EASTER IN FLORENCE - WITH A BANG, NOT A WHIMPER!

If you are in Florence for Easter this year, then you must be in the cathedral square at about 10am today, Easter Sunday, for the EXPLOSION OF THE CART (Scoppio del Carro), which will take place at 11am.

This is a tradition that has been going on for centuries. Pazzino de’ Pazzi  was one of 2,500 Florentines who ventured to the Holy Land in the late eleventh century, and was the first over the walls of Jerusalem where he planted the crusader flag. 

He was rewarded for his bravery in the form of a gift of three flints from the Holy Sepulchre, given to him by the leader of the crusade Goffreid, the Duke of Bullion (located in modern day France).

In 1101 he returned to Florence, and, from then on, three flints were used ceremoniously every year to light the domestic fire in every citizen's household on Easter Sunday, symbolising new life and the hope of future resurrection.

The flints were carried from house to house on a cart which, over time, became more and more decorated. The cart was taken to the cathedral to light the paschal candle, as well as the candles in the other churches. The cart was then piled high with fireworks and set off in the cathedral square to add drama and excitement to the celebration.

During the year, the flints were jealously guarded in the Pazzi family palace until they unsuccessfully conspired to kill the leaders of the Medici family in 1478 and take over the city. The family exiled, the flints were taken for safekeeping to the church of Santa Maria sopra Porta and, when this was suppressed, they were moved, in 1785, to the Santi Apostoli church where they are today. 

The Medici, always one step ahead of the rest and extremely avant-garde, introduced a new spectacle to the celebration at the beginning of the 1500’s - the rocket dove! 

Inside the cathedral after the mass, the archbishop, using the sacred fire that had been lit by the Holy Sepulchre flints, also lit the rocket dove (with a laurel branch in its mouth) which was attached to an iron cord. 

The rocket bird would shoot off, out through the cathedral and straight into the cart, igniting the fireworks! The dove would then do an about turn and shoot back into the cathedral! If successful, there would be a bountiful harvest the following season.

If you get to the front of the cathedral early enough for a good view of the door, you can see the dove shoot out to ignite the fireworks!

   

You can choose where to start your Easter festivities... either start at the Santi Apostoli church and accompany the flints to the cathedral or start at the Porta al Prato, where the cart is kept and, along with the procession, walk the cart into the main religious square. The cart is pulled by some beautifully adorned white bulls. It is nicknamed the Brindellone (the big awkward clumsy thing!) by the Florentines due to its size and how it wobbles and rambles through the city streets to its destination. 

Happy Easter and may you have an explosive weekend!

THE SWEET SMELL OF THE BAPTISED BEAN AT THE BOBOLI GARDENS



Jean Baptiste Charpentier
La tasse du chocolat, 1768



Kaffeehaus, 1774-74,
Zenobio del Rosso (architect)
commissioned by
Grand duke Pietro Leopoldo II
of the Hapsburg-Lorraine family

Now that the weather is getting nicer a visit to the Boboli gardens would be a lovely way to spend an afternoon or morning. The Boboli gardens were, for the most part constructed by the Medici family and they were their representative, functional and recreational gardens. They were one of the first landscaped gardens since antiquity. The Medici would hold important family celebrations here, perform plays and spectacles in the outdoor theatre, go hunting, as well as grow plants and vegetables, harvest a trout farm and create ice caves. Each ruling Medici made a significant change or enlargement to the palace and the gardens from the time they bought the land in 1549 until the last Medici Grand duke who died in 1737. The Duke of Lorraine and his wife Marie-Theresa of the Hapsburg family (the future Holy Roman Emperor and Empress), took over the Duchy of Tuscany after the Medici and they came to live in the Pitti palace. From here, as the Medici’s had done, they ruled Tuscany and held court, until the unification of the nation in 1861 (this year celebrates the 150^th anniversary of the Italian federation) and they too made significant contributions to the estate. Grand duke Pietro Leopold of the Hapsburg family (Grand duke from 1765-90, the second of four Lorraine-Hapsburgs who ruled Tuscany)  built one of my favourite sites in the Boboli gardens, the Kaffeehaus (1770’s) commissioned to the architect Zenobi del Rosso. A wonderfully civilised structure in the gardens where guests and the family could stop and have tea, coffee and hot chocolate. All that carriage riding and strolling in the gardens can bring on a parched feeling and the Kaffeehaus comes to the rescue! The lovely pale pastel green of the exterior was the colour of the Duchy of  Lorraine (this colour can also be seen on the walls of the Uffizi staircase up to the top floor), restored and repainted in the 1990’s. The Kaffeehaus looks beautiful, nestled amongst the greenery, seen from the other side of the river on the top floor of the Uffizi gallery, or indeed when actually strolling in the Boboli gardens. The Kaffeehaus is built in the Rococo style, the fashionable style of the mid eighteenth century (succeeding the Baroque, it was an aristocratic decorative style characterised by a sense of weightlessness in  architecture, light colours, associated with folly, pleasure and entertainment), with hints of Eastern touches, such as the bulb dome, as was in vogue in Vienna (the Hapsburg main centre). It is akin to the pleasure houses in the gardens of Versailles. The structure nowadays unfortunately is an empty shell (it was also beautifully frescoed on the interior with pastoral and illusionistic scenes), as plans to open it once more as a coffee shop were halted due to doubts regarding its structural condition.
In the eighteenth century drinking coffee and hot chocolate was something reserved for the elite echelons of society. It was expensive and a status symbol. Chocolate had entered Europe with the discover of the Americas in the fifteenth century and coffee was thought to have first come to the continent through Venice around the time of Marco Polo in the thirteenth century. Coffee had been drunk for centuries by the Muslim world, as early as the eighth century, but it only began to be something that was drunk by a growing number of people in Europe during the 1500’s. Still associated with the Muslim world however, it brought some feelings of unease amongst the clergy who viewed it as the devil’s drink. The legend is that in 1600, when complaining to the pope that he should ban it, Clement VIII demanded that he himself should try it first. Taking an instant liking to the delicious and exotic bean, he decided to baptise it, so that it could become a welcome member of the church and be freely drunk at leisure!



