ETA: Oops, let this languish in my draft pile since the beginning of July!
Last weekend I had agreed to be Lakshmi's roadie for a show she was performing in Latina, one of the Fascist-built towns in the Agro Pontino. The venue had offered to pay for her to stay overnight and shuttle her between the train station, venue, and hostel--an offer made necessary, we discovered, by Mussolini's town planning. Wanting the populations of his new farming towns to stay on the land and not go to the city or to their original homes (mostly in the Veneto), he positioned Latina's train station miles north of the town itself. We were picked up by Vito, one of the co-owners of Circolo H, and the heavily overweight Massimo, who was driving a nice Audi wagon and whose role in this whole venture we never really established.
The other owner of the venue, Gian Luca, is easily one of the sweetest and most generous people I have met in this country. He didn't really speak English, so it was a mix of translation between me and Vito along with Lakshmi's Italian. He was the kind of guy who is always bustling about, making sure everyone is comfortable; we later learned he's the father of two little girls, which totally made sense. Circle H has a really wonderful set-up--the bar was attractive, it had a huge stage, and even its own sound-proofed practice room. We got there around 7 and did the sound check, and then were planning to go find some food since the show didn't start till 10:30 or so, but he insisted on cooking us a full dinner! He explained to us how difficult it was to run the venue, which he and Vito took over four years earlier after he lost his factory job; in Latina it's very hard to get people to come out to see live music, particularly younger people who only want to go to clubs and bars. He was telling us this apologetically, to explain why probably not that many people would be there that night (though it actually turned out to be quite a crowd), and added that he wasn't sure how much longer he could keep the place going.
After the show, which went really well, it was maybe 1am, and Gian Luca drove us to where we were staying, which was not, thankfully, in the featureless town of Latina itself, but in the medieval hill town of Sermoneta perched some 10 miles away. Rracing across a darkened countryside at night, the stars blazing above and perfectly cold, clear air whipping through the car, was awesome, particularly since I'm living now in a city with no car. Gian Luca dropped us off at the hostel, which was a decommissioned medieval church and convent. I haven't stayed at a hostel since college, and it's not something I was super interested in repeating, but he did get us our own room and it was free, so hey. Since the bathroom was a shared one we both decided we would simply forgo showering till getting back to the Academy!
After saying goodbye to Gian Luca, we decided to go out and explore Sermoneta. First we had to actually get our room door open--it had a skeleton key and we could not get it to work for easily five minutes, during which I was starting to panic a little bit--it was 2am, the people who ran the hostel didn't live there, and our only contact was currently speeding away in the countryside! Thankfully we got it open and escaped into the cool night air of a completely silent and deserted medieval town. Deserted, I should say, except for the many cats who were roaming the streets, and the one woman who was smoking silently on a darkened balcony, watching us as we passed by her house. It was really magical; Sermoneta is one of those old medieval towns with narrow, steeply pitched stone streets punctuated by plenty of stairs. Even with the cool night air we felt like we were getting a workout. It was so peaceful, too. At one point we stood by the city wall, overlooking the dark plain and the lights of Latina seven or eight miles off, near the water, and spent minutes in pure silence, the only sounds a couple of dogs barking down in the plain, and now and then the distant roar of a car. Only one other time this year have I experienced that sense of utter stillness, on our trip to Puglia and Basilicata in the fall, at Castel del Monte. At this point it was after 2am, so we returned to the hostel to go to sleep, although as I learned the next morning, it was good for me that I had earplugs, since the silent calm of the valley was punctuated throughout the night by the braying of someone's donkey!
The next morning we explored Sermoneta in daylight. It was still charming, though we definitely stood out as perhaps some of the only non-Italian tourists. We went up to the castle and arrived as a large tour group of elderly Italians was making its way in. Stopping to listen to the guide, we wound up tagging along on their entire tour, and only realized on our way out that this wasn't a free service--whoops! I would gladly have paid, not so much for the information about the castle (which includes the Casa del Cardinale, once briefly home to Cesare and Lucrezia Borgia) but for the amusement provided by the tour-goers, who were some of the funniest old Italians I've ever met. They were actually having fun with each other, in the middle of all the complaining about having to continually ascend and descend levels of the castle (at which some of the old men cheered each other on). The castle also included the Camere Dipinte, a set of rooms frescoed with mythological allegories and then allegories of the Virtues, which each Virtue depicted with her 'opposite'. The opposite of Charity is apparently naked children pulling a cat's tail!
Speaking of cats, a little cat named Kiko was responsible for another great experience! We were looking for a vegan restaurant that Lakshmi had heard about down a quiet street, when we saw Kiko sitting in a opened doorway; he ran over to us and hopped up into the window of the house opposite so that we could pet him more easily. A couple of older men came out of the opened door and jovially asked us if we wanted to adopt him; we talked with them briefly, and the guy mentioned he had a restaurant back in the center of town. We declined in favor of our vegan place, but when that turned out to be closed we decided to go check out il Giardino del Simposio. Kiko hadn't led us astray; the food was some of the best we'd had in Italy, and Fabio, the owner (who turned out not to even own Kiko himself, despite his offer to us!) was very charming and clearly proud of what he had built. We had accidentally ordered an entire bottle of wine, so we had ample time to sit back and enjoy our surroundings as we sipped.
One of their claims to fame is their trombolotto sauce, made from the unique species of lemon that grows in Sermoneta. I had it with bottarga, dressed over the pasta tableside by Fabio, and it was awesome. Fabio was very proud that he sells his sauce to lots of high-end chefs, and indeed I also found it at Roscioli's online store, with a small jar going for 50 euro! He also offered us some of his sour cherry preserves, popping a few in our wine glasses, and it was delicious.
After lunch we were picked up by Vito, and since we still had some time before our train, he whisked us to see the gardens of Ninfa, or at least what you could see standing on the road looking over the pond and castle! This is one of the most famous gardens in Italy, and only open a handful of days each year. I decided I'd like to come back for my birthday, as it happens to be open on Oct 3 and 4 this fall. A day in the gardens and dinner at Fabio's.
I was really, really impressed by how kind and friendly everyone we met in Sermoneta and Latina was. A number of them expressed their feelings on Rome in a manner similar to mine living in Connecticut--nice to visit, not to live. Indeed, by the time we got back to Rome it felt like we'd been away a week, when it fact it was basically 24 hours...how we wished it could have been longer!
Monday, July 13, 2015
Thursday, June 04, 2015
At Last
Sean is here! He arrived on Tuesday, which was, naturally, a national holiday. He arrived at the Academy gates at 8am, just as I was coming out to wait for him, and we had everything pretty much squared away by 11am! Our winter stuff is all in our suitcases, and the extra rack I acquired from an outgoing fellow is carrying Sean's (many) sports coats and his suit in my office, but otherwise we seem to have fitted everything in fairly neatly. That is not to say that there will not be endless squabbles over organization, etc (cf the 'affair of the drenched bathmat'), but it's so good to finally have him here with me at last.
This is a pretty crazy week here, actually; it's Trustees Week, when fifty or so trustees (some intellectuals/artists, some wealthy donors) and their families come to the Academy to meet the fellows, soak up some sun, and enjoy the general splendor. Last night there was a huge gala at the Villa Aurelia down the street, at the tune of $1200 a plate, to support the Italian affiliated fellows (the gala that helps fund us, which is held in NYC, is even more expensive). Obviously we were not invited, but we feasted on some of the best meatballs I've ever had while the kitchen focused most of their efforts on executing Alice Waters' menu for 475 people. The head chef said he finished up in the kitchen at 3am, slept upstairs in the common room, and was back down in the kitchen by 8am to start today's lunch.
Although the crowds have been kind of intense, on the plus side almost all of the six-month fellows have come back for the week! It was such a pleasure to walk into the kitchen and see Adam making breakfast, and to have Carin staying once again in the same hallway. Tonight we have readings by the novelists and open studios for the artists; tomorrow the musicians will give a concert, followed by the 'rosette ceremony', in which everyone but me and Nathan will be officially inducted into the Society of Fellows of the AAR. We have to wait until we're super-seniors to get our pins, haha. Last night Stefania told us she refuses to have a pin put on her clothes (most of which are weird-yet-insanely-expensive Commes des Garcons), so we'll have to see whether she tries to doge.
