Catholicism, Mohler and Notre Dame

I occasionally get reader feedback for this blog (whose feedburner should now be fixed, so please update your readers). One friend, a very good one from Seminary, actually sent me a real response letter. On actual paper. This ups the stakes considerably.

His question was "Why not be Catholic?", and he said he would await the response on millinerd. He claims to have his own "answers" (the scarequotes are his), "but evidently my answers are not sufficient to end the internal monologue." I too have produced "answers" in this forum, perhaps too often and at a "thou dost protest too much" length. The fact that my friend would ask me the question again indicates his accurate perception that my internal monologue also continues.

While I'm not prepared to take on that mother of all question right now, what I can do, and just did, is point to my dissatisfaction with how other Protestants answer it. (While I indicate this dissatisfaction, keep in mind, I'm not doing that much better myself.)

Consider that indefatigable Seminary President Albert Mohler. I listen to Mohler religiously, because - simply put - he matters. The exposure that Mainline Protestants once enjoyed now belongs to Mohler: Who else gets nearly back to back prominence in Time (where Mohler spearheads one of the ten most significant ideas changing not America, but the world) and Newsweek (where he was the main interlocutor for the much discussed End of Christian America article)? Mohler gets this attention because he is a principled Protestant. For Mohler, Catholicism is nary a threat. While he has addressed the matter at considerable length, overall the Roman question doesn't seem to trouble him; a position which sometimes requires considerable dexterity to achieve.

A recent announcement on his site and radio program (start at 34:20 here) gives - seemingly out of nowhere - a great deal of attention to one particular Catholic book. Mohler has not so much as mentioned any of Benedict XVI's books, nor his addresses. In fact, Mohler rarely gives significant attention to normative expressions of Roman Catholicism, a tone which Catholic callers on Ask Anything Wednesday repeatedly protest. Catholicism plays a largely negative role on Mohler's show (except when Robert George is the guest). But all of a sudden, one book gets puffed, and you can bet the farm it's not Beckwith's Return to Rome. Why? Because, I respectfully suggest, Dr. Mohler very much needs this particular book to exist.

A liberal Catholic at Notre Dame (I am shocked - shocked - to find that gambling is going on in here) becomes the authority for what the "Roman Catholic Church now teaches on a number of crucial issues." Funny, I thought those cues came from some city in Italy, not South Bend. Mohler then highlights a passage with the power to galvanize the traditional evangelicals in his considerable audience, and leaves it at that. No analysis. No disclaimer. Take another look.

Just like that, the "Why not be Catholic?" question is easily answered: Because Catholics, you see, are theologically unprincipled pluralists. Nevermind a Pope who has challenged the "dictatorship of relativism" on the world stage. Nevermind Dominus Iesus, the official position which this liberal theologian's passage is deliberately set against. Nevermind the fact that the only American theologian ever elected to the cardinalate was the unimpeachably orthodox Avery Dulles. Nevermind any of that.

We need not wonder how Albert Mohler would respond to a theologian in his Southern Baptist Convention who deliberately countered that denomination's tenor of doctrinal orthodoxy that Mohler does so much to set. Yet when this happens within Roman Catholicism, the opposition not only goes unchallenged by Mohler, it gets headlined on his website, and made to appear as if it is mainstream Catholic teaching. Albert Mohler is a lightning-quick, well-informed man who preaches the gospel with a fervency that I often admire. But to keep his listeners from having to ask that very difficult question, "Why not be Catholic?", he pronounces, from his Louisville cathedra, a newfangled law: Notre Dame locuta est - causa finita est.

James on Academia

Spurred by the success of the Green Bible, there's now an even newer theme Bible just for professional academics and their underling graduate students. Here's a sneak preview of the James 4:1-3 translation:

What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire [that job] and do not have so you murder [i.e. rip that professor apart]. You covet [a slot in that publication] and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel [with the author that got published]. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passion [to show that you're smarter than your colleagues].

The best part? Words of the Scribes in red!

The Decent Thing?

In the current issue of The City, Joseph Knippenberg reviews Francis Beckwith's Return to Rome. Rather than contesting Beckwith's Catholic views on justification and sanctification, Knippenberg admits he and many Reformed folk share them. But no matter. "We have a lot to learn from Rome, but we don't have to follow [Beckwith] all the way there to reap those benefits." We should "continue the conversation" and learn from each other; but, says Knippenberg, "I'll continue worshiping at my Presbyterian church."

