Museo Civico di Cremona

On Wednesday the sweet city Cremona called my name and I followed. Today was the first rainy day. Real rain. Hard rain, thick fog, bad driving, cold fingers. I am usually cold so I don't enjoy more cold but wanted to go with the man to Cremona. I bundled up in layers like a mountain man making a hunting trip in Alaska and off we went. The weather turned out to be as gross as it looked so I decided the best place for me to hang out was in the Civic Museum. I had already seen Cremona's market, the bacon, sausage and bikes but I hadn't seen the violins and needed to. Violins are a vital part of Cremona's deep rooted history. Antonio Stradivari is the most famous string artisan working on violins around the end of the 17th century. However, violivns were carved out, polished and fiddled in the streets of Cremona for at least 2 centuries before. Mr. Stradivari was just one of the best violin makers. I regret giving up on my violin lessons and always felt a strong attraction to the instrument. It is smooth, curvey, portable like a carry-on, and can carry tunes that make you feel in love, want to cry, or glide into a day dream.

Today, there was no one in the museum, just me. It was all mine.

I felt like I was in the movie "Night in the Museum". The first 2 parts of the museum were all art and I started to doubt that I would reach the violins. This museum exhibited all Cremonese born artists. There were the pre-Renaissance ecclesiastical paintings, then Renaissance, then the Neoclassical guys (which I liked much better, it turns out they are less gory. Let's go on an abreviated tour of the museum, shall we?

Colorful 15th century painting of the birth of Christ.

"Youth"

There is the "Torrazza" or Great Tower of Cremona

Church and state were one.

St. Francesco, prega per noi.

I love paintings of food. They are so calming.

Great painting of fruit. The lighting on this is perfect.

Mary looks so pretty and sweet here with little baby Jesus. Ave Maria.

  Some portraits.....

A pompous noble woman born with a silver spoon in her mouth for sure.

Catholic monks, not everyone is so lucky.

Fat little cupid making peace with death.

Mrs. Biondi...she had nice light blue eyes.

I bet this lady gave solid spankings.

This girl looks like she had one too many solid spankings.

Finally I arrived at the violin section, which was the last. I felt like I had arrived in a dream a real dream. The violins floated down in the middle of glass cases. Each room was decorated like an antique room: matching wall paper and curtains with velvet cushion chairs that you could actually sit on.

I need one of these.

Migrane cause or cure?

I was in heaven. Soft music in one room played Bach, Vivaldi and Mendelssohn, some of the best known pieces. It was soft and sweet. I looked over each room slowly enjoying the floating violins before setting down on a plush antique yellow velvet sofa and pulling out my drawing pad.

Everything seemed surreal. I could live here. I scribbled away on my drawing pad getting absorbed into the shapes of the sides of violins, looking deep into the various colors...some were as old as the 15th century. One said "Pace e Giustizia" which means Peace and Justice. Gorgeous. I think everyone should have and play a violin. I got a little carried away with my sketch, mainly because I was inspired from the creativity of the room, the floating violins and the sweet music. I imagined all the places where the violins would look great. By my neighbors old farm house, or on the road with tall narrow pine trees, or perhaps Bentley sees floating violins when he stares off into space. At my moment of flirting with my creativity a large group of tourists came in the room on a tour and all stopped to pear, glare, wince and comment on my drawing as if it was part of the tour. Several even took pictures of me. It totally ruined the mood.  I wanted to pack up but waited and kept shading till they wandered to the next room. I think they all failed to feel the loveliness of the violins. Maybe they just had arthritis and the rain wasn't helping, in that case, I can understand as my hips feet felt creaky too.

All in all it was a sweet rainy day. It ended great coming come to my mom in laws delicious deep fried meatballs for dinner. There is no better way to end a rainy day spent with portraits, violins and creepy wall paper than to eat some fat meatballs.