I also went to Lakshmi's show at a bar/club in Pigneto, being very surprised with myself for heading out to a 10:30 show on the other side of the city. A big group of us went, actually--me, Corin, Cynthia, Liz, Mack, Adam, and even Anna--who went straight to the venue from the airport, flying in from Sicily! I can't remember the last time I was at an actual club. Live music there has been aplenty, in the concert series Paula has held in her studio in Casa Rustica for musicians, mostly experimental/electronic who are passing through, and the more traditional performances John and Denise have done with a rotating cast of accompaniment. Apparently we aren't that musical compared to last year, though.
Sean leaves Sunday for a week in France for a concert, so on Saturday night we're meeting Carla for dinner. Carla, who told me she confided in her mom her worries that she wouldn't see much of me once Sean arrived, only for Claudia to reply 'honey, that's not how marriage works.' Ha! Truth...
This is a pretty crazy week here, actually; it's Trustees Week, when fifty or so trustees (some intellectuals/artists, some wealthy donors) and their families come to the Academy to meet the fellows, soak up some sun, and enjoy the general splendor. Last night there was a huge gala at the Villa Aurelia down the street, at the tune of $1200 a plate, to support the Italian affiliated fellows (the gala that helps fund us, which is held in NYC, is even more expensive). Obviously we were not invited, but we feasted on some of the best meatballs I've ever had while the kitchen focused most of their efforts on executing Alice Waters' menu for 475 people. The head chef said he finished up in the kitchen at 3am, slept upstairs in the common room, and was back down in the kitchen by 8am to start today's lunch.
Although the crowds have been kind of intense, on the plus side almost all of the six-month fellows have come back for the week! It was such a pleasure to walk into the kitchen and see Adam making breakfast, and to have Carin staying once again in the same hallway. Tonight we have readings by the novelists and open studios for the artists; tomorrow the musicians will give a concert, followed by the 'rosette ceremony', in which everyone but me and Nathan will be officially inducted into the Society of Fellows of the AAR. We have to wait until we're super-seniors to get our pins, haha. Last night Stefania told us she refuses to have a pin put on her clothes (most of which are weird-yet-insanely-expensive Commes des Garcons), so we'll have to see whether she tries to doge.
I also went to Lakshmi's show at a bar/club in Pigneto, being very surprised with myself for heading out to a 10:30 show on the other side of the city. A big group of us went, actually--me, Corin, Cynthia, Liz, Mack, Adam, and even Anna--who went straight to the venue from the airport, flying in from Sicily! I can't remember the last time I was at an actual club. Live music there has been aplenty, in the concert series Paula has held in her studio in Casa Rustica for musicians, mostly experimental/electronic who are passing through, and the more traditional performances John and Denise have done with a rotating cast of accompaniment. Apparently we aren't that musical compared to last year, though.
Sean leaves Sunday for a week in France for a concert, so on Saturday night we're meeting Carla for dinner. Carla, who told me she confided in her mom her worries that she wouldn't see much of me once Sean arrived, only for Claudia to reply 'honey, that's not how marriage works.' Ha! Truth...
Saturday, May 30, 2015
The Best of Venice
I'm trying to think of how many discrete times I've been to Venice. The first was that ill-fated Carnevale trip during study abroad, when I was so disgusted with our fellow students' drunken misbehavior; Carla likes reminding me about the rant about the "swine" that I delivered when we finally got back to our hotel room. Overall I didn't have a great impression of the city. It was February, and freezing; I remember standing in the piazzetta, waiting for the "flight of the angel" to kick off the carnival season, hemmed in by the biggest crowd I'd ever seen, freezing my ass off despite the thermals I was wearing under my jeans. I remember being unimpressed by the general air of dilapidation, too, the peeling plaster and exposed brick--why couldn't they keep things in better repair?
The second time I went to Venice was again with Carla, when I visited her the fall after we graduated college. I was working for Paul at the time, and making decent money for the first time (ah, those long-ago days of an entry-level salary!). I don't remember too much of that trip either, besides our gondola ride, a ridiculous 80 euro split with another woman and her young daughter, and that I threw out my wine-color Converse sneakers, bought during our study abroad period, because I thought they'd done something to my feet that left me hobbling from Venice back to Florence. In fact, as I would learn in Rome in 2009 when I took that monthlong class, it wasn't the shoes so much as my feet; I don't have enough padding in my heels to handle the 8-odd hours of walking a trip to Europe typically requires while wearing only Converse. If I put heel pads in, though, I'm fine (and in fact I have heels pads right now in the wine-colored Converse I'm wearing).
The next time after that was March of 2010, when Sean and I went to Bergamo and then to Venice for my masters thesis research. By this point I'd decided that I was going to work on Venetian art for my dissertation, which means that a lot of that interest in Venice was fostered more from books and seminars than from direct experience of the city itself! We traveled during spring break, and while it was cold in Bergamo, that was nothing to the sudden blizzard we encountered as soon as we got into Venice. Even the locals were surprised, because it should have already been spring. Whichever Converse I was wearing that day soaked through with floodwater immediately upon leaving the station, which is why I purchased the rubber boots, which I still own, at a shop nearby. Splashing around in the flooded San Marco piazza was fun, taking a picture on Rialto as snow fell around us was great, but overall it was a pretty physically miserable visit.
After that came the summer research trip of 2012, when I spent two sweaty, lonely months living on the Lido with Elsa, the ancient Venetian woman who spoke no English, and fruitlessly trying to come up with a dissertation proposal as I bounced among the various libraries and archives in the city. Sean told me recently that he's never seen me as unhappy as I was during that period. The lack of a concerted purpose, coupled with not having many people to talk to, aside from various encounters with my adviser and the few people I knew or to whom she introduced me, was pretty hard to deal with. The hot weather was a bitch too, honestly, especially since Elsa, despite having AC, almost never used it because of the expense.
Most recently, before this, I went up to Venice in January for David Rosand's memorial at the Accademia. I had forgotten that it was acqua alta season, and the boots I bought in 2010 did me absolutely no good sitting in my room in Rome while I trudged through four or five inches of icy water! Luckily my ankle boots were waterproof, but it was still distinctly unpleasant. The skies were grey, and the chill damp in Venice in the winter really manages to get into your bones somehow, in a way it doesn't seem to in other places. I remember shivering in the Salute and asking myself, "what am I even doing here?" To be fair, the sunset that night on the Grand Canal nearly made up for the awful day-- an exquisite, hot pink all across the horizon. I considered it an honor paid by nature to Dr. Rosand.
Finally we come to this visit, just four days, to attend a conference on the young Tintoretto at the Cini Fondazione. The weather has been perfect, even if it rained briefly on my first evening, as I was helping Margaret haul her mom's giant suitcase over the bridges from the station to her apartment. Low 70s, sunshine, zero humidity. Warm enough to make you sweat a little crossing the big campi or on the open stretches by the bacino, but chilly enough in the shaded streets to require pants and a scarf--even my leather coat at night. I have discovered the face of Venice I like the most--and it's the one that doesn't make me shiver or drip with sweat!
It really has been an awesome few days, and has helped remind me why I love this city, its history, and the art it produced. It helped that I had avenues for socialization: a drink with Margaret on Thursday, dinner with her and Dave at Il Refolo on Friday (recommended by Stefania as a 'cheap' osteria option, it was one of the most expensive meals I've had all year, but really, really good), lunch with Sophia, the same girl I had a scholarly blind-date with in January, at the conference yesterday. I ran into Francesca Alberti, a Villa Medici scholar who was giving a paper (and who reminds me of Delphine from Orphan Black), and met her mom, who lives in Trastevere and is an artist who works with beetles. Even this morning, as I was enjoying three leisurely hours in the Accademia, I approached a woman to tell her how much I liked her skirt (long and dark blue with distinctive gold edging in an irregular pattern) and it turned out that she is an Assyriologist at Yale, haha.