Knippenberg's review reminded me of another review, Westminster Theological Seminary Professor Carl R. Trueman's review of Mark Noll and Carolyn Nystrom's Is the Reformation Over?. The review is quoted at length by Beckwith in Return to Rome because, says Beckwith, it "rocked me to the core." Trueman argues that Noll and Nystrom "do not draw the obvious conclusion from their own arguments." Trueman continues,

Every year I tell my Reformation history class that Roman Catholicism is, at least in the West, the default position. Rome has a better claim to historical continuity and institutional unity than any Protestant denomination, let alone the strange hybrid that is evangelicalism; in the light of these facts, therefore, we need good, solid reasons for not being Catholic; not being a Catholic should, in other words, be a positive act of will and commitment, something we need to get out of bed determined to do every day. It would seem, however, that if Noll and Nystrom are correct, many who call themselves evangelical really lack any good reason for such an act of will; and the obvious conclusion, therefore, should be that they do the decent thing and rejoin the Roman Catholic Church. I cannot go down that path myself, primarily because of my view of justification by faith and because of my ecclesiology; but those who reject the former and lack the latter have no real basis upon which to perpetuate what is, in effect, an act of schism on their part.

Sometimes things are just too important to be posted on millinerd. Accordingly, I've got a mini-review of Doubt up at the FT blog.

millinerd guide to guides

Tour guides are the pastorate of the art historical profession. An art historian unable to lead a compelling tour is missing something essential, as is a theologian incapable of preaching a compelling sermon. Likewise, guiding tours (and pastoring churches) is a generally undervalued pursuit - albeit one arguably more important than formal art history (or professional theology). But undervalued or not, a tour, and sermon, is where the rubber of one's academic knowledge hits the road of public concern.

Being a good tour guide is like being a good waiter. The best waiters know how to strategically recede, foregrounding the customer's encounter with food and their chosen company - but at the same time, good waiters know when to assert themselves to enhance the dining experience. In the same way, the best tour guides assert themselves when necessary to stimulate an inattentive or perplexed audience, but the best tour guides never assert themselves too much.

The skill of delicately leeching off an ongoing tour at a given monument or museum can seriously enhance one's trip. On my recent sojourn through fair Italia, the Temple University professor I heard from at the Borghese Gallery in Rome ("the queen of private collections") was deeply informative, and I seemed to be the only one among his class that was listening. Likewise a University College London Professor's tour of Tinotoretto's Scuola San Rocco was one of the finest art history lectures I have witnessed. But, one of course does not need be a professional art historian to lead a tour. What is necessary is a jealously passionate love for one's subject and an ability to impart that enthusiasm, grounded by an accurate mastery of the historical details. The best tour guide I have ever had (at the Wurzburg residence) was probably not a professional art historian. The second best, at the Scavi tour under St. Peter's, was. The degree is secondary. Both these guides took risks to engage their audiences, and both succeeded.

At a recent Gothic conference at Princeton, Columbia's Stephen Murray (check his websites) departed from the standard academic routine, and attempted to construct a theory about how monuments need interpreters, else those monuments remain mute. He added that this new model could include spiritual meaning, which should not just be the domain of Abbot Suger. It was a refreshing break from what I'll call the "Panofsky Piñata" paradigm in which academic conference presenters take turns swinging away at an earlier generation of art historians, complete with blindfolds but without the candy. Murray's was a wonderfully complex presentation that sought to fit the new wine of active monument interpretation (i.e. tour guides) into the old wineskin of traditional art history. It might have been enough to cause some conference participants to put down their sticks.

millinerd guide to guidebooks

Guidebooks are the Biblical commentaries of the art historical field. One may read an art history textbook with attention, but never with the slavish devotion to every jot and tittle given a guidebook as one seeks that certain church or this specific statue within it. No Art Bulletin article, however well crafted, has known the sheer filial dependence placed in a guidebook by a traveler lost in an unknown city. George Steiner once wrote,

The mass of books and critical essays, of scholarly articles, of acta and dissertations produced each day in Europe and the United States, has the blind weight of a tidal wave.

