Boomer Visits the San Francesco Church

Good afternoon from Arezzo everyone! Boomer has had a very busy Monday so far. He started his day at class. Poor Boomer had a quiz today. He then headed over to a pizzeria for lunch and got margarita pizza. Boomer loves pizza! Next, Boomer went to a local shop to buy postcards for his family. He misses his family a lot and thought that this would be a great way to share his experiences with them. Here is Boomer with the postcard he bought!

He then bought stamps and mailed his postcards at the post office. Boomer was surprised at how easy it was to send mail all the way from Italy. The only difference was that he had to include the country the letter was going to in the address. Each postcard requires two stamps to be sent to America. Look at the link below to see mailing tips from UPS.

https://www.usps.com/send/international-addressing-tips.htm

After that, Boomer went to visit the San Francesco Church located here in Arezzo. In order to visit this church, you have to schedule a visit in advance and also buy tickets. The website to buy tickets is only in Italian but here is a link that can tell you more about this church and can also provide a link to the Italian site to buy tickets.

http://goitaly.about.com/od/arezzo/qt/piero-della-francesca-frescoes-arezzo.htm

This is a picture of Boomer and some of his friends waiting for the tour to start.

Unfortunately, the church did not allow pictures to be taken inside the church. Boomer was very sad, but here is a picture of Boomer in front of the church.

The outside facade of the church is made of simple brick and stone, but on the inside lies the incredible paintings of the Legend of the True Cross.

Once inside the church, Boomer got to learn about the Legend of the True Cross. This painting was started by Bicci di Lorenzo, but he grew ill and died in 1452 before he could finish it. It was assumed to be finished around 1466 by a man named Piero della Francesca, which is who the church is named after. The paintings are on three walls. Each wall is separated into three different sections that tell different stories. The ceiling is painted with the four people who wrote the Bible and has a dark sky, compared to the walls, which have a light sky. Also, the paintings' lighting looks like it is actually coming from the window that is directly in the middle of the main wall. The paintings even have shadows to represent this lighting. Boomer thought that the detail of the paintings were so beautiful. Click the link below to take a virtual tour of the church and learn more about the history of the paintings! Boomer highly recommends visiting this church if you are ever in Arezzo!

http://projects.ias.edu/pierotruecross/


Boomer has had a great day filled with lots of learning! Now it is time for him to get back to homework before he goes to dinner!