Making those human connections, small or large, really does make a huge difference for me, which is kind of ironic given how I am often known for being antisocial (the difference, of course, is that I want to be antisocial on my terms, vs feeling isolated). The weather is less surprising to find as a defining element, given how much time you have to spend being exposed to the elements to get around Venice. I'm hoping the next time I visit, at the end of June, I'll be able to maintain my enthusiasm for what is sure to be a hotter and more crowded place!
The second time I went to Venice was again with Carla, when I visited her the fall after we graduated college. I was working for Paul at the time, and making decent money for the first time (ah, those long-ago days of an entry-level salary!). I don't remember too much of that trip either, besides our gondola ride, a ridiculous 80 euro split with another woman and her young daughter, and that I threw out my wine-color Converse sneakers, bought during our study abroad period, because I thought they'd done something to my feet that left me hobbling from Venice back to Florence. In fact, as I would learn in Rome in 2009 when I took that monthlong class, it wasn't the shoes so much as my feet; I don't have enough padding in my heels to handle the 8-odd hours of walking a trip to Europe typically requires while wearing only Converse. If I put heel pads in, though, I'm fine (and in fact I have heels pads right now in the wine-colored Converse I'm wearing).
The next time after that was March of 2010, when Sean and I went to Bergamo and then to Venice for my masters thesis research. By this point I'd decided that I was going to work on Venetian art for my dissertation, which means that a lot of that interest in Venice was fostered more from books and seminars than from direct experience of the city itself! We traveled during spring break, and while it was cold in Bergamo, that was nothing to the sudden blizzard we encountered as soon as we got into Venice. Even the locals were surprised, because it should have already been spring. Whichever Converse I was wearing that day soaked through with floodwater immediately upon leaving the station, which is why I purchased the rubber boots, which I still own, at a shop nearby. Splashing around in the flooded San Marco piazza was fun, taking a picture on Rialto as snow fell around us was great, but overall it was a pretty physically miserable visit.
After that came the summer research trip of 2012, when I spent two sweaty, lonely months living on the Lido with Elsa, the ancient Venetian woman who spoke no English, and fruitlessly trying to come up with a dissertation proposal as I bounced among the various libraries and archives in the city. Sean told me recently that he's never seen me as unhappy as I was during that period. The lack of a concerted purpose, coupled with not having many people to talk to, aside from various encounters with my adviser and the few people I knew or to whom she introduced me, was pretty hard to deal with. The hot weather was a bitch too, honestly, especially since Elsa, despite having AC, almost never used it because of the expense.
Most recently, before this, I went up to Venice in January for David Rosand's memorial at the Accademia. I had forgotten that it was acqua alta season, and the boots I bought in 2010 did me absolutely no good sitting in my room in Rome while I trudged through four or five inches of icy water! Luckily my ankle boots were waterproof, but it was still distinctly unpleasant. The skies were grey, and the chill damp in Venice in the winter really manages to get into your bones somehow, in a way it doesn't seem to in other places. I remember shivering in the Salute and asking myself, "what am I even doing here?" To be fair, the sunset that night on the Grand Canal nearly made up for the awful day-- an exquisite, hot pink all across the horizon. I considered it an honor paid by nature to Dr. Rosand.
Finally we come to this visit, just four days, to attend a conference on the young Tintoretto at the Cini Fondazione. The weather has been perfect, even if it rained briefly on my first evening, as I was helping Margaret haul her mom's giant suitcase over the bridges from the station to her apartment. Low 70s, sunshine, zero humidity. Warm enough to make you sweat a little crossing the big campi or on the open stretches by the bacino, but chilly enough in the shaded streets to require pants and a scarf--even my leather coat at night. I have discovered the face of Venice I like the most--and it's the one that doesn't make me shiver or drip with sweat!
It really has been an awesome few days, and has helped remind me why I love this city, its history, and the art it produced. It helped that I had avenues for socialization: a drink with Margaret on Thursday, dinner with her and Dave at Il Refolo on Friday (recommended by Stefania as a 'cheap' osteria option, it was one of the most expensive meals I've had all year, but really, really good), lunch with Sophia, the same girl I had a scholarly blind-date with in January, at the conference yesterday. I ran into Francesca Alberti, a Villa Medici scholar who was giving a paper (and who reminds me of Delphine from Orphan Black), and met her mom, who lives in Trastevere and is an artist who works with beetles. Even this morning, as I was enjoying three leisurely hours in the Accademia, I approached a woman to tell her how much I liked her skirt (long and dark blue with distinctive gold edging in an irregular pattern) and it turned out that she is an Assyriologist at Yale, haha.
Making those human connections, small or large, really does make a huge difference for me, which is kind of ironic given how I am often known for being antisocial (the difference, of course, is that I want to be antisocial on my terms, vs feeling isolated). The weather is less surprising to find as a defining element, given how much time you have to spend being exposed to the elements to get around Venice. I'm hoping the next time I visit, at the end of June, I'll be able to maintain my enthusiasm for what is sure to be a hotter and more crowded place!
Sunday, May 10, 2015
The Scent of Jasmine
It was an absolutely exquisite night tonight. The day was beautiful too, clear enough to see the Alban Hills and the peaks of the Apennines, but the sun has already gotten too strong for staying out of the shade for long. Once the sun starts to go down, though, you really are reminded of everything that makes Italy magical and timeless.
Particularly helping that magical feeling is the scent of jasmine rolling in through the windows. I had thought that the green plants wrapped around the piers of the courtyard were merely ivy, but when I got back from the States and walked into a warm patch of heady fragrance, I realized that they had chosen the week of my absence to burst into flower. Jasmine is a luxurious scent, that occasionally flirts with the edge of being cloying without ever really passing over the line. It's not a scent I had ever encountered before Italy, it being a flower more suited to warm climates than New England (the same goes for the riotous bougainvillea, which I look forward to seeing spilling over the walls around the city this month).
At any rate, it smells like summer, and feels like very early summer--it's now too hot to sleep with the blanket, but it's not so warm that you need the fan. The 'end of the year' feeling is in the air, too. After the Romans vs Barbarians game a couple of weeks ago, a dozen of us were sitting around in a big circle on the grass, eating pizza and gelato, and someone commented that it felt like camp, like the last night of camp. Now it's started to remind me of the end of the spring semester, that mix of excitement for summer freedom and wistfulness for the friends and the environment that had begun to feel like home.
Wistfulness is especially true in my case, since Sean and I will be staying here another year, with a different group of people. I've been told that it's a commonplace among former two-year fellows that you always prefer the group you came in with to the group you leave with, and I have no doubt that that will prove to be the case for me as well. When I think about being here next year without Stefania's acid, profanity-laced commentary on everyone else's behavior, without Denise's cheerful practicality, without John's terrible jokes and Vince's gruff-but-sneaky ones...it's kind of sad. Sean registered this too, saying it would be hard to come back for two months, just enough time to really get used to everyone (even though they all love him already!) and then to say goodbye.
It will be nice that the staff is the same, at least. Without Gabry's smirk or Tiziana's warmth or even Alessandro's aloofness, the place would really be unrecognizable. In the meantime, it's time to treasure what I have, and to enjoy a night like this one. The fountain is off, the birds have gone to sleep, and so for a rare moment, in the cortile, there is silence.
Particularly helping that magical feeling is the scent of jasmine rolling in through the windows. I had thought that the green plants wrapped around the piers of the courtyard were merely ivy, but when I got back from the States and walked into a warm patch of heady fragrance, I realized that they had chosen the week of my absence to burst into flower. Jasmine is a luxurious scent, that occasionally flirts with the edge of being cloying without ever really passing over the line. It's not a scent I had ever encountered before Italy, it being a flower more suited to warm climates than New England (the same goes for the riotous bougainvillea, which I look forward to seeing spilling over the walls around the city this month).
