So here's a bit of historic trivia: Assisi, the town where Saint Francis was born and lived most of his life, lies only about 100 miles from here. He was known as a friend of the poor and as a peacemaker. And some of that lives on in the orders of priests, monks, and nuns that he founded.

Florence (as well as the entire country of Italy) identifies Francis as its patron saint.

But the Medici had a particular affection for Francis’ contemporary, Saint Dominic. Although he was born a Spaniard, Dominic moved to Italy and established the Dominican order of priests and monks among the Italians. He and his followers (known also as the Order of Preachers) fought heresy; he even established Rome’s first Office of the Inquisition.

Dominicans sought to bring order out of chaos, which you might imagine would appeal to a ruling class bent on retaining power.

For centuries these two coveys of cowled clerics competed for Florentines adherence and devotion … and (one hopes secondarily) for the wealth that flowed along with each.

And as a result, the Franciscans and the Dominicans have built a multitude of monasteries, a flood of friaries, networks of nunneries, a chunky-monkey of churches, all of which give the unfortunate appearance of spiritual fiefdoms scattered about the area. But even though their competitions may seem petty, they have resulted in some astonishing buildings and experiments in art that helped to create the Renaissance.

On Thursday I visited one of each of the historic communities:

Florence’s San Marco monastery is filled with altar pieces, canvases, and frescoes painted by the Dominican monk Fra Angelico. His work shows the initial sparks of a 3-dimensional and humanistic focus that characterized the Renaissance advances. One wall of each monk’s cell (there are well over 50 open for viewing) contains a fresco depicting a biblical story, most of them gruesome depictions of the crucifixion.

But one particular monk’s cell group stands out, although less for its art than for its occupant.

Savonarola, a mesmerizing, maniacal, moralizing Dominican railed publicly against what he considered the lavish and lascivious lives of the Medici, which in his day included the reigning Pope. He wanted a theocratic republic, and for four years, the Florentine council gave him the reins to the city. He staged book and art burnings in the Piazza della Signoria just outside the city hall. Botticelli and other painters repudiated their own secular paintings and threw many of them on the bonfires.

But his rigidity and rule via thuggery proved too much for the Florentines. So after 4 years he was arrested in this very monastery and dragged down to the city hall. Following a few days of torture, he was hung in the same Piazza della Signoria where he fostered the destruction of Renaissance ideas and art.

Well, after hearing a story like that, can you blame me for catching a bus out of town?

In reality, this was a short pleasure trip into the hills, up to the much older town of Fiesole. Before there were Romans, there were Etruscans, and a few of the remains of that culture survive in Fiesole.

Even though I was looking forward to the scenery along the way, my bus ride was most memorable for my first encounter with pickpockets. By luck, I thwarted the attempt at thievery, and the pair of them vacated the bus a moment later.

Fiesole has more intact Roman ruins than can be found in Florence, including an amphitheater that is still in use. The city museum was a tiny delight. After viewing their collection, I climbed uphill to the city park/viewpoint. The day looked hazy, so photos cannot do justice to the distant views.

But still further up hill is little Franciscan church and monastery. Both Franciscans and Dominicans do missionary work, but the Franciscans here in Fiesole have gathered the souvenirs drawn from centuries of international missionary work into a museum. So I had the surprising experience of wandering through a small Italian village and happening upon bronze Buddhas, Chinese art, and oddest of all, an Egyptian mummy.

I left town again on Friday, but more about that later.

Blog to you later!