Day 18

Giorno Diciotto

Italy 2024

The World Health Organization's ranking of the world's health systems

1. France

2. Italy

37. United States

Makes you stop and think with those statistics!!!!The difference is universal health care. Of course, we prefer our hospitals, but we have health insurance! Our bill here was €161 That was made up of €15 for COVID-SARS test, €50 for ultrasound, and the rest was €2 - €5 for blood tests, blood pressure etc. And the overnight “room”!

We are going to ease into our walks as we are catching up on our sleep. The day was a little cool but, sunny. Abbiamo camminato per la città. (We did walk around the city.) Abbiamo pranzato all'Osteria da Rosolo. (We had lunch at Osteria Da Rosolo.)

We visited the Antonio Canova exhibit. Wonderful paintings and marble statues. How did they do that ? Those marble statues are created from one block of marble. Marble is not the easiest material to work with.

Later Dow took a nap and I did some reading. At 8:00pm Gisella and her husband picked us up outside the walls and we drove in the countryside to a restaurant called Botton D'oro Ristorante. We got home at 11:30pm. Late dinners are the norm here.

Buona Notte

The building where the exhibit is held

Rooms are dark so as to have a better view of paintings and marble statues

Bernardino Nocchi, Mercury orders Calipso to let Ulysses start (the cry of Ulysses),

Il pianto di Ulisse

Theseus and the Minotaur is a 1781-1782 white marble sculpture by Antonio Canova

Atalanta mourns Meleagro dying -POMPEO BATONI 1740-1743

A symbol of grace, beauty and sensuality, the sculptural group of the Three Graces by Antonio Canova (Possagno, 1757 - Venice, 1822) is considered among the finest masterpieces of art of all time

Trust in God is a natural white marble statue of 1833 by the Tuscan sculptor Lorenzo Bartolini (1777-1850
The woman asked the artist to represent her pain and devotion to God after the death of her husband

Left side - characters depicting three stages of life

Front

Right side - see all 3 figures

Matteo Civitali who shows various works to some noble visitors of both sexes, study by the Renaissance artist (painting) by Marcucci Michele (19th century)

Paolina Bonaparte, born in Ajaccio in 1780, sister of Napoleon I and bride in the second wedding of the Roman prince Camillo II Borghese, with whom she had joined in 1803.