aerial view of the Pitti Palace & the Boboli gardens
the Kaffeehaus building & terraced gardens in front to the left.



Holy Cow! The Bistecca alla Fiorentina



Three men who are extremely happy with the individual portions of
bistecca alla fiorentina, 750grams a head. Peace will reign at the table  as there will be no arguing over who gets the bone! 



The ancient Chianina breed,
documented from Antiquity
by Pliny the Elder who
associated it with the Etruscans.

I am a carnivore, yet another reason why I feel at home in Tuscany because here, they eat every part of the cow.  A trip to the local fresh food markets will certainly back this up! (see also Florentine Street Food blog). At the markets you can see every part of the inside and the outside of the bovine and poultry families. The hearts, intestines, pig's trotters and the offal are not bought for the Italian’s domestic animals, but for their domestic tables. A famous restaurant in Florence is called Cibreo, which means the cock’s crest, which is one of the establishment’s dishes on the menu. But one of the region’s specialties is the bistecca alla fiorentina. This can be simply translated as the T-bone steak in English, but it is the quality of the meat and the way it is cooked that differs from all other places. It is grilled, served  rare, and the cut is about two fingers think. It is drizzled with good local Tuscan olive oil and sprinkled with salt. The most common side dish to order with it is white fava beans, but salad is another good option. The breed of cow from which the succulent Tuscan T-bone is taken, is called the Chianina, a quite precious white cow which is usually kept in individual stalls in the farm. It is a very old breed, mentioned by Pliny the Elder (23A.D-79A.D, Roman author and naturalist) and found in Tuscany, Umbria and the le Marche regions. The Tuscans were devastated and outraged when eating beef on the bone was outlawed by the government during the outbreak of the mad cow disease and even had a funeral for the bistecca (in typical Italian melodramatic spirit). They unabashedly rejoiced when the prohibition was lifted. It is generally quite pricy and the cost is determined by the weight. The menus will have the price per 100 grams (in Italian 100 grams is called 1 etto) and the size depends on what size cuts they have in the kitchen. The weight includes the bone. It is often advisable to order the bistecca for two people as cuts often start at 700-800 grams and continue to well over a kilo. The average price per 100 grams in the centre of Florence ranges from 4-5euros. Good Tuscan local wine, such as a Chianti, is the perfect accompaniment and it is absolutely permissible to suck the bone afterwards! Crostini toscani is a good starter (bread served with chicken liver pate) and some good grappa to aid digestion rounding off the meal is a good way to end.

A favourite place of mine to eat the bistecca in Florence is the 'La Casalinga' in via dei Michelozzi, near piazza Santo Spirito. Most restaurants serving Florentine cuisine will offer it, such as ‘Sostanza’ (nicknamed, La Troia), ‘Osteria di Giovanni’ and  ‘Trattoria Mario’ (open only at lunchtime), to name a few....

Being called the pits is no longer something to be worried about!

The wheels of cheese in their cloth bags
placed in the pit in August.




The pit lined with reeds & hay
3-4metres deep.