At any rate, it smells like summer, and feels like very early summer--it's now too hot to sleep with the blanket, but it's not so warm that you need the fan. The 'end of the year' feeling is in the air, too. After the Romans vs Barbarians game a couple of weeks ago, a dozen of us were sitting around in a big circle on the grass, eating pizza and gelato, and someone commented that it felt like camp, like the last night of camp. Now it's started to remind me of the end of the spring semester, that mix of excitement for summer freedom and wistfulness for the friends and the environment that had begun to feel like home.
Wistfulness is especially true in my case, since Sean and I will be staying here another year, with a different group of people. I've been told that it's a commonplace among former two-year fellows that you always prefer the group you came in with to the group you leave with, and I have no doubt that that will prove to be the case for me as well. When I think about being here next year without Stefania's acid, profanity-laced commentary on everyone else's behavior, without Denise's cheerful practicality, without John's terrible jokes and Vince's gruff-but-sneaky ones...it's kind of sad. Sean registered this too, saying it would be hard to come back for two months, just enough time to really get used to everyone (even though they all love him already!) and then to say goodbye.
It will be nice that the staff is the same, at least. Without Gabry's smirk or Tiziana's warmth or even Alessandro's aloofness, the place would really be unrecognizable. In the meantime, it's time to treasure what I have, and to enjoy a night like this one. The fountain is off, the birds have gone to sleep, and so for a rare moment, in the cortile, there is silence.
Monday, April 27, 2015
Spring Is Here
Ugh, I haven't posted in more than two months! I've started and abandoned several blog posts in that time, and so much has happened in the interim that I think I was sort of overwhelmed by the energy required to write about it all. Brief notes below!
Of special note, of course, was Sean's wonderful two-week visit in March, during which everyone here took to him just as quickly as I had expected! Second would be my trip to Milan to see Carin with Lakshmi. I'd never been there before, so seeing the Ambrosiana (Napoleon's gloves!), the Brera, and the fantastic cathedral (which Mark Twain really, really loved) was great. We spent Easter stuffing ourselves at the Academy; I made broccoli mac-n-cheese, Carla came over, we drank and ate giant chocolate Easter eggs.
I recently visited Orvieto, where I admired Signorelli's extraordinary frescoes in the Duomo and climbed down Sangallo's wonderfully geometric Pozzo di San Patrizio. I've also been Terracina and Sabaudia, where I climbed a 10-story tower to see the town the Fascists built in only 253 days.
I've spent time with my friend Cate, who has been in town for six weeks and is leaving shortly. It was wonderful to have a Temple friend in town, someone who knows me, someone I can talk to about early modern stuff, and someone with whom I don't have to do the scholarly dance of impressiveness. Sigh.
Other events: We had the traditional Academy soccer match, Romans (staff) vs. Barbarians (fellows), and the fellows lost terribly as expected, despite valiant sidelines cheering from non-players like myself. Stefania was the referee, which was hilarious in and of itself. Speaking of, she took us into the Inquisition archive this morning for her shoptalk, which was pretty cool. Her research focuses on probabilism, a branch of theological thought that began in the late 16th century and tried to explore all the gray areas of morality, very interesting stuff. The very private museum didn't have anything particularly shocking, though there was a 'Satanic' painting of Christ, and a creepy baby Virgin Mary doll that some 20th-century nuns had apparently been found worshipping.
The big news, of course, is that I am going home tomorrow, for a week!! This was a last-minute decision, and I was shocked to find a non-stop flight for a mere $800. I can help Sean wrap up some house-related stuff and attend Quinn and Nicole's wedding next weekend. We briefly toyed with the idea of making it a surprise, maybe for Jen--and then realized that there's a non-zero chance she could have a heart attack from the surprise, haha. Oh, and on that note--my dad's 15th anniversary passed a couple of weeks ago. I've officially now been alive without him for longer than I knew him. :-/
Of special note, of course, was Sean's wonderful two-week visit in March, during which everyone here took to him just as quickly as I had expected! Second would be my trip to Milan to see Carin with Lakshmi. I'd never been there before, so seeing the Ambrosiana (Napoleon's gloves!), the Brera, and the fantastic cathedral (which Mark Twain really, really loved) was great. We spent Easter stuffing ourselves at the Academy; I made broccoli mac-n-cheese, Carla came over, we drank and ate giant chocolate Easter eggs.
I recently visited Orvieto, where I admired Signorelli's extraordinary frescoes in the Duomo and climbed down Sangallo's wonderfully geometric Pozzo di San Patrizio. I've also been Terracina and Sabaudia, where I climbed a 10-story tower to see the town the Fascists built in only 253 days.
I've spent time with my friend Cate, who has been in town for six weeks and is leaving shortly. It was wonderful to have a Temple friend in town, someone who knows me, someone I can talk to about early modern stuff, and someone with whom I don't have to do the scholarly dance of impressiveness. Sigh.
Other events: We had the traditional Academy soccer match, Romans (staff) vs. Barbarians (fellows), and the fellows lost terribly as expected, despite valiant sidelines cheering from non-players like myself. Stefania was the referee, which was hilarious in and of itself. Speaking of, she took us into the Inquisition archive this morning for her shoptalk, which was pretty cool. Her research focuses on probabilism, a branch of theological thought that began in the late 16th century and tried to explore all the gray areas of morality, very interesting stuff. The very private museum didn't have anything particularly shocking, though there was a 'Satanic' painting of Christ, and a creepy baby Virgin Mary doll that some 20th-century nuns had apparently been found worshipping.
The big news, of course, is that I am going home tomorrow, for a week!! This was a last-minute decision, and I was shocked to find a non-stop flight for a mere $800. I can help Sean wrap up some house-related stuff and attend Quinn and Nicole's wedding next weekend. We briefly toyed with the idea of making it a surprise, maybe for Jen--and then realized that there's a non-zero chance she could have a heart attack from the surprise, haha. Oh, and on that note--my dad's 15th anniversary passed a couple of weeks ago. I've officially now been alive without him for longer than I knew him. :-/
Tuesday, February 24, 2015
Madrid
Every time I come back from a trip I find myself grumbling about how much I hate traveling, particularly on planes. I've also learned, after my sojourns in Madrid and London, that five days is just a bit too long for me to travel on my own. Even though I could chat with Marina in London, and had dinner with Maite twice in Madrid, it's still lonely to spend days wandering around by yourself, full of observations that you have no one to tell. So even though my economic side contends that once you've paid to travel to a place, you might as well stay a big longer, I'm going to try to keep future trips to three nights max--or find a traveling partner!
At least Madrid wasn't as cold as London. That's...kind of the best thing I can say about it, really? This was my third time there, and I've never really been impressed by it. Some of my issues are aesthetic: for example, for all of its hilliness it doesn't really have effective visual centers or vistas. I guess the north-south axis of the Paseo del Prado is a unifying element, but it's impossible to take it in, as its two halves form an angle rather than a complete straight avenue. It's also pretty dirty, not so much with trash but with dog shit everywhere and, equally gross, public urination pretty much wherever men feel the need to go. Their coffee is terrible, too, if I want to be a real grumble-puss about it! On the plus side, the transit system is good, particularly the suburban Cercanias rail, and the Prado has two free hours of access daily. Basta.
Unlike London, where there were more sights then I knew what to do with, and many of them free, the only thing in Madrid that really interested me was the Prado. I went three times over the five days I was there, two of them during the free hours. It's a bigger collection than the National Gallery, and much more overwhelming in its scope. Being able to go back (without paying 14 euro each time) gave me time to focus on parts of the collection during each visit, rather than trying to see everything. Of course Titian and his fellow Venetians were my first focus. They have more Titians there than any other collection in the world, even if there aren't many of my favorites among them. Special mention for the Bacchanal of the Andrians, the two Danaes (including one that is pretty much porn), the sensual St. Margaret, and the heaving muscles and sparking fires of the Sisyphus. I was impressed by the absolutely brilliant orange of Veronese's Venus/Adonis. Tintoretto's massive Washing off the Feet and his dramatic Abudction of Helen, awesome (I love the detail of the face just visible behind the mast--you can just barely see the white of one of the man's eyes!)
