There were pinhole spectacles in the Galileo Museum in Florence. You can take a virtual tour of the museum and look at the objects here.
A golden earring in the Archeology Museum in Perugia.
These pierced bowls from the Villa Giulia in Rome.
And, my personal favorite, amulets from the amulet collection at the Archeology Museum in Perugia. I blogged about them once, already, but it was such a cool collection that it bears mentioning again.
Here is a flickr set of us, in Italy. 
Like pecorino cheese from Pienza. Our favorite was the variety with black peppercorns.
And, from our favorite haunt in Cortona, Bar 500. N exclusively ate the pizza 500, which had sweet corn, roasted red peppers, spicy sausage, red onion and pecorino and mozzarella cheese. 
Of course, there was gelato. 
And wine and drinks galore; this is a festive sangria. 
Burano Italy, outside Venice, is known for its lace production, but the most interesting thing about it, in my opinion, was the bright coloring of the houses. More photos here.
This little fella is an Aye-aye and was in the collection of La Specola in Florence.
Here's a cowardly looking lion from Venice.
And a cow/prairie dog thing in Siena.
This sign was in the Duomo museum in Siena. 
This is from the Doge's residence in Venice. That's guy has a pretty impressive stream, if you ask me.
And in Viterbo, they have giant birds dropping babies onto cars. Scary stuff.
One of my favorite things in Italy were the faces and figures, both religious and otherwise. They stuck them everyone. Here are a couple of my favorites.
This reliquary was in Viterbo.
A face above a doorway in Orvieto.
And this stately man is from the Camposanto in Pisa. The rest of my face pics are in a set in my flickr.
We're back from Cortona now. We had a wonderful time, but will miss the friends we made and the beautiful scenery. 
I have been trading jewelry with as many of the other artists and faculty here as I can! Above is a ring I traded with painter Holly Coulis.
These earrings were for photo teacher Robin Dana.
And this brooch was made for ceramicist Lauren Gallaspy.
N. and I saw an awesome collection of amulets at the National Archaeological Museum of Perugia this weekend. The collection contains 3,000 objects gathered by one man in the late 1800 to early 1900s. All the objects, some very old, some contemporary to the time, were kept by people for magical/superstitious purposes. 
Been making these silver pins with imagery based on snapshots we've taken in Italy. They are chased and repoussed in silver. 
check out this blog being kept by the photo faculty here, Robin Dana. Her website has other amazing photos, as well.
Long and link stitch structure, discovered in Italy. I recovered my travel journal using this stitch, since it seems appropriate.
Coptic stitch structures; the top and bottom journals have paper that I decorated myself.
Here's a lovely sunset in Cortona. So far, it is pretty cold and windy here. We had a little snow last night and I'm hoping that's all we get because snow on the hills around here would be treacherous. I know they've dealt with it in the past. 
First thing I wanted to do in Italy was play with the white carrara marble that is in abundance here. It's very easy to carve and work with, so I started by making the weird shapes above and then decided to carve an ear because listening (to stuff I don't understand) is on my mind a lot right now. 
I am also sitting in on the book making class and have so far made several pamphlet style books. 
It is very fun and something I've always wanted to learn to do, so I'm grateful to have the opportunity.
And, when all other inspiration fails, I make a spoon. So here is my newest little spoon--a good size for espresso here in Italia!
