George Elbert Burr, born Monroe Falls, - Cathedral, Fiesole - 1900 - T-Shirt

A quiet pencil study of the cathedral at Fiesole, its tall crenellated bell tower rising above low roofs and cypresses on a sunlit hillside, dated May 1900.

Visual Elements & Composition

The drawing is built in fine, lightly shaded pencil line on a pale, clear sky. A slender campanile with a crenellated top and paired arched openings rises at the left, its shaft marked with horizontal courses. To the right, pitched roofs and walls of the church and its adjoining buildings step down the slope, with a row of dark cypresses and a small house on the crest at the far right. Trees and shrubs fill the foreground. The title and the date, May 21, 1900, are inscribed in the upper right corner.

Meaning & Symbolism

Fiesole stands on a hill above Florence, and its bell tower marks the town's skyline within a landscape long admired by visitors to Tuscany. The tower and the cypresses identify the Italian hillside setting, and the sketch shows religious building and rural life sharing the same slope. The uncrowded composition conveys the stillness of the hill town as travellers of the period knew it. George Elbert Burr made the drawing in 1900 as one of his dated studies of Italian towns, the travel drawings in which he recorded the places he visited.

Wear the Hillside

Across the chest, the tower and rooftops read clearly at a glance, and the open sky around them keeps the print calm and uncluttered. The fine pencil line carries the detail of the cathedral and its trees, so the view from the hill is what you see when you look down at the shirt.