As I was preparing these images I kept trying to figure out the logic in the choices I was making. Two of the images are here, because I love the text in the banner – primaverarte – and the text on the poster – tu sei bellezza. The fresco and gargoyle were too odd; the guns too symmetrical; the bronze angels too dynamic; the shutter too inviting; the tomatoes too red; and the wooden cross too simple to pass over.

In the journal, I wrote on and on about the hypocrisy of the Church, but the poster – tu sei bellezza – was an amazing find. We were in Pesaro and walked into a church and there it was on a wall, a left over from earlier in the summer. How can something so amazing be relegated to the left-overs? The text – You are beauty – refers to Mary. The poster is an ad for a pilgrimage from Loreto to Assisi. I love the simplicity of the phrase; the rhythm of the sounds; the matter-of-factness of the statement.

The word beauty in English has been restricted, gendered, sexualized; it’s a commodity. In Italian the word bellezza is broad in meaning. It’s an endearment to a child, a mother, a grandmother. It doesn’t compare, it tells. It’s a gift, a comment freely given.

(The thumbnail links to a large image.)