On the ground floor, the late Raphaels and the Sebastianos were impressive, but also the sensuality of Durer's self-portrait, and the shadow-box effect of van der Weyden's Deposition. The Mona Lisa copy was interesting, chiefly for being able to approach so close, but I think the yellowed varnish of the original has affected our visual expectations so thoroughly it's hard to accept such a brightly-colored painting, even though we know it's what the other would have looked more like! Upstairs again to the Spanish paintings--I was surprised to see that they had changed the hanging in the rotunda with Las Meninas--Los Borrachos (home to one of my favorite details in any painting) and Pablo de Valladolid (half of my desktop background for the last four or five years) have been moved to adjacent rooms. Velazquez' Mars reminded me of Mark Twain (and Pablo's haircut of Stefania's, haha). Goya: the Colossus is no longer ascribed to him but to an associate. Those Black Paintings...Jesus. The 2nd and 3rd of May I must remind myself to teach together (survey books generally only have 3rd of May) because the chaotic violence of rebellion in the first is balanced by the orderly brutality in of the second. The Prado doesn't allow photography, so no scale photos here, but notes to myself about teaching--for example, Sebastiano's Descent into Limbo would make a great comparison with Bronzino's (and in my notebook I wrote "Sebastiano gives great leg!")
On Friday I had two meetings, one with Miguel Falomir, the curator in charge of Italian paintings and an expert on Titian and Tintoretto (even though as he told me, when he got the job he knew nothing about Italian art!) and the other with another friend of Coop's, Fernando Marias, who works on El Greco. It was great to meet Falomir, because he thinks that Titian's time in Rome has been definitely understudied (woo!), but I really didn't have anything to ask Marias. I did learn some new things about El Greco, and had a drink at the bar of the fanciest hotel in Madrid, so that's something. The next day I went off to Toledo, but found myself disappointed--the museum with the major collection is closed until the end of February. Basically I went there, had lunch, popped in on his Burial of Count Orgaz (the reflection in the count's armor!!), admired the view over the Tagus from the park by the El Greco museum, and went back to Madrid. By this point it was also lonely to be revisiting sites we'd been to on our honeymoon without having Sean with me.
My visit to the Escorial was the final high point of the trip. When Sean and I were there, the basilica and its chapter rooms--which house the best of its collection, including Titian's second St. Lawrence and El Greco's St. Maurice--were closed for renovations, so this was my first time seeing these paintings. The basilica itself was both incredibly monumental and incredibly reserved, as fitting a monastic institution. Sculptures of Charles V and his family in bronze adorn the left side of the chancel, and Phillip II and his family are on the right, all by Pompeo Leoni (whose father, Leone, was responsible for the wonderful statue of Charles in the Prado--its armor is removable, turning it into a heroic nude of the emperor). Getting to the Escorial was nice, too, because the Cercanias train went through a huge woodland preserve (which I think was the Sierra de Guadarrama?) where I saw several herds of fallow deer, recognizable by their elk-like horns.
Now the countdown to Sean's arrival in Rome is on! He wants to go to Naples, which will give me the chance to see the Danae (which was in DC on my last visit). At some point I'd also like to go up to Florence--you know, other places reachable by train! At the end of March, Lakshmi and I plan to go to Milan to see Carin. I've never been, so the Brera museum shall finally be mine! (And the Last Supper, but honestly, meh) From there we will take a day trip up to Turin, another place I've never been!
At least Madrid wasn't as cold as London. That's...kind of the best thing I can say about it, really? This was my third time there, and I've never really been impressed by it. Some of my issues are aesthetic: for example, for all of its hilliness it doesn't really have effective visual centers or vistas. I guess the north-south axis of the Paseo del Prado is a unifying element, but it's impossible to take it in, as its two halves form an angle rather than a complete straight avenue. It's also pretty dirty, not so much with trash but with dog shit everywhere and, equally gross, public urination pretty much wherever men feel the need to go. Their coffee is terrible, too, if I want to be a real grumble-puss about it! On the plus side, the transit system is good, particularly the suburban Cercanias rail, and the Prado has two free hours of access daily. Basta.
Unlike London, where there were more sights then I knew what to do with, and many of them free, the only thing in Madrid that really interested me was the Prado. I went three times over the five days I was there, two of them during the free hours. It's a bigger collection than the National Gallery, and much more overwhelming in its scope. Being able to go back (without paying 14 euro each time) gave me time to focus on parts of the collection during each visit, rather than trying to see everything. Of course Titian and his fellow Venetians were my first focus. They have more Titians there than any other collection in the world, even if there aren't many of my favorites among them. Special mention for the Bacchanal of the Andrians, the two Danaes (including one that is pretty much porn), the sensual St. Margaret, and the heaving muscles and sparking fires of the Sisyphus. I was impressed by the absolutely brilliant orange of Veronese's Venus/Adonis. Tintoretto's massive Washing off the Feet and his dramatic Abudction of Helen, awesome (I love the detail of the face just visible behind the mast--you can just barely see the white of one of the man's eyes!)
On the ground floor, the late Raphaels and the Sebastianos were impressive, but also the sensuality of Durer's self-portrait, and the shadow-box effect of van der Weyden's Deposition. The Mona Lisa copy was interesting, chiefly for being able to approach so close, but I think the yellowed varnish of the original has affected our visual expectations so thoroughly it's hard to accept such a brightly-colored painting, even though we know it's what the other would have looked more like! Upstairs again to the Spanish paintings--I was surprised to see that they had changed the hanging in the rotunda with Las Meninas--Los Borrachos (home to one of my favorite details in any painting) and Pablo de Valladolid (half of my desktop background for the last four or five years) have been moved to adjacent rooms. Velazquez' Mars reminded me of Mark Twain (and Pablo's haircut of Stefania's, haha). Goya: the Colossus is no longer ascribed to him but to an associate. Those Black Paintings...Jesus. The 2nd and 3rd of May I must remind myself to teach together (survey books generally only have 3rd of May) because the chaotic violence of rebellion in the first is balanced by the orderly brutality in of the second. The Prado doesn't allow photography, so no scale photos here, but notes to myself about teaching--for example, Sebastiano's Descent into Limbo would make a great comparison with Bronzino's (and in my notebook I wrote "Sebastiano gives great leg!")
On Friday I had two meetings, one with Miguel Falomir, the curator in charge of Italian paintings and an expert on Titian and Tintoretto (even though as he told me, when he got the job he knew nothing about Italian art!) and the other with another friend of Coop's, Fernando Marias, who works on El Greco. It was great to meet Falomir, because he thinks that Titian's time in Rome has been definitely understudied (woo!), but I really didn't have anything to ask Marias. I did learn some new things about El Greco, and had a drink at the bar of the fanciest hotel in Madrid, so that's something. The next day I went off to Toledo, but found myself disappointed--the museum with the major collection is closed until the end of February. Basically I went there, had lunch, popped in on his Burial of Count Orgaz (the reflection in the count's armor!!), admired the view over the Tagus from the park by the El Greco museum, and went back to Madrid. By this point it was also lonely to be revisiting sites we'd been to on our honeymoon without having Sean with me.
My visit to the Escorial was the final high point of the trip. When Sean and I were there, the basilica and its chapter rooms--which house the best of its collection, including Titian's second St. Lawrence and El Greco's St. Maurice--were closed for renovations, so this was my first time seeing these paintings. The basilica itself was both incredibly monumental and incredibly reserved, as fitting a monastic institution. Sculptures of Charles V and his family in bronze adorn the left side of the chancel, and Phillip II and his family are on the right, all by Pompeo Leoni (whose father, Leone, was responsible for the wonderful statue of Charles in the Prado--its armor is removable, turning it into a heroic nude of the emperor). Getting to the Escorial was nice, too, because the Cercanias train went through a huge woodland preserve (which I think was the Sierra de Guadarrama?) where I saw several herds of fallow deer, recognizable by their elk-like horns.
