Deruta and the Fabrica

Buongiorno!

Touching the hand of Christ in Todi!

Todi is one of the nicest villages in Umbria, so I have read, and my time there confirms that. That Rough Guide says it has the most beautiful piazza in Europe, Ubaldo Grazie said, "the world." Below is the church in Piazza Popolo. You might notice a banner hanging over the entrance to a small road to the right of the church. The San Lorenze Tres, our hotel, was down that little road, and then turn left onto a smaller ruelle. (But of course I am mixing French, Spanish and the very few words of Italian that I have learned since I left America last Thursday.) Suddenly, I can speak French! and Spanish.)

It is down this street that we found a wonderful exhibition on Raffaello, the Italian spelling.

The exhibition was the last thing we did before leaving Todi. The cost was 9 Euros to get in, and I bought a small catalog for 5 Euros. The exhibition had two short films, but we didn't watch either of them as we had only one hour to view the exhibition.

I was at first surprised that someone would put on an exhibition of reproductions of paintings, but that is what this was. Not reproduced on canvas, but on some sort of plexiglass panels or something of that nature.

I took this photo of the pizzeria in Todi. it was always packed, not just because it was very cheap, but also because it was quick and good. They sell pizza by the weight, and they cut it with those scissors that you see. We were thinking what a great idea to do this! Of course you see that the pizzas were prepared in advance. I had a slice of a yummy zucchini pizza with a perfect crust, a half bottle of an Umbrian rosso wine, and a salad. Voila, dinner with no fuss.

Art connoisseurs waiting to get into the Raffaello exhibition.

We decided 'what was not to like' even if the exhibition was on plastic instead of paint and wood. Suppose one could never get to Pisa, Firenze or any of the other palaces or musuems that house these paintings? This was an opportunity to at least see a body of his works in one place and get a sense of what he was about.

His draftmanship was absolutely stunning, and the opportunity to view these works with another artist is always valuable. We might each take away something different, but could share that and see the painting from another's persepctive.

One thing I noticed was that Rafael seemed to use the same face for women, or men, over and over in his paintings.

Here's the face as a woman.

Here it is as a man.

Both of these faces were in the same painting, but in crowd scenes.
However, this same face was also used as that of
St. Sebastian.

More on this exhibition next time.

I am now going back to the fabbrica

Fabbrica: http://www.ubaldograzia.it/

the ceramic factory to paint a dish.

Caio!



I have no photos yet of the hotel we are staying out. But here is the link.

Farmhouse: http://www.lecasecoloniche.it/territorio/umbria_i.htm