What is so wonderful about Italy is the sheer diversity from one region to another, often even from one town to another within the same region. I love so many of the twenty Italian regions that make up the nation, however I have a particular soft spot for Romagna in the region of Emilia-Romagna, situated north-east of Tuscany on the Adriatic coast. The main cities in Romagna are Rimini, Ravenna, Cesena, Forlì and Imola and there are numerous fantastic little towns and villages nestled in the regions hills. During the Renaissance, alot of the land was, for the most part, ruled by the Pope as part of his temporal domain. 

Here, bread is replaced with the piadina (a flat type of bread that resembles Indian naan or thin Greek pitta bread), the typical pasta is the strozzapreti (stangled priests) and in certain places they bury their cheese in pits for the last three months of the maturation process! 

This type of cheese (from sheep or cow milk or a mix of both) is called formaggio di fossa (cheese from the pit). It is documented to have been matured like this from the fifteenth century and is typical of Sogliano al Rubicone, a hill-top village not too far from Rimini. It is also practised in some places in region of the Marches and in Umbria. 

In August, after the cheese has matured in the open for 2-3 months, the farmers wrap the cheese wheels in white cloth with their names written on the exterior and then place them in pits, about 3-4 metres deep and shaped like a fiasco (the traditional bottle shape of chianti wine), that have been dug out from the tufa stone mountain wall. The pit is then covered and securely sealed with a wooden lid and plaster to be opened three months later. 

Traditionally, this was a way to hide the cheese (their food for the coming winter months) from  plundering bandits and armies. Every year the pits were cleaned by burning straw and twigs and then  lining them with reeds and hay, placing a rack at the bottom so that the cloth bags avoid contact with the whey drippings. 

In Sogliano al Rubicone the pits were, and still are, ceremoniously opened on Saint Catherine’s day (25th November). The cheese has a smell of undergrowth, moss, truffles and wood. So, if you are travelling in Italy during November, do some modern day plundering and do not miss the Formaggio di Fossa sagra (village festival) of Sogliano sul Rubicone held on the weekend of the 25th. Let your nose lead you to the picturesque high hilltop town where you can feast on wonderful pit cheese in an array of dishes, or simply on its own with some good local sangiovese red wine.

A native of Sogliano sul Rubicone proudly explaining the process to me.
The foto taken above of the pit is just next to his feet.

Grand Duke Cosimo II de Medici





Bust of Grand Duke Cosimo II inside
the Medici coat of arms, on the new grain
market built during his reign on the corner
of via dei Neri & via de Castellani

  


The front page of Galileo's treatise
Sidereus Nuncius 1610
dedicated to Cosimo II



Porphyry bust of Cosimo II,
Pitti Palace

The other day a mate of mine sent me a photo of a stone bust of Cosimo II de Medici that he saw on the facade of a palace and asked me who it was, and so I thought that this often overlooked Medici grand duke could be the subject of this week’s blog entry. It is often very frustrating that written indication isn’t engraved somewhere on the stone or marble of portrait busts dotted around the city, or are too difficult to read, thus obscuring any further understanding of the rich Florentine heritage. Cosimo II is another favourite Medici of mine, he didn’t rule for very long (1609-21) being of weak constitution, but he shared characteristics of so many of the great Medici men; he was very intelligent, a great patron of the arts and aesthetically, quite a peculiar looking human being. He and his wife, Maria Maddalena of Austria, created a flourishing intellectual activity at the court at the Pitti Palace (the Ducal palace) with Michangelo Buonarroti the Younger (to distinguish him from his great uncle, the great Michelangelo Buonarroti, artist from the previous century) as the court poet, and Galileo as the court mathematician and  philosopher. They invited many talented non-Florentine artists to the court, such as Justus Sustermans from Flanders (court painter to the Medici family for close to forty years) and Artemesia Gentileschi from Rome (the first female member of the Florentine Accademy of Fine Arts), enriching the domestic artistic ambience. Galileo who had been Cosimo II's tutor 1605-08 was working at Padua Universtiy when he published his recent discoveries concerning the skies. Desiring to return to Florence, he dedicated his treatise Sidereus Nuncius in 1610 to Cosimo II consequently securing him the court position. In this treatise he expounded his recent discoveries concerning phases of the moon, the existance of the Milky Way and the four satellites stars orbiting around Jupiter. He called these the Medicean stars (they have been renamed the Galilean Moons). Cosimo II was the father of Leopold (see blog entry 'Never judge a book...) and succeded by his eldest son Ferdinando II who, like his father, also commissioned expert artists for work on the ducal palace, such as the Baroque master, Pietro da Cortona for the decoration of the reception rooms and Bolognese experts in trompe l'oeil technique for the summer appartments....subject for another entry.





Judith slaying Holofornes, Artemesia Gentileschi, Uffizi gallery.
Painted during her Florentine period under the protection of Cosimo II & Maria Maddalena

  

FRITTERS FOR FATHERS!

Saint Joseph day fritters,
called frittelle in Tuscany

Adoration of the Shepherds, 1485
Domenico Ghirlandaio

Fathers day is celebrated this Saturday on Saint Joseph’s day. Lent, the time of abstinence, couldn’t possibly mean that the Italians truly refrain from eating their delightful goodies for such a long period of time, no way! In the land of exceptions to the rule, there is of course the day given over to tasty frittelle or fritters, an indulgence eaten  to celebrate the faithful guardian to the Holy Mary.

Joseph, most often relegated to the background in the family shots, is shown here in Ghirlandaio’s wonderful Adoration of the Shepherds a little despairingly, as he is worrying about where they will be next, which will determine what type of fritters they will be eating this Saturday! Because of course the recipe changes depending on the region, and they can be either sweet or savoury.

Frittelle (pictured above) are little fried balls of rice dough, eaten in Tuscany, northern Lazio and some parts of Umbria. The ingredients are rice, milk, water, egg, rum, sultana, sugar, a little grated orange peel or lemon, flour, salt and vanilla. After frying they are rolled in  icing sugar. In Sicily, they are called crespeddi and are sweet, with a filling of ricotta and anchovies. In Campania (Naples is the capital) they eat zeppole (pictured below) shaped like a doughnut with no rice in the ingredients, but based on water, butter, yeast, flour and egg and they have a cream filling often topped with amarena cherry.

Zeppole from Naples

Father’s day originated at the beginning of the 1900’s in America and was, and still is in most countries, celebrated on the third Sunday of June. The Italians too began to celebrate it in June, however, it was then moved to coincide with Saint Joseph’s day (as it was in Portugal and Spain). The Italians have been celebrating Saint Joseph’s day with the fritelle for centuries. The day dedicated to Joseph was officially established by Rome in 1479, and it coincided with the pagan ritual rites celebrating the end of winter. Big bonfires where built with the left over residue from the fields and hymns sung to Saint Joseph, patron saint of carpenters, unborn children, immigrant workers, and of course fathers…. and all Tuscans would eat lots and lots of frittelle!

THANK GOODNESS IT'S MONDAY!

The Orange Cloister

I love doing tours on Mondays, when the major ‘must see’ galleries are closed (Uffizi, Accademia, Pitti Palace being the big main ones) because then I get the time to take people to other really wonderful, tasty, delightful and often barely known (for no other reason other than Florence has the greatest concentration of UNESCO heritage protected sites in the world) places, and you need a lifetime in the city to see everything she has to offer. Il Chiostro degli Aranci, or the Orange Cloister,  is open Monday afternoon only, from 3pm-6pm. 

The cloister is inside the Badia Fiorentina  (Badia is a short-cut way of saying abbazia, or abbey) which was first constructed in the late eleventh century on land donated to the Benedictines and bought by the Willa, the mother of Ugo the Marquis of Tuscany. It developed an important collection of illuminated manuscripts as well as their its own flourishing workshop of bookbinders and copiers making their own production. The abbey was restructured in 1285 by the great Arnolfo di Cambio (the first architect of the cathedral, Santa Croce church and the last set of the city’s walls amongst other things) and the beautiful Gothic bell tower is one of the jewels of the Florentine skyline. In the early renaissance period one of the greatest architects of the city, Bernardo Rossellino restructured the two storey cloister of the oranges and the lunettes of the first floor were frescoed with twelve episodes from the life of St Benedict, the father of the European monasticism and, thus, a worthy subject for an abbey’s cloister where the monks followed his rule.

Beating the devil out of a monk

The painter is referred to as the ‘Master of the Chiostro degli Aranci’ as his identity is unknown and the frescoes were executed during the 1430’s. His style is described by the art historian Millard Meiss as ‘blend[ing]the geometry of [Paolo] Uccello, the luminism of Domenico [Veneziano], and the narrative repertory of [Filippo] Lippi with an idiom that is largely Angelican [Fra Angelico]’, suffice to say that Millard thinks, as many others, that it is pretty wonderful. The photo depicted is one of my favourite scenes from the life of Benedict, when he beats the devil out of the monk possessed by the devil, giving origin to the expression we have today ‘to beat the devil out of someone’.

So if you find yourself in Florence on a Monday, you could dedicate the afternoon to ‘time with Benedict’ with a little cruise around the fabulous cloister of the oranges (you are likely to be the only one there) and then walk up to the other magnificent Benedictine church and monastery on the hill overlooking Florence, called San Miniato al Monte, and see similar beautiful episodes from the life of St Benedict from the later 1300’s. You will notice that Benedict is now wearing a different colour robe, black turns to white…. but this will be the subject for another blog…..