Now the countdown to Sean's arrival in Rome is on! He wants to go to Naples, which will give me the chance to see the Danae (which was in DC on my last visit). At some point I'd also like to go up to Florence--you know, other places reachable by train! At the end of March, Lakshmi and I plan to go to Milan to see Carin. I've never been, so the Brera museum shall finally be mine! (And the Last Supper, but honestly, meh) From there we will take a day trip up to Turin, another place I've never been!
Monday, February 09, 2015
London
London was, in a word, amazing. The sidewalks were wide, flat, and impeccably clean; the public transit was reliable and well-communicated; almost all of the museums were free; and the very polite inhabitants spoke English. I never even needed an umbrella, which was something of a miracle considering Rome was getting flooded at the same time. The chief downsides were one, the cold, which made it less enjoyable to be wandering the streets, and two, the strike at the National Gallery that left it virtually closed until Sunday. I knew the strike was happening, but "some galleries closed" on the website didn't mentally translate to "every painting you came to London to see" until I walked in and all the gallery doors off the main hall were locked! I actually started tearing up and had to go to the ladies' room to cry briefly, but recovered once I learned from a guard that the strike would be over on Sunday--just in time for me to visit before going to the airport.
I flew into Stansted, which required a transfer via Easybus of about an hour and a half. It was actually quite nice, because I got to see a little bit of the English countryside. It was interesting how immediately apparent it was that this wasn't Mediterranean farmland, nor even American; certainly the houses, with their particular silhouette, particularly when half-timbered or clustered around a town steeple, were very identifiably British. I stayed in Notting Hill in my first true AirBnb experience with a woman named Marina, who turned out to be kind of like Phyllis' British doppelganger! Middle-aged, and never married, well-educated and widely travelled. She used to work for the NYTimes television division in London--who knew they even had that?--and now is a horticultural...consultant? I suppose is the term. One got the idea that she'd have to have socked away quite a pile from past careers, considering she owned the entire building where her flat was located. She took a shine to me, much like Phyllis, and insisted on making me bangers and mash (sausages and mashed potatoes!) the night of the National Gallery disappointment. Knowing she was half-Irish I might have been concerned about the cooking--except I had already learned that her mother was an Italian war bride from Sorrento, so the cooking was great!
One of the wonderful things about being in an Anglophone country is the amount of confidence you feel in taking public transportation. Buses are usually my last resort when traveling, because the maps are always confusing and you almost never know where to get off. Not so in England! Not only are there clear route maps and city maps at every station, the buses actually announce each and every stop. Unbelievable. I enjoyed riding the buses so much that I took them rather than the Tube most of the time--one metro is much like another, and it was so enjoyable to go to the upper level and sit in the front seat with the huge window, London spread out before you. That's what I did when I arrived: dropped off my bag, chatted with Marina, and then took the bus to the Victoria and Albert Museum. This is a museum of material culture, so every kind of object imaginable (furniture, ironwork, clocks, sculpture) from all cultures and periods. It was really impressive (not least for its commitment to education, "please touch" exhibits were in practically every room), but overwhelming in the same way that the Met can be. Most memorable for me was the gallery on Queen Victoria, which included film quips of the aging monarch shot in 1900. I know that Victoria lived into the 20th century and that video was invented in the 1890s, but it just seems incredible somehow for there to be film footage of the quintessential 19th-century figure.
Thursday morning was my National Gallery shock treatment in the morning, albeit one fortified by breakfast in the Crypt Cafe at St. Martin-in-the-Fields beforehand. Afterward I wandered out down toward Whitehall, intending to visit Inigo Jones' Banqueting House, but adding to my annoyance, I couldn't find it! (I later figured out it was completely under scaffolding). I watched the Horse Guards briefly, passed by Churchill's War Rooms figuring I would just see them with Sean when we come back, and ended up paying the ridiculous amount of $25 to get into Westminster Abbey. Now, I'm familiar with Italian churches filled with tomb memorials, but they have nothing on this place. There didn't seem to be an inch of wall that wasn't covered with a classicizing bust and a Latin inscription! The audioguide was voiced by Jeremy Irons, which was quite nice. After Westminster Abbey (and admiring Big Ben, the gilding on which in sunlight sparkles magnificently), I took the bus over to Tate Britain, which was chiefly interesting for the Pre-Raphaelites and the Turner painting Snowstorm: Hannibal Crossing the Alps.
Finally, in the afternoon, my steps turned toward the British Museum. Like the National Gallery, this was a place for meeting old friends heretofore known only remotely! The Rosetta stone, the Bast statuette, the Assyrian reliefs of Asurnispal-whatever killing lions. There were some surprises (the Standard of Ur is so tiny!) and only one disappointment--namely, the Parthenon marbles left me rather cold. I was expecting to be more impressed by them than I was. The museum itself is exquisite, particularly in the massive courtyard, which has been roofed and transformed into a skylight space for the cafe and shops. Shops in British museums are no joke; since the museums themselves are free, the shops and the cafes are even more important than they are in the US. I was definitely reeling from how expensive London is. 2 pounds for a macchiato, 4 pounds for a tiny sandwich. I spent an insane amount of money just on food, since Westminster was the only attraction I paid to see. I skipped St. Paul's, for example, since it was another $25 ticket; I figured I can see the source material here in Rome!
Friday was another round of museums. The Courtauld Gallery, home to friends like Manet's Bar at the Folies Bergere; John Soane's unusual house-museum, stuffed with antiquities, casts of sculptures and bits of architecture; Tate Modern in Southwark, housed in a repurposed power facility. Saturday I didn't do much but wander, eat fish-and-chips (result, not different from what's available in the US) and visit the Wallace Collection, another fabulous and free experience. If it hadn't been so cold I would have enjoyed walking the streets more, but as it was I took buses wherever possible. The architecture was great, and not just the 19th and early 20th century grandiosity (the temple-cum-theater of Selfridge's, for example), but the wealth of interesting contemporary architecture. Debenhams, for example, recently received an innovative 'cladding' with small, individually hung tiles that form a shimmering, shifting veil, something that was particularly attractive at night when lit by warm, orange light.
Finally, finally, the National Gallery. I was there on Sunday when the doors opened, and spent a blissful 3.5 hours inside. It's one of the best museums I've ever visited, full of top-quality works but uncluttered. It helps that it's painting only, unlike a museum like the Met. I spent the first half-hour just in the first room with Titian's Bacchus and Ariadne, flanked on either side by the Man with the Blue Sleeve and La Schiavona. I noticed wonderful details, like Bacchus' long, unbound hair, and the blue flowers at the lower right. A gallery or two over, Holbein's Ambassadors was huge! So much larger than I expected; I thought something like the scale of the Thomas More portrait in the Frick. (Most of my photos taken here were scale comparisons with people stopped in front of paintings, for later use in teaching). The Diana and Callisto, Diana and Acteon, and Death of Acteon pictures were next. I did find myself leaning toward the 'unfinished' side of the argument for the latter picture; or rather, unfinished in parts, for Diana is pretty highly finished while the plant at dead center foreground is just too rough, like it jumped out of a Van Gogh.
Jewel-like colors in the small gallery with Pontormo and Bachiacca's Joseph paintings, and then another grand gallery full of friends. Sebastiano's Lazarus and Raphael's Julius II have always left me cold, but the two unfinished Michelangelo paintings were wonderful. Bronzino's glowing flesh, even when it's nominally a night scene like his Holy Family (love the turquoise tint to Mary's robe), the delightfully sexy Andrea del Sarto portrait. Next a room full of Veronese, including the marriage paintings where the "Respect" theme is illustrated by a man not raping a sleeping woman. Nice. A lovely Titian Venus and Adonis, where she sits on a man's military jacket. Lotto's Lucretia--he loved those off-kilter poses. Then the Sainsbury wing, where Leonardo's cartoon was much larger than I had thought, and ragged around the edges--the gift of seeing a material object in the flesh, as it were! Raphael's Knight's Dream, in contrast, was miniature. The green sleeve of his Saint Catherine--painted with a tempera-like stroke, incidentally--was divine.
The 17th through 19th century galleries didn't fill me with quite as much admiration, of course, though there were still familiar faces to greet, like Caravaggio's Supper at Emmaus (where the innkeeper is clearly thinking, 'I could care less who you are, bub, are you going to pay for this spread or not?') and welcome new ones like Mignard's delightful portrait of a lady as Thetis, or Guido Reni's Europa. For the colors alone he deserved the word divine!
I flew into Stansted, which required a transfer via Easybus of about an hour and a half. It was actually quite nice, because I got to see a little bit of the English countryside. It was interesting how immediately apparent it was that this wasn't Mediterranean farmland, nor even American; certainly the houses, with their particular silhouette, particularly when half-timbered or clustered around a town steeple, were very identifiably British. I stayed in Notting Hill in my first true AirBnb experience with a woman named Marina, who turned out to be kind of like Phyllis' British doppelganger! Middle-aged, and never married, well-educated and widely travelled. She used to work for the NYTimes television division in London--who knew they even had that?--and now is a horticultural...consultant? I suppose is the term. One got the idea that she'd have to have socked away quite a pile from past careers, considering she owned the entire building where her flat was located. She took a shine to me, much like Phyllis, and insisted on making me bangers and mash (sausages and mashed potatoes!) the night of the National Gallery disappointment. Knowing she was half-Irish I might have been concerned about the cooking--except I had already learned that her mother was an Italian war bride from Sorrento, so the cooking was great!
One of the wonderful things about being in an Anglophone country is the amount of confidence you feel in taking public transportation. Buses are usually my last resort when traveling, because the maps are always confusing and you almost never know where to get off. Not so in England! Not only are there clear route maps and city maps at every station, the buses actually announce each and every stop. Unbelievable. I enjoyed riding the buses so much that I took them rather than the Tube most of the time--one metro is much like another, and it was so enjoyable to go to the upper level and sit in the front seat with the huge window, London spread out before you. That's what I did when I arrived: dropped off my bag, chatted with Marina, and then took the bus to the Victoria and Albert Museum. This is a museum of material culture, so every kind of object imaginable (furniture, ironwork, clocks, sculpture) from all cultures and periods. It was really impressive (not least for its commitment to education, "please touch" exhibits were in practically every room), but overwhelming in the same way that the Met can be. Most memorable for me was the gallery on Queen Victoria, which included film quips of the aging monarch shot in 1900. I know that Victoria lived into the 20th century and that video was invented in the 1890s, but it just seems incredible somehow for there to be film footage of the quintessential 19th-century figure.
Thursday morning was my National Gallery shock treatment in the morning, albeit one fortified by breakfast in the Crypt Cafe at St. Martin-in-the-Fields beforehand. Afterward I wandered out down toward Whitehall, intending to visit Inigo Jones' Banqueting House, but adding to my annoyance, I couldn't find it! (I later figured out it was completely under scaffolding). I watched the Horse Guards briefly, passed by Churchill's War Rooms figuring I would just see them with Sean when we come back, and ended up paying the ridiculous amount of $25 to get into Westminster Abbey. Now, I'm familiar with Italian churches filled with tomb memorials, but they have nothing on this place. There didn't seem to be an inch of wall that wasn't covered with a classicizing bust and a Latin inscription! The audioguide was voiced by Jeremy Irons, which was quite nice. After Westminster Abbey (and admiring Big Ben, the gilding on which in sunlight sparkles magnificently), I took the bus over to Tate Britain, which was chiefly interesting for the Pre-Raphaelites and the Turner painting Snowstorm: Hannibal Crossing the Alps.
Finally, in the afternoon, my steps turned toward the British Museum. Like the National Gallery, this was a place for meeting old friends heretofore known only remotely! The Rosetta stone, the Bast statuette, the Assyrian reliefs of Asurnispal-whatever killing lions. There were some surprises (the Standard of Ur is so tiny!) and only one disappointment--namely, the Parthenon marbles left me rather cold. I was expecting to be more impressed by them than I was. The museum itself is exquisite, particularly in the massive courtyard, which has been roofed and transformed into a skylight space for the cafe and shops. Shops in British museums are no joke; since the museums themselves are free, the shops and the cafes are even more important than they are in the US. I was definitely reeling from how expensive London is. 2 pounds for a macchiato, 4 pounds for a tiny sandwich. I spent an insane amount of money just on food, since Westminster was the only attraction I paid to see. I skipped St. Paul's, for example, since it was another $25 ticket; I figured I can see the source material here in Rome!
Friday was another round of museums. The Courtauld Gallery, home to friends like Manet's Bar at the Folies Bergere; John Soane's unusual house-museum, stuffed with antiquities, casts of sculptures and bits of architecture; Tate Modern in Southwark, housed in a repurposed power facility. Saturday I didn't do much but wander, eat fish-and-chips (result, not different from what's available in the US) and visit the Wallace Collection, another fabulous and free experience. If it hadn't been so cold I would have enjoyed walking the streets more, but as it was I took buses wherever possible. The architecture was great, and not just the 19th and early 20th century grandiosity (the temple-cum-theater of Selfridge's, for example), but the wealth of interesting contemporary architecture. Debenhams, for example, recently received an innovative 'cladding' with small, individually hung tiles that form a shimmering, shifting veil, something that was particularly attractive at night when lit by warm, orange light.
Finally, finally, the National Gallery. I was there on Sunday when the doors opened, and spent a blissful 3.5 hours inside. It's one of the best museums I've ever visited, full of top-quality works but uncluttered. It helps that it's painting only, unlike a museum like the Met. I spent the first half-hour just in the first room with Titian's Bacchus and Ariadne, flanked on either side by the Man with the Blue Sleeve and La Schiavona. I noticed wonderful details, like Bacchus' long, unbound hair, and the blue flowers at the lower right. A gallery or two over, Holbein's Ambassadors was huge! So much larger than I expected; I thought something like the scale of the Thomas More portrait in the Frick. (Most of my photos taken here were scale comparisons with people stopped in front of paintings, for later use in teaching). The Diana and Callisto, Diana and Acteon, and Death of Acteon pictures were next. I did find myself leaning toward the 'unfinished' side of the argument for the latter picture; or rather, unfinished in parts, for Diana is pretty highly finished while the plant at dead center foreground is just too rough, like it jumped out of a Van Gogh.
Jewel-like colors in the small gallery with Pontormo and Bachiacca's Joseph paintings, and then another grand gallery full of friends. Sebastiano's Lazarus and Raphael's Julius II have always left me cold, but the two unfinished Michelangelo paintings were wonderful. Bronzino's glowing flesh, even when it's nominally a night scene like his Holy Family (love the turquoise tint to Mary's robe), the delightfully sexy Andrea del Sarto portrait. Next a room full of Veronese, including the marriage paintings where the "Respect" theme is illustrated by a man not raping a sleeping woman. Nice. A lovely Titian Venus and Adonis, where she sits on a man's military jacket. Lotto's Lucretia--he loved those off-kilter poses. Then the Sainsbury wing, where Leonardo's cartoon was much larger than I had thought, and ragged around the edges--the gift of seeing a material object in the flesh, as it were! Raphael's Knight's Dream, in contrast, was miniature. The green sleeve of his Saint Catherine--painted with a tempera-like stroke, incidentally--was divine.
The 17th through 19th century galleries didn't fill me with quite as much admiration, of course, though there were still familiar faces to greet, like Caravaggio's Supper at Emmaus (where the innkeeper is clearly thinking, 'I could care less who you are, bub, are you going to pay for this spread or not?') and welcome new ones like Mignard's delightful portrait of a lady as Thetis, or Guido Reni's Europa. For the colors alone he deserved the word divine!
Sunday, February 01, 2015
Venice
I went up to Venice on Thursday afternoon so that I could attend a gathering in honor of David Rosand on Friday. It was definitely a mixed voyage, in many respects. My newly-purchased Ryanair luggage, for example, got damaged somehow on the train--someone ripped the front pocket completely open! It wasn't that expensive, but still, I hoped that it would last a bit longer than its first ride. The weather was gloomy, and I was reminded of the annoyance of heading north from Rome, namely, all the tunnels that plunge you into darkness, rushing noise, and pressurized eardrums. However, it was fascinating to go into a tunnel in a green if overcast countryside, and then emerge on the other side to snow covering the ground and flurrying in the air! It was still there when I was on my way home today, just a light covering in the fields somewhere between Bologna and Florence, ending as abruptly as it began.
Venice wasn't terribly crowded, even though Carnival begins tomorrow. My hostess told me that reservations in the city were very low because Carnival is starting very early this year are people are worried about the weather. My first quick stop was at the cichetti bar Al Bottegon, recommended by Stefania and Tommaso. My attempt to name-drop Tommaso's family as they told me to failed utterly, possibly because I wasn't actually talking to the grey-haired proprietress who apparently is good friends with his dad, but the cichetti were delicious! I had one octopus one, in honor of Sean; one bacala, one ricotta, and one other cheese-related one that I can't recall, but they were delicious. I gulped down a quick glass of wine and headed back out.
It was fairly cold, but the main pathways were still lit with their Christmas finery, which made the night seem very cheerful--and of course all the shops were still open. I headed from Dorsoduro across the Accaedemia bridge and through to San Marco--which was completely dark! Possibly something to do with the massive Carnival preparations going on in the square, who knows. I headed off on the Merceria with all of the other promenading tourists, went over the Rialto, and then back through the much darker streets of San Polo and Dorsoduro to the guesthouse, having made a big circuit around the heart of the city. I was pretty happy with the durability of my 'mental map' of the city, despite not having been there since 2012. Of course I got lost--it's Venice, everyone gets lost eventually--but not too much.
The next morning I woke up to an iron-grey sky. It had rained overnight. Leaving the guesthouse, I turned left to go to Calle San Barnaba, a fairly large thoroughfare by Venetian standards (meaning you can't stretch your arms out and touch the shops on either side), but stopped short when I saw a huge mass of water at the corner. Oh no. Aqua alta! 113 cm of it, to be precise, and unbeknownst to me, I had gone out just at high tide, and had left my rubber boots, purchased on a similar occasion in 2010, in Rome. Fine then, no Calle San Barnaba; I'd go the other way, through Campo Santa Margherita. I crossed a small canal, come down the other side and saw, at the end of the narrow calle, more water, and deeper this time--maybe 6 inches. Fuckkkk. I turned back around to take my chances in the shallower water. A man with a handcart was waiting in Calle San Barnaba, and had seem my to-and-fro little dance; he came sloshing over and was somehow offering to ferry me through the water, but I declined. Maybe it's a cottage industry, like the guys selling umbrellas who come out of nowhere when it rains?
Anyway, my newly-purchased leather boots, which come up a couple of inches over the ankle, did themselves proud, as I gingerly moved through the water, trying not to kick up any froth (canal water: not awesome). Around me, much wiser Venetians were going about their daily business with the addition of knee-high boots. I wonder what all the dogs do during acqua alta? There are certainly enough of them, and there's dog crap smeared all over the place. Anyway, I was congratulating myself for having survived the worst when I turned the corner near La Toletta and realized there was more. Ughhhh. I sloshed through again, but when I got the Calle dei Contarini, where you cross a fairly big canal, and turn right at what seems like a dead end to continue on toward the Accademia, the water had to be eight inches deep, way higher than my poor boots could handle. This time, luckily, there was an alternate route that was mostly not-flooded, and I got to my destination, the Salute, with only minor dampness on my jeans.
I should be terribly dramatic and add to that "but there was a heaviness in my heart..." because honestly, there kind of was. I sat down in the freezing cold church and looked up and thought, "what the hell am I doing here?" The day before, Leslie had met me at the Frari right after my arrival to show me the Pala Pesaro in restoration, in a makeshift lab in one of the spaces past the sacristy. It was a fantastic opportunity because it's off view to the public. I felt like I should have had a stronger response, both emotional and intellectual, to a painting I've always enjoyed and which is one of Titian's most seminal--and one which deeply occupied David Rosand--but nothing really came. Then, in the Salute, I was looking at the St. Mark altarpiece, which had only been removed from its frame and set up in a restoration space within the Salute (albeit in this case with a plexiglass viewing spot for visitors). David and Ellen had paid for most of this restoration themselves with a gift to Save Venice. Looking up, still in the Salute, I could see the three huge canvases of the 1540s that I mention in my dissertation proposal that I would be 'reconsidering'. Reconsidering what? Nothing came to mind except the crick in my neck from staring at the ceiling.
My existential problems aside, a few better things happened. For example, I found out I still had 10 vaporetto rides on my iMob card from July 2012...those are 7 euro a pop purchased singly, so that was great news. I rode the very slow vaporetto up the Grand Canal to buy a hat by the train station, my first hat ever--that's how cold it was! Then I walked to Madonna del Orto, and admired Tintoretto's Presentation of the Virgin, noticing this time how all the attention is on mothers and children--all the men are pushed off and in shadow. His Miracle of Saint Agnes reminded me a big of the Night Watch--the golden figure in the darkness. And Cima's Saint John altarpiece was full of pure, clear colors as always. This was the church where I accidentally left my camera on the stoop outside two years ago, and didn't realize it until I was halfway across the city. Lighting matters so much in these churches, by the way. I've never seen Sebastiano's San Crisostomo altarpiece with anything like the clarity of published images, because the church is so dim; same goes for Titian's Annunciation in San Salvador. There are lights on his Transfiguration, but not the Annunciation; I don't get it.
The event at the Academy in David's honor was low-key. A number of people, including the former director of the museum, the head of Save Venice, the restorers he worked with, and one of his former students read brief reflections on the incredible impact he had on them and on Venice. Ellen concluded with a brief reflection on their life together, in which Venice had always played a starring role--they came there for the first time on their honeymoon, and almost never missed a year for decades. Afterwards, Save Venice hosted a little cocktail reception in their offices, which are currently just on the other side of the Accademia bridge, but which will be moving to Palazzo Polignac this spring, in part to house the newly-donated David Rosand Library and Study Center. He bequeathed all 4,000 of his books to Save Venice.
I met a nice Columbia grad student at the cocktail reception named Sofie, who is living in Florence and working on a dissertation on painted organ shutters with her Italian boyfriend. We chatted for most of the reception, and wound up having dinner together afterward, after I had had a brief chance to talk to Ellen (who had perhaps had a few glasses and was more communicative than usual!) and to meet their son Jonathan. We ate at a place called Oniga in Dorsoduro, not far from my hotel, and I ate a heaping pile of fritto misto from the lagoon, including tiny shrimps whose eyes I tried not to look at as I crunched into them...
Saturday morning turned out to be incredibly beautiful, if still chilly. With plenty of time to spare, I rode the vaporetto up the Grand Canal again (it takes forever). The trip home was pretty great: the train was there early, so I didn't have to wait all that time in the cold, and it was only half full, so I could move to a seat facing in the right direction. We enjoyed beautiful sunshine down through Florence, and then a deep gloom settled over the landscape with accompanying fog. That in itself was pretty cool. By the time we reached Rome, it was reduced to just regular stormy skies and occasional rain. Every time I travel I'm reminded that traveling is really annoying and time consuming, but I try to remind myself that if they invented teleportation I'd miss out on beautiful sights like the countryside south of Florence, gleaming in the afternoon sun.
Venice wasn't terribly crowded, even though Carnival begins tomorrow. My hostess told me that reservations in the city were very low because Carnival is starting very early this year are people are worried about the weather. My first quick stop was at the cichetti bar Al Bottegon, recommended by Stefania and Tommaso. My attempt to name-drop Tommaso's family as they told me to failed utterly, possibly because I wasn't actually talking to the grey-haired proprietress who apparently is good friends with his dad, but the cichetti were delicious! I had one octopus one, in honor of Sean; one bacala, one ricotta, and one other cheese-related one that I can't recall, but they were delicious. I gulped down a quick glass of wine and headed back out.
It was fairly cold, but the main pathways were still lