This morning was excellent! I was still tired from staying up so late last-night registering class, and I didn’t have any food in the dorm to eat before my morning class. However, when I passed by the front desk I saw there was a little package waiting for me, full of HOMEMADE CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES. That was a very tasty, and the chocolate chips made it well rounded, breakfast. (THANK YOU SO MUCH!)
For my morning class, instead of going to the state archives we went to one of the many state Libraries. However, this was no regular library. You can’t actually see, or take out any books unless you fill out a slip with the request for a certain book or bundle of manuscripts. Then, a librarian brings it to you.
We were looking at problems the Duke of Urbino had to deal with (the theme was life at the court). Most of the manuscripts, in the bundle we examined from the early 17th century, addressed problems of food. In one instance the Duke’s men suspected that one of the bakers, on staff, was purposely making low quality bread. The solution the Duke thought up was to take the same materials that were given to the court baker, give them to an outside baker (without telling the first) and have him make the same amount of bread and compare the quality. It’s amazing to think that this is what the leader of Urbino spent his brainpower concocting.
For the second half of class we actually went to the kitchen, or, that is, what remains of it beneath the Ducal Palace. The basement beneath the Palace is incredibly cool. There are huge arches holding the ceiling up, chimneys extending all the way to the surface and, the remains of the freezer(which is just a huge well with access to the element which they stored snow in to preserve the food during the warmer months).
After another 4 hour history class with Peter(in which we covered all of WWI & II from Italy’s perspective I returned to the dorms for some dinner and rest. However, I was swarmed by my Syrian friends who wanted to learn tango. So I gave an intro lesson upstairs, and although it started out with 2 people, we ended with at least 10 respectable dancer and 6 or 7 supportive onlookers.
