La Finestra Aperta

This is the view from my window.

Since arriving in Florence, I have developed a peculiar fascination with windows.  The first thing I noticed when I arrived was the incredible view out my window.  I spent three of the first six hours I was here sticking my head out the window as far as possible and gawking in disbelief.  I look out my window the outside world, into windows at some other inside world and I've even started noticing windows that are not actually real windows.  Next time you are out and about, notice how many different types of windows there are, it's fascinating really.

This is an illusion, notice that half of the windows are painted.

Windows allow us to look out at the world.

Magritte

Windows allow us to look into someone else's world, if only for a moment.

Hopper


And finally, windows force us to contemplate the act of looking itself.

Dali

This blog is my framing of the world through my own eyes and I want you, amici, to see it as a window into my experiences here in Florence.  

So, without further ado.....

 Today, this is my window to the world:

If you think that, after all that, my window looks more like the interior of a church than an actual window, that's because it is the interior of a church.  But it's also a window, I promise.  

The interior of this church is in Ravenna, Italy, which was the capital of the Byzantine empire for some time. (We visited there last Friday)  Although the Byzantine Empire has long since been wiped off the face of the planet (and out of the memories of most of the planet’s people, I think), the amazing churches that remain in the city of Ravenna are a testament to the long-bygone glory of the largely forgotten empire.

The Baptistery of one of the churches.

The Byzantine Empire was one of the fragments of the Roman Empire left after its downfall and it was a holy empire, really holy.  The emperor was believed to have been an incarnation of Christ on Earth and much power was centered on Christianity.  As far as holiness goes, I don’t know much about 1500-year-old emperors being Christ-incarnated, but I do know the feeling that stepping into one of these churches gives you.  They are grand and, for lack of a better word, shiny, with mosaics that are so lushly colored that it feels like you are stepping into a mystical forest or garden.  They feel open and luminous, I think that this has a lot to do with the way the light reflects off of the individual tiles of the mosaics, it’s glorious, truly glorious.  

Somehow, I feel like these churches are windows for us to another realm, to something divine, heavenly and more beautiful that we can even imagine.  So beautiful, in fact, that we couldn't handle more than the sneak peak that a window provides.  Maybe this is a small taste of heaven: lush, glorious, colorful, luminous, with every individual soul glowing with infinite light and joy…

         

Honestly, I never wondered what heaven looked like until I saw the inside of this church, but now I think I have a pretty good idea.