Milano

The view from Milan's Hotel Aspromonte, where we stayed for four days.

In downtown Milan we met this amazing accordion player:

The entrance to a shopping arcade near Piazza Duomo.

Interior of the Milan Cathedral.

On the huge front door, The espousal of Joseph and Mary.

The courtyard of the Pinocoteca Museum.

Raphael's Espousal of Mary and Joseph, in the Pinocoteca.

One of so many beautiful and tender paintings of the Madonna and Child.

I was struck by how much Renaissance art celebrates domesticity, especially in scenes of mother and child or husband and wife. This supremely humanizing art honors and elevates the everyday aspects of human life with its moments of tenderness and love, revealing a divine quality to the bond between parent and child, between husband and wife.