Saturday, February 4, 2012

Photo Hunt—"flat"

In the church of Santa Croce, in Florence,
gravestones are set flat in the floor.  In
some parts of the church, they're
cheek by jowl (so to speak), and hard to
avoid—but I still can't bring myself to walk
over them.  Not because it's creepy; it just
doesn't seem fittin' somehow.



[To see more of the Saturday 
Photo Hunt, visit Sandi's meme.]

8 comments:

  1. Is that A.D. 1572? The Barbigias were a wealthy mercantile family of Florence. Nice pin-striping around the black-lion “coat of arms.”

    I would agree. There is something about trodding on those that is like walking on Japanese tatami mats while wearing shoes. I thought Europeans were a bit touchy about graves. When I stopped by to pay respects to Jim there was a uniformed security guard at Père Lachaise who scolded anyone who would so much as set a bag on adjoining graves. Also, you are right not to walk on those gravestones in the church to avoid getting nabbed.

    But I wonder if the actual graves in Santa Croce are further below in a crypt and those “gravestones” merely markers it might not be so damning-to-hell-for-all-eternity to step upon.

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  2. I also wouldn't walk on them. An interesting interpretation of the theme.

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  3. I'm with you, Alexa ~ it seems much more respectful to tiptoe around them. They are beautiful, aren't they.

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  4. I always walk around them, too.

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  5. A man and his wife were at the end of their marriage - they hated each other. The wife said, "I'll dance on your grave when you're dead!"
    "Great," replied the man,"I'm being buried at sea."

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  6. Santa Croce is one of my favorites in Florence... but then aren't they all?
    See you next weekend at The Saturday PhotoHunt... show your ♥!
    Sandi

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  7. There are places in England -- with Westminster Abbey particularly coming to mind -- where there are so many gravestones set in the floor that it seems unavoidable re stepping on at least some of them as one walks about inside the church/cathedral. And yeah, it seems on the disrespectful as well as creepy side to me. But when in Rome and all that...!

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  8. Oh i understand. I even hesitated to step on a grave at the pet cemetery in Paris!
    V

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