We have come all this way for this?
by Kenneth J. Uva
I just returned from a trip to Tuscany and its surrounding areas. I had been to some of the places in the past, and other places were new to me. I visited Florence and Siena, with side trips to Assisi, Bologna, and numerous hill towns, all of them walled due to the history of warfare between cities, regions, and families.
The history contained in these places is the history of western civilization. The region is rich in churches built in gothic, renaissance, and baroque styles. The Basilica of St. Mary of the Angels was built between 1569 and 1679 in the valley below Assisi. This structure contains a tiny church where St. Francis of Assisi was said to have died. It was built in the style of St. Peter's in Rome, with soaring arches, and large statues mounted on the walls. My comment to my companion was that it was the most magnificent church that I had never heard off. Further up the mountain in Assisi is the Basilica of St. Francis, lavishly decorated on its walls and ceiling with frescos by Giotto, a medieval painter whose work presaged renaissance painters.
In Bologna, we came across the Basilica of San Petronio, which is not even the city's cathedral. One of the largest churches in the world, built in the 13-1400s, it is a mind-boggling structure decorated with marble, paintings, statuary, gold carvings--all the requisite showings of the power and wealth of the Catholic Church and its patrons. It was the second most awesome church that I had never heard of.
The third of the churches in the never heard of category is San Lorenzo in Florence. It is about a five minute walk from the more famous Duomo. San Lorenzo contains tombs of the Medici and a library designed by Michelangelo. The library displays ancient texts, hand written by monks to preserve the learning of prior generations, the foundation of our knowledge of history and religion.
Not all of the art is contained in these churches. Michelangelo's statue of David is displayed in the Accademia of Florence. The Uffizi in Florence, one of the world's great art museums, contains works by Giotto, Botticelli, Da Vinci, and Titian, among other giants of the history of art.
While this essay was prompted by a recent visit to one region, much of the same could be said about France, Spain, England, and other parts of Europe. Visits to these places allow a view of the greatest pieces of our heritage. Of course, much was produced to display the wealth of the church, rulers, or wealthy individuals. A visitor, however, cannot help being awed by the art, the architecture, the engineering and the scholarship, and even the devotion, that have lead to magnificent manifestations of creativity, practicality, and sheer genius preserved for generations.
European civilization forms a large part of our heritage as Americans, cross pollinated by the cultures of Africa and Asia. It may be trite, but it is true to say that our world is the result of what has come before. It is not all good, of course, considering how so much of history is a story of bloody conflict, cruelty and oppression. Yet, visits to places of mankind's greatest achievements provide an opportunity for reflection about what came before, what is now, and what might be in the future.
What prompted this essay were the bits of news I was able to get while away, and the more thorough stories upon my return. After a visit to the greatest of civilization's achievements, it is more distressing than ever that the leader of the country whose seeds go back to all that is written above, is Donald Trump. He is a person with no respect for leaning, no appreciation for anything but his narcissistic cravings. He has cut, or is attempting to cut, funds for education, culture, and healthcare, and is attempting to limit the human rights of women, and of sexual and racial minorities, all in favor of funneling more wealth to those at the top of the economic pyramid.
There is no space for a complete review of Trump's administration. What is striking, and terribly sad, is that after centuries of human achievement, we are faced with a leader who seems to be a character in a dystopian novel, and is in no way the inheritor of the best of human history.
