Ok, trying to catch up again. This weekend was pretty chill. After the night out on Friday, I decided to just stick around Bologna for the day Saturday. I ended up doing some shopping (new pair of shoes) and then toured around some of the sights of the city. First stop was the Basilica di San Petronio. It's in the main square and was originally supposed to be bigger then St. Peter's in Rome, but after 300 years of building and a huge money problem, the Pope called it off and stopped building. It's still unfinished. Now, I don't know if I've told you, but my school (SAIS) is the number two terrorist target in the city according to the US government. The Basilica is the number one. Now, the reason for this is because of some art work on display inside. Apparently there is a painting of Mohammed in hell being 'devoured by demons'. It is a fresco by Giovanni da Modena and represents a scene from Dante's Infero. Ok, all this background, I couldn't find the painting and didn't want to pay somebody to tell me which it was. There was this other painting that was thoroughly disgusting involving some creature eating a body and then giving birth to another (it is not the aforementioned painting, although I thought it might be until I looked it up online). Ok, that was the Basilica.
Here is a fact learned in Orientation to Law - Bologna was the first university law school in the western world (1088). So, seeing as how something I learned in OTL actually stuck, I decided to search out said university. Luckily, it was around the corner from the Basilica. Now, the law school part, not so interesting, the anatomy lab, very interesting. The anatomy lab was constructed in 1637 in the Palazzo dell'Archiginnasio. It is very cool with a special seat for a priest to sit to make sure that nothing was done to the body that would sacrifice the soul (note that the statues on either side are skin-less). Also, really liked that all over the halls there were the crests of both faculty and students that attended the University of Bologna, including Thomas Beckett and Dante. That was my adventuring in Bologna.
On Sunday I went off to Ravenna with Kat (US/UK/Japan), Jacob (US/Aus), Ouriana (Cyprus) and Franchesca (Peru). We took the train to the city of mosaics and were definitely not disappointed. There is a little route of 5 places to go and see the famous mosaics dating to the 5th century when Ravenna was the Western seat of the Roman Empire. They were amazing, many sparkling with gold. We also stopped by Dante's tomb, which was most disappointing (we were expecting much more) and then hung out at a wine bar to watch the England/Germany game. We gave up on that once Germany scored their 4th and headed home.It was a great weekend and now back in class working on Negotiation stuff.
Here is a fact learned in Orientation to Law - Bologna was the first university law school in the western world (1088). So, seeing as how something I learned in OTL actually stuck, I decided to search out said university. Luckily, it was around the corner from the Basilica. Now, the law school part, not so interesting, the anatomy lab, very interesting. The anatomy lab was constructed in 1637 in the Palazzo dell'Archiginnasio. It is very cool with a special seat for a priest to sit to make sure that nothing was done to the body that would sacrifice the soul (note that the statues on either side are skin-less). Also, really liked that all over the halls there were the crests of both faculty and students that attended the University of Bologna, including Thomas Beckett and Dante. That was my adventuring in Bologna.
On Sunday I went off to Ravenna with Kat (US/UK/Japan), Jacob (US/Aus), Ouriana (Cyprus) and Franchesca (Peru). We took the train to the city of mosaics and were definitely not disappointed. There is a little route of 5 places to go and see the famous mosaics dating to the 5th century when Ravenna was the Western seat of the Roman Empire. They were amazing, many sparkling with gold. We also stopped by Dante's tomb, which was most disappointing (we were expecting much more) and then hung out at a wine bar to watch the England/Germany game. We gave up on that once Germany scored their 4th and headed home.It was a great weekend and now back in class working on Negotiation stuff.
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