SIENA - DIVINE LIGHT
Yesterday morning, before heading into Umbria, we visited the Duomo of Siena.
When I was in Siena 9 years ago to photograph behind the scenes of the Palio as "embedded" photographer in Contrada della Giraffa, I had briefly visited the Duomo, but I had not taken the time for a proper full visit of the architectural marvel.
This time round, we took the full-access ticket, including also the Museum of the original artwork and the original sculptures from the restored façade etc.
The ticket also included a feature called "Porta del Cielo" (Gate to Heaven) which is the Italian euphemism for "Absurd Amount of Steps".
Directly inside the entrance of the cathedral, you are guided in smaller groups through a hidden door up absurdly narrow winding stairs hidden in the columns of the façade, up a few levels:
- first to the space between the cupolas and the roof of the right side of the Cathedral, where views can be had through opened stained glass windows into the central Cupola,
- then further up and to the exterior of that same cupola where there is a narrow terrace with views of Siena,
- then around the Cupola to the left side and back to the front,
- finally across the narrow front interior balcony of the central section and back down again.
This is a view from that last stretch of the tour, viewing the star studded ceiling of the central section of the cathedral, looking from the facade towards the main altar:

As you can see, we were blessed with nice sunlight streaming in from the east (we were on the first tour of the day at 10.00 and we are firmly in autumn).
There is a net under the ceiling to protect churchgoers from falling pieces of plaster or other mishaps.
This webbing conducted the light streaming in, making it seem like the light was shining almost exactly horizontal.
Once back down in the Cathedral itself, I went of course looking for more manifestations of this same phenomenon, and ended up with these images :


