of any of the stuff in this museum, so I unfortunately won’t have any, but the sketches were exceptionally awesome. It was cool to see the ability that he had for creative dynamic thinking and inventive design. Being able to look at his notes, it was easy to see part of why he was so great. He took carful observation of nature and tried to apply it to other applications. Even without the scientific knowledge that we have today, he was able to be creative with pulleys, gears, and all sorts of mechanisms. He had many observations of birds and the ways in which they fly, the position of their wings, and many other notes about them. This was associated with him obsession with a flying machine for people to use including mechanical wings for humans. These were some of the most fascinating things for me so far.

After we were finished there, we headed back to the hostel. We went around trying to find a place to eat and had supper.  Then we went back to the hostel and relaxed the rest of the evening. I got caught up on some blogging since we now have some decent internet and we played some cards. Then we called it a night and prepared for our “free day” where most of us were planning to go to Venice.