Italy: Milan, Florence & Rome

This April I was able to visit Rome with my good friend Joe from Hillsdale College. Italy is an amazingly beautiful place and has countless ways to entertain a history nerd like me.

The Italian flag in the Galleria

Vittorio Emanuel II in Milan

Sitting on top of the cathedral in Milan

Here is the cathedral in Milan. We spent some time walking on its roof. I was very happy to be there just as the bells of the cathedral and city rang for mid-day.

A view of the architecture at the roof of Milan's cathedral... the spires and buttresses were very beautiful and ornate.

Dante in his home town of Florence...

The AMAZING Sana Maria Fiora in Florence. I've never seen such a colorful building!

Restoration work on the dome of Santa Maria Fiora

A view of Florence from the dome of Santa Maria Fiora

Florence in the distance... This was taken from a monastery outside of the city

The ruins of the old Roman forum

The Colosseum! It was one of my life's goals to see and touch this building!

Inside the Colosseum

St Peter's in Vatican City-- the world's largest Christian basilica and seat of the Catholic church!

Inside St Peter's

A close-up of the ceiling in the Vatican library. This was one of the rooms we could photograph in the Vatican Museums. I did see some people try to sneak photos of the Sistine Chapel, though... Philistines!

Vatican City and the colonnade from the dome of St Peter's

Exhibition

Cradles, Courtship & Coffins: Life's Milestones in Fife

Yesterday I helped tare down my exhibition. It is amazing that it took one day to tare down something that took months to plan. I am very pleased that our exhibition was one of the most successful student exhibitions at St Andrews Museum. I thought that you might like a few photos from the exhibition. In case you didn't know, the exhibition examined rites of passage of people living in this part of Scotland. We mostly looked at births, weddings, graduations, and funerals.

Here I am taking a break during instillation week.

Here's the whole team of student curators for Cradles, Courtship & Coffins during opening night! It was a great time with lots of people, stinky cheese, fudge donuts, and nerdy museum talk.

The student curators are very happy to add their memories to the interactive 'Rites of Passage' tree. The tree was absolutely full of memories when we took it off of the wall yesterday. Some of them were very moving to read!

Here I am with a Bronze-Age burial urn found near St Andrews. I can't believe I was allowed to hold something so old! Who says working in a museum sounds boring?

Here is my recreation of a lower-middle class Victorian parlor from Fife. It is decorated as it might look during a time of mourning. It had some terrific Victorian wall paper, a silk oriental rug, coffin, peacock feathers and all sorts of Victorian gaudiness. I had to use some poster board to cover huge painted flames in the fireplace. They looked a little tacky and inappropriate-- I wish i could have painted over them!

Here I am hanging a wedding flag from a Fife fishing community. Traditionally, the bride made the flag and the youngest member of the groom's party hung it on the groom's boat on the night before the wedding. If it filled with wind, the marriage would be successful.