On Tuesday, we walked from Messa to Pietrasanta. As is so often the case with the towns through which we are walking, we had never heard of Pietrasanta. In order to remember the name of a new town, Karl likes to look for a hook, some sort of mnemonic to help remember it. Pietrasanta was easy, he thought, it’s obviously named after Saint Peter. It never occurred to him to consider basic Italian grammar and ask himself why a town named after Saint Peter would be called Pietrasanta and not Pietrosanto.
It was only after passing many marble processing plants,
seeing many marble sculptures all over the town
and being reminded by a sign that Pietrasanta was where Michaelangelo found the most beautiful marble in all of Italy that Karl had a forehead slapping epiphany. Not holy Peter, holy stone! Stone, or pietra, is feminine, so it takes the feminine version of holy, or santo, which is Santa: Pietrasanta.
Anyway, an epiphany is always welcome after a lovely walk and Karl and Leslie Ruth were happy to visit a new town whose name they will never forget!
The town revels in sculpture, and not just marble.
Some are religious
some glorify the various rulers, such as this Medici family lion.
Some are terrifying
and some are whimsical.
There is a very interesting museum which has models and castings from which many sculptures were made.
Some of the models have marks from the artist, perhaps showing changes to be made.
Some of the resulting sculptures are on display in the town; others are in museums all over the world. It was fascinating to see the preliminary work from which the final sculptures arose.
ITALY, GERMANY, AND MORE! 