And that was two decades ago. The tidal wave has only swelled, and the saddest thing about the tsunami is how little of it will be read. Not so with guidebooks. They enjoy a wide and diverse audience that specialized academic art history publications will never know. Guidebooks are those disproportionately influential, underappreciated common vessels of art historical truth.

This doesn't of course mean they're necessarily good. I have been burned by guidebooks before, be it through just plain inaccuracy, or through an annoying secular bias that assumes its readers to be pleasure-seeking drifters with no more than passing interest in religion or history. Other guidebooks have been good but not ideal. For example, I did nearly every walking tour in John Freely's classic Strolling through Istanbul, but ultimately feel its dense prose and limited, low quality maps and pictures was too much of a drawback.

Sometimes, as with Macedonia/F.Y.R.O.M. or Serbia/Kosovo, one doesn't have much of a choice (for those countries, Bradt is about it). Italy, however, is guide-book rich, leaving one the option of choosing the best case guidebook scenario: Rick Steves for practicalities, and the Blue Guide for art history. If any country to which you travel offers that combination, take it. I've made the mistake of having Rick and not Blue, and Blue and not Rick, and have paid the price. Both are necessary, and both excel in their respective categories in ways only possible because of the dynastic team enterprises that both Rick Steves and Blue Guides have become.


First comes Rick, to whom I owe a serious debt. He taught me how to travel. You don't outgrow Rick's enthusiasm, you grow into it. If you see a confused traveler on a street corner in Orvieto muttering out loud, "What say you Rick?" and reaching into his manpurse, that would be me. It's become habit, and I'm not ashamed. Consider some Rickisms:

"Travel teaches the beauty of human fulfillment. I believe God created each of us to be fulfilled."

"Affording travel is a matter of priorities. (Make do with the old car.)"

"Extroverts have more fun... Be fanatically positive and militantly optimistic.... If something's not to your liking, change your liking."

True, Rick may initially seem a tad too perky on screen, but what he's doing is embodying his own advice - and when you hit Europe you both realize how much that upbeat attitude is necessary, and long that your travel companions shared it. Who but Rick Steve's can successfully orient you to the cultural goings on in Padua University, and dare you to go up to students and ask them their take on Italian politics? True, I believe Rick goes too far by spurring middle age adults to smoke up in Amsterdam, but in an interesting case of generational rebellion, at least his son knows better.

Sure, I have my disagreements. To his bogus "skip Thessaloniki" counsel, I would retort with his advice given elsewhere: "If you don't enjoy a place, maybe you don't know enough about it." Rick sees his mission as overcoming American ethnocentrism, and he does it well. In the process, I believe he goes over the top in praising the big government of demographic freefall Europe. He also, I believe, underappreciates the (fast vanishing) American distinctives, but Rick is still honest enough to admit that Europe is "not a place I'd want to run my small business."

When it comes to European practicalities, Rick has just the right tone, and his yearly book updates (a rarity in the industry) ensure his details don't get stale. To put it bluntly, I was in Rome over the notoriously busy Holy Week, saw all of the most popular monuments, and while I passed many long lines, the only time I waited in one was to get on the plane. Why? Slavish devotion to Rick Steves.

In addition, Rick provides the videos, radio shows, forums, and best of all, free audio tours. Yes, these can be cheesy, but one must admit Rick is funny - at times in a laugh-out-loud kind of way. (Listen at 9:25 on the San Marco audio tour.) Fortunately, in these audio guides one of his colleagues has been summoned to counter his voice which produces a nice effect. That said, my female art historical colleagues will likely be infuriated that Rick is the one with the big insights, and she is the one who says things like "Did someone say shopping?"

At times, Rick's (or his co-author Gene Openshaw's) gift for boiling history down to the essentials is extremely effective. For example, here's medieval Italy made easy. There were "supporters of the popes (called Guelphs, centered in urban areas) and those of the emperors (Ghibellines, popular with the rural nobility)." But this same gift for simplicity is what renders Rick inadequate. One can only hear the Middle Ages dismissed as "centuries of superstition and ignorance" so many times before it really starts to grate. His Florence audio walking tour is enough to make a Byzantinist leap into the Arno.

