Sansepolcro Italy

Cari Amici (Dear Friends),

I recently attended a wedding party in eastern Tuscany. I was actually the photographer for the groom, who is more serious about photography than I am. But, hey, a guy cannot always take his own photos, especially when he wants to enjoy the more important moments in his life! Thankfully, his camera has more juice and capability than mine does.

The photo shoot was scheduled for later in the afternoon when we got into a Bentley and rode south into Umbria for the photo shoot. Our driver Giorgio said in Italian, “No limits” when asked how fast this car would go … that just sounds cool, does it not? In the meantime, however, I decided to explore a bit of the town of Sansepolcro.

I wanted to share with you today images I took (with my own camera) of the Cattedrale di San Giovanni Evangelista [11-14th century]. It is a fairly modest cathedral, built on a slight incline, which one only really notices when viewing the outside steps.

The main altar is much more simply organized than most that I have seen in Italia, but I rather enjoyed all the empty white space above the main art piece at the back of the altar, as well as the echoing arched windows.

The paintings on the wall were pretty typical but some I thought were quite good compositionally speaking, and even technically. I am beginning to appreciate more and more how much thought goes into a multi-figure composition. Still, this church seemed to have more paintings about the actual crucifixion of Christ (I mean large main paintings) on the side walls than I have noticed before. I would have guessed that St. John the Evangelist would have been the primarily subject or perhaps more prominent in the artworks. All paintings here were well done.

Looking back towards the door one can see the lovely play of light and shadows as the afternoon sun peers into the cathedral through the round window and square doors. I hope that you can see it in this detail shot I took of just the window, but it appears to be made from large slices of an agate, with rich brown striations or patterns in the stone. Lovely, really.

More tomorrow . . .