Giro d'Italia

So, the entire time I was in Italy, I kept watching for signs of the Giro d'Italia. This was as close as I got. The Liquigas van passed us on the way to Milan. When we stopped for lunch, the Geox TMC vans were at the same truck-stop cafeteria. I got to meet the guys driving the van. We were in Milan two days before the final Giro stage ended there.

Death in Italy

Wouter Weylandt, a Leopard-Trek rider (my new self-proclaimed favorite team for the year in pro cycling) crashed and died today on stage 3 of the Giro d'Italia.

I feel a strange kinship...since I'll be going to Italy by the end of the race. Such a sad, sad day for cycling.

The Sistine Chapel

I'm reading Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling. Most of my students know I'm a bit obsessed with Michelangelo and the Medici family's support of the Renaissance, Galileo, etc. Well, I'm learning a lot from this book.

I did NOT know that Bramante, the architect of St. Peter's Cathedral, wanted to be the Pope's favorite artist, and being the suave dude that he was, talked Pope Julius II into commissioning Michelangelo into frescoing (is that a verb?) the Sistine Chapel Ceiling...because he knew Michelangelo didn't want to paint it and certainly wouldn't want to fresco that whole ceiling on scaffolding, so Bramante figured Michelangelo would most likely fail. When and if he failed, Bramante would be considered the best artist in Rome. Well, HA, take that, Bramante!