Usually, the Lutheran Rick is free from prejudice. For example, he effectively defends the possible legitimacy of the relics in Venice's San Marco treasury to a skeptical American audience, and at the same time encourages skepticism when it's due - a tension masterfully handled. When in Rome, Rick encourages all travelers to become temporary Catholics. Still, Rick needs do a better job of taking his own advice. In the Colosseum audio guide, he begs your empathy for for the political rationale behind the killing binges, and then summons his listeners to compunction only at Constantine's arch. Likewise, Rick's wrap-up of the message in Michelangelo's Sistine Last Judgment is a belly flop:

Christ is returning, some will go to hell and some to heaven, and some will be saved by the power of the rosary.

But I suppose this is no surprise. Protestantism, the church of grace and liberty, often runs out of both grace and liberty in Rome.

There are also some plain errors. For example, Rick's Pantheon audioguide (2:27) says that Agrippa built it, but despite what it says on the pediment, Hadrian did (giving the honor to Arippa). And contrary to Rick's guidebook (468), the famous Madonna del voto in the Siena cathedral was not by Duccio. Petty as it may be to point out those tiny errors, it points to a general incompleteness that the wise traveler will seek to supplement.


Enter the Blue Guide. Rick has been going for decades, and keeps getting better. Blue has been going for a century (and if you count their predecessor, even more) and hence has been getting better for much longer. Not only does Blue provide you with incisive, accurate, in depth art historical information of the actual monuments, it also provides you with the best historic commentary, imparting a genuine sense of the arc of western civilization. For example, in Venice you get Venice and John Ruskin's punchiest quips. In Rome, you get the Colosseum, and Charles Dicken's take upon the monument as well, and Gibbon's, Balzac's, Byron's, etc.

The short historical essays in Blue are masterful distillations of huge swaths of information which, when read on site, can be revelations. It's not that one reads the Blue Guide and thinks, "That's interesting, I look forward to reading a more in depth art historical treatment later on." No, in many cases the Blue Guide is that more in depth art historical treatment, with the added dimension of to-the-point clarity which so much art historical literature can lack. Consider sentences like this from Blue Guide Venice:

Venice has no Dante or Leonardo or Alberti or Machiavelli; but it produced painters whose universal influence has been incomparable, because of one fundamental lesson they imbibed from the endless modulations of their native light.

Furthermore, Blue boldly takes on cherished misconceptions. Rather than whining about spolia, Blue refers to the "famous 'plundering' of the ancient buildings in the Forum, which in fact probably saved these historical works from destruction in later centuries." Rather than stroking one's self-congratulatory American pluralism, The Blue Guide is free thinking enough to poke fun at free thinkers:

Giordino Bruno's death at the hands of the Inquisition made him a hero to anti-clerical 19th-century liberals, but his rambling philosophical and theological writings are unlikely to have appealed to them in detail, for he was by no means a proto-liberal.

And whereas Rick uses the Sistine Chapel to take a pot-shot at the rosary, the Blue Guide culminates a brilliant essay with the haunting observation that Michelangelo's self placement shows that "He obdurately believed he was condemned to perdition." Such gutsy, controversial calls are Blue Guide staples. The seriousness of tone matches the seriousness of the works being examined.

Not that Blue Guides are perfect. Blue too is subject to the Renaissance bias, suggesting in the Venice book that Bellini's Transfiguration is "probably the first altarpiece of the Transfiguration to have been painted, as the religious festival celebrating the even twas only introduced in 1457." It'd be nice to at least mention the Orthodox tradition in this context, especially in a guidebook to a city so indebted to Byzantium. But the Vasari spell is a very difficult one to break.

While the strengths of the Blue Guide may seem capable of replacing Rick, I still consider both essential. Although the Blue Guides recommend hotels, contains walks and restaurant options (suggestions which I admit I haven't fully investigated), it feels as odd to consult Blue Guide for those purposes as it feels to consult Rick for in depth art or architectural history. Rick expertly plumbs Europe's shifting present, Blue beautifully showcases its infinite past. For those familiar with Biblical studies, Rick is the sometimes preachy New Interpreter's Commentary, Blue the heavyweight Anchor, and one needs both. The perfect trip should combine the attitude of Rick Steves with the authority of the Blue Guide - both of which pay for themselves several times over in a single trip.

Upright Endeavors

But enough about bad architecture. Good things are afoot as well. I've gotten word about an interesting organization called the National Civic Art Society, which both offers internships, and (like other fine institutions) is currently head honcho hunting.

And on the religion side of things, what's with the students at Duke Div. getting their acts together enough to launch a nice looking student journal called Confessio? It seems an improvement on the squabbling, Balkanized theo-blog paradigm that defined my Seminary experience. That said, Princeton's chapel is still prettier than Durham's.

My article "Building for Humans" has been captured by the widely cast BNET. What is BNET? I don't know. At any rate, you can now read it and find out why, having been to Rome, Le Corbusier considers me crippled for life.

Italenary

It is one thing to plan an itinerary, another to pull it off. Below is a real time layout of how my research trip actually went with brief commentary, provided for both my own reference, and to help you plan your trip, which (if you haven't already) you must take. Sorry, no excuses. I saw lots of people in wheelchairs. Save the money. Make the sacrifice. Take the kids. Life is short.

You'll pardon the self-portraits. Person pics are generally more interesting for others to look at, and they help me remember I was actually there. Nestled back as I now am in the settled Jersey plains, I'm finding that hard to believe.


March 31st - Arrival in Venice 'bout 1pm. That day, icon museum, S. Giorgio dei Greci, S. Giorgio Maggiore, S. Zaccaria (Bernini in situ, which even a photograph of is enough to qualify as Met-sanctioned contemporary art). Stay at the cheap Locanda Silva ('bout 50 euros a night with shared bathroom).

April 1 - Accademia and Peggy Guggenheim art museums (contrast indescribable). Frari Church, S. Polo (Franciscan/Dominican art duel), then leeched off an incredible tour of Tintoretto's "Sistine Chapel", the Scuola San Rocco. (Ahh, Scuolas - private, effective, non-government funded charitable foundations. Remember those?) Then a visit to the Mesopanditissa icon at S. Salute. Marian icons is the focus of my dissertation, and hence my trip.

April 2 - Secret Itinerary tour of the Doge's Palace (worth it). Get into San Marco's just before they turned the dome lights out (planning makes perfect). Correr Museum (okay, I rushed it), and then the boat to Torcello in the pouring rain, which was a risk, but it cleared up as I got to Torcello. Bellini at Harry's Bar of Hemingway fame (worth it).

April 3 - Turns out this was an unfeasible day which I painfully pulled off, but not without acute exhaustion. 9am pick up car, drive to Padua. Barely make the 11:45 ticket to Giotto's Arena Chapel due to navigation and parking. See Padua University and St. Antony's tomb, then off to Ravenna. Arrival in Ravenna such that I have to sprint between mosaics, and while missing out on S. Apollinare in Classe, I saw the rest. Then the grueling drive over the mountains to Florence at night. After more parking nightmares (due to late arrival), check into a not so great hotel at 2am.

April 4 - 7am move car to cheaper lot, then rush to the Bargello, which careful preparation enables one to experience quickly but intensely. Then to Santa Maria Novella and San Marco (both were essential). Make the 12pm Accademia by the skin of my chin (due to having to find a place to print out the reservation details which I didn't realize I needed). Michelangelo's David was there, but the icons are upstairs. Then 2pm Uffizi which I rode out until closing. I wept for those without reservations. Then a meaty dinner overlooking the Ponte Vecchio, only to then witness a vegetarian demonstration perhaps spurred by my meal. Surprisingly, this was an almost perfectly planned day and did not feel rushed.


April 5 (Palm Sunday) - Move the car, Duomo liturgy, Brancacci Chapel, Santa Croce, Medici Chapels, San Lorenzo, (I missed the Medicci-Riccardi Palace), and Piazza Michelangelo at sunset. Moral of the story: No Medicci, no Michelangelo. Patronage matters. These additional sites meant I ended up spending five additional hours in Florence, which forced Arezzo and Assisi out of my plans, but more time in Florence was worth it. That night quick drive to Siena, where I enjoyed perhaps the best pizza dinner I've ever had. Stay at the wonderful Alma Domus (con vista por favore), the best hotel of my visit (nun-run).

April 6 - First thing in Siena is the Pinacoteca, then the City Tower, then the Civic Museum (Lorenzetti's allegory), then the Duomo Museum (Duccio's Maesta), then the Duomo. The Santa Maria della Scala Museum is an impressive feet of museumcraft, but is very, very big. Say goodbye to Saint Catherine's skull at S. Domenico (not realizing I would soon see her body in Rome), then drive to Orvieto, that city on a hill which was, simply put, a revelation. As a priest friend explained, Orvieto is ground zero for the real presence. The few hours I spent there were arresting, and sufficient. Then drive to Rome, where I drop off the car at the airport, take the train into the city, and wander trying to find the Yellow hostel where I earn the reputation as "the married guy."



April 7 - Rome is different. Any attempt at "doing" the city with the same ridiculous pace I set for myself previously would inevitably fail, so I didn't even try. I took the morning to try to recover from exhaustion and process some photos. Then it was onto Santa Maria Maggiore, S. Alfonoso to meet with a priest about my dissertation icon, S. John Lateran, S. Croce in Gerusalemme (which had a nice exhibit of Russian icons).

April 8 - Getting to the Borghese is difficult, but I made my 9am reservation. It was a visually satisfying experience. Then I check the Opus Dei headquarters near by. Then the Scavi tour of the Vatican and then St. Peter's Basilica itself. The Scavi tour was a keeper. Before 1940, saying that St. Peter's was built over the tomb of St. Peter was a essentially a matter of faith. Since 1940, those who so believe have convincing archaeological evidence in their favor.

April 9 (Maundy Thursday) - Giotto exhibit (temporary), then the Vatican museum from 12 - 5pm (seriously, it took that long). The museum's essential message: Michelangelo (Sistine Chapel) is to classicism (Greek sculpture) what Aquinas (Summa Theologica) is to the best of pagan philosophy (Aristotle). Catholicism, the great amoeba, absorbs again.

I barely caught the Pope at a St. John Lateran service, and then did the fountain walk (Spanish steps, Trevi fountain, etc.). I witnessed throngs of youth wandering the streets of Rome, some going to party, some going in droves from church to church to venerate the Blessed Sacrament. Choose this day, right? I went with the revering droves.



April 10 (Good Friday) - Colosseum that morning, then S. Clemente, S. Cosma e Damiano, then Good Friday service in the Pantheon. The gods may be gone, but the one that matters is holding out. Then S. Luigi (Carravagio), S. Maria sopra Minerva. The Pope's carrying the cross at the Colosseum was not the best choice - I got a better view at Yankee stadium, but it was neat to watch him through the Arch of Constantine.



April 11 - S. Passede, S. Pudentziana, S. Francesco (where with persistence, I actually got to see Rome's earliest icon of Mary), the Palatine Hill and the Roman Forum, Capitoline Museum (where, captive as I am to cultural Christianity, I was sucked up by the statue of Constantine), Fra Angelico exhibit (who I'm convinced is the artist who understands heaven best), then to Trastevere where I enjoyed the neighborhood and caught the beginning of the Easter Vigil at S. Maria in Trastevere, but sadly, was too burnt out to see it through.

April 12 - Off to the Vatican for Easter. Bernini's concave pavement made it actually a very visible service. Then, fool that I am, I walked to the tomb of Saint Paul at S. Paulo Fuori le Mura. But seeing pilgrims used to walk there from France, it seemed fair. Visiting tombs and churches does in fact, I learned, impart spiritual benefits, perhaps explaining the plenary indulgence incentive inscribed on so many of them. Then train to the airport, night at the Amsterdam Yotel (perhaps the most efficient use of space I've ever encountered), where I was sadly unable to finish Twilight because it was no longer on the movie selection.

And so it went. I wouldn't be the first to try to explain that while this was a pleasurably momentous journey, it was no vacation.

Santa Maria Maggiore

Santa Maria Maggiore
Originally uploaded by millinerd

Greetings from the Eternal City.

Glorious Crumbs

Florence
Originally uploaded by millinerd

Because Giotto's Arena Chapel is so obviously dependent on Torcello (seeing them both within 24 hours drives home the point), and because I had just been to the mosaics of Ravenna, I arrived in Florence with a rather large Byzantine chip on my shoulder - a chip perhaps as imposing as one of the marble blocks upon which Michelangelo worked away. But the Renaissance, mirabile dictu, works away on me. The breaking point was the Palm Sunday procession through Ghiberti's Gates of Paradise and into Brunelleschi's (and Vasari's) dome. The masterpieces of the Uffizi, I then realized, are crumbs from the liturgical table.