Gayle Brennan Spencer – sending random thoughts to and from South Austin
Above: Detail of a side altar of Templo Santo Domingo de Guzman
Spare words are being offered. We have visited Santo Domingo so many times through the years, yet we are still always gob-smacked by her beauty.
Many others are as well, making the dawn-of-the-17th-century Baroque church a magnet for destination weddings. A four-year age-defying face-lift undertaken in the 1990s successfully masks her age.
Continue reading “Postcard from Oaxaca, Mexico: Santo Domingo wears her age well”
Above: Santa Lucia holy card superimposed over silver milagros displayed in Cattedrale della Nativita di Maria Santissima
She stands guard on the windowsill by my desk as I write. As the patron of eyesight and authors, Saint Lucy (283-384) has long been a favorite of mine. Both near-sighted and far-sighted, I’ve worn glasses since the second grade. And certainly my writing needs all the help it can get.
Having lost sight in my right eye a year ago, it seemed serendipitous that one of the spots the Mister planned on staying, Siracusa, turned out to be her hometown. A church dedicated to the saint, Chiesa di Santa Lucia alla Badia, was a block away from our rental – a proximity presenting an opportunity to soak up some of Santa Lucia’s goodwill to protect the left.
Continue reading “Postcard from Siracusa, Sicily: Protector of eyes and the quill”
She-Wolf and Oak Tree, Symbols of Lecce, on the Façade of the Church of Saint Irene
Baroque churches of Lecce are filled with putti frolicking amidst birds and pomegranates, twisting Solomonic columns covered with intricate lacelike carvings, images of saints and some of their bones.
Postcards from Barton Springs 