ARRESTING AREZZO

Things had started off well.  We’d gone to Arezzo, found the correct parking area and were on our way.  I say “correct” because there’s a quadruple escalator going up from this carpark through the old walls that takes you on high to the Duomo of Arezzo, which just happens to be across the way from the tourist office.  Well, except the Tourist Office was closed if course.  “Chiuso” is a word you get very familiar with in Italy.

Arezzo copped a pounding during its liberation in 1944 because the Germans made a stand here and you can see rebuilds of mediaeval stuff, like walls, here and there, but the city is generally tidy and active, except, twice a year, when the Joust of the Saracen (Moor) takes place.

This is an event to savour and we were glued to our T.V. screens the evening before at our local restaurant watching this centuries old event play out.  Originally designed as training for knights, it’s evolved into a pageant par excellence.  The city is divided into four quarters and there are eight riders on horseback dressed in fabulous mediaeval costumes from each area.  The idea is for them to ride with a lance and aim at a target held by a confronting muscled figure painted in Saracen hue.  In one extended arm it has a target like a square dartboard, in the right hand there are three metal balls on the end of a whip and, if the target in the left hand is hit, the body starts to swing around quickly.  Should it be quick enough to flay the rider, points are deducted, not to mention a bruise or two.  The balls are covered in black powder to stain their outfits and to hopefully avoid arguments but the emotions were running a bit out of hand as we watched the carabinieri get involved a couple of times as scores were read out.

Each city quarter has eight riders in varying costumes who have two runs at the target and totals are tallied up at the end.  It’s all very theatrical as a decked out man removes the scorecard and takes it ceremoniously to the judge after each charge.

The whole affair goes on for hours and, to get the festival to where it is today cost over one billion dollars, financed by banks, government and popular subscription.  As a tourist who hasn’t paid a cent, I have to say it is well worth it!

Today we park, as advised, at Posteria di Pozzolo and enter through the Porta Stufi, probably the only entrance preserved from the Middle Ages.  As we ride up the escalators (scale mobile) the walls are endlessly covered, firstly by a panoramic picture of all the riders in the 32 different outfits followed by a mural of the event, whose participants have strangely unseeing eyes with blank expressions that seem to belie the intensity of the joust, but today we’re more geared up to arriving at the top and seeing the town.

We arrive via a portal in the Palazzo Vescovile (Bishop’s Palace), full of art inside, that also holds the Information Centre but they are both closed for some reason or other.  Still, on the other side of the Piazza Duomo is the cathedral, outside of which is some modern sculpture that reflects this town’s willingness to move on with their art and not dwell forever in the mediaeval times even though the large bronze abstracts seem incongruous beside towering walls of the cathedral.

We step inside and are immediately struck by the ceiling frescoes, painted by Di Guillaume de Marcillat and Salvi Castellucci.  They underwent restoration about a decade ago for a few million euros.  Marcillat, a Frenchman, also did most of the stained glass windows from the early 1500’s.  His ability to give depth and flow in a difficult medium is a standout here.

The Ark of San Donato is another thing that grabs your eye.  An extravagant altarpiece where the headless body of Arezzo’s patron saint is entombed.  It was carved out by various Tuscan sculptors in the 1300’s.  Donato’s head was pillaged in 1384 by the French captain of fortune Enguerrand de Courcy and taken to Forli where it was venerated by the lord of that city and later returned. 

The Tarlati Tomb (1329), by three Sienese sculptors, is also of interest.  It glorifies the reign of the family, and Bishop Guido Tarlati is actually entombed in it.  It’s a bit over the top politically and fills an entire bay wall with sixteen narrative reliefs of the history of the family and of Arezzo under Guido’s rule.  It was commissioned by Pietro Saccone, the bishop’s brother, and it should come as no surprise to know that when the Tarlati’s were expelled from Arezzo in 1341 it was defaced.  Its current position came about when it was moved in 1783 and the chapel behind, containing an important fresco by Piero Della Francesca at the rear, was demolished to fit it in.  Thank goodness the art can still be viewed.

Nearby there’s the mummified remains of Pope Gregory X (reigned 1271 – 1276) that Pope Benedict XVI prayed before during a papal visit in 2012.  Along with the 4^th century Saint Donatus (who at one stage purportedly slew a dragon – no wonder there’s none left), he’s one of the two notable Catholics from Arezzo.

There’s also a more modern (1809) painting by Pietro Benvenuti of a triumphant Judith holding the head of Holofernes in front of a shocked audience paying homage from her home town.

The main church I wanted to see though was down the Via Andrea Cesalpino so we headed off, noting how well the city has restored itself after the battering of WWII and how it’s one of the cleaner places we’ve visited.

The Chiesa di San Francesca is a single nave church built to commemorate the austerity of Saint Francis of Assisi. However, it’s the Bacci Chapel, with its cycle of frescos of the Legend of the True Cross, painted by Piero della Francesca between 1452 and 1466, which people flock to see while parting with their hard earned cash. The chapel belonged to the wealthy Bacci family of merchants in Arezzo, who commissioned its decoration from the Florentine painter Bicci di Lorenzo in 1447.

But after Bicci had completed work on the chapel’s vaulted ceiling, the two Doctors of the Church in the entrance way and the Last Judgement on the triumphal arch, the maestro died in 1452, the year when Piero della Francesca commenced working for the Bacci family. It then took him just a few years to complete the most modern frescos conceivable in fifteenth-century Italian painting, with their uniquely measured perspective, bearing in mind that Piero was a gifted mathematician.  Aussies can easily distinguish his works because of the alarming blank stare in people’s eyes, bit like a roo caught in the headlights.  

That Frenchman Marcillat was also here, putting in more stained glass.

While I’m awash in Francesca, Lorraine is downstairs soaking up a special display of Italian fashions in the old crypt.  MODA is a modern online brand and they’ve sponsored the display of everyday fashion in the 20^th century and apparently it was worthwhile.

We exit past the sculpted rusty iron pieces of a horse and move up the hill, this time along Corso Francesca, stopping en route to do some gelato with 5 girls who are obviously out for the day.  Then it’s on to the back of the Piazza Grande where yesterday’s festival was held and the bombs fell during WWII.

The campinale of the Santa Maria church looms over all else as we stroll by and the three impressive tiers of columns bespeak of money.  Then there’s the smaller tower of something or other almost opposite as I begin to sweat climbing towards the town park.  Beyond that are the walls of the Medici fort but that’s for another time.

From where we enter the park you can look down on the Pretorio Palace, aka the town library these days, festooned with coats of arms, the most prominent of which is the large Medici crest right over the entry door.  I move away in the opposite direction to photograph the statue of Petrarch, fabled 14^th century son of Arezzo and the father of Humanism.  He didn’t live here long and, when he made a brief stopover en route to Padua in 1350, he was feted like a king.

There are panoramic views from the park over Tuscany but I catch a side glimpse of a figure scurrying down the stairs back to the car and decide I’d best join her.  Fatigue is setting in and there’s still an afternoon in Cortona to go.