Neither, Nor San Gimignano

Another day with the rental car. We drive along winding roads through the Tuscan countryside, where the lush green hillsides are covered with vineyards and olive groves, cypresses and umbrella trees. Our destination is the hilltop medieval town of San Gimignano, notable for having the most towers still standing. Every inch of the interior walls and ceiling of the 12th century Basilica of Santa Maria Assunta is covered with frescoes telling biblical stories - New testament on the left, Old on the right. The front corner chapel is devoted to the town’s patron saint - Santa Fina, where she still rests. The frescos tell her story, one of which is the extra. Fina lived her short life in San Gimignano (note towers in fresco). She was stricken with a terrible disease at 10 years of age that rendered her painfully paralysed. She insisted on laying on a wooden board to increase her suffering as she wanted to suffer as Jesus did on the cross. She finally died of Gangrene of the Head. A horrible end is descibed in which mice and worms nibbled on her gangrenous head. The chapel alter has a tabernacle with golden doors, where her head resides. I was tempted, but did not open those doors. Her headless body rests in the white marble sarcophagus below. Fascinating, and very gruesome. Next, for something completely different…we visited a gallery on the other side of the piazza to view the exhibit ‘Neither Nor’ by ‘one of the most important and influential contemporary artists, Ai Weiwei from China. The featured foto shows 4 of his ‘works’: Stools (2013) and the tryptich of Mona Lisa Smeared in Cream (2023). “Stools” is made with 2358 wooden stools, collected from villages in northern China. Dating back to the Ming and Qing dynasties and the Republican era, the stools are connected to each other, forming a wooden surface that covers the floor of the room. Certainly a methaphor for interconnectedness. The Mona Lisa smeared in Cream Tryptich are made with toy bricks, aka Legos. “The impersonal language of the coloured bricks translates Leonardo Da Vinci’s most famous work portrayed here smeared with cake after the action of environmental activists.” The gallery was filled with Ai Weiwei’s art in numerous and diverse mediums: sculpture, paintings, pottery, photograpy. Fascinating, and very thought provoking.