In my notes for this week, I wrote about how I felt a bit sick still, but significantly better getting a breath of fresh air and sitting in the park. It was a bit odd that it was May and I was leaving Bologna soon. There were so many flowers in bloom that it was beautiful, and some cherry blossoms. I wrote sitting in my sit spot that the park was much more beautiful than when I had first arrived in Bologna. I wondered how many seasons it had seen, how many market cycles, how much gossip even from the clumps of students chatting it had heard.

The environment is represented in Italian art in paintings, less so in sculptures. The changing environment is also rarely represented, even when it’s cities like Venice, which have experienced much more flooding. If nature is represented in Italian art, I’ve noticed it can be ornamental, or secondary to the human figures, which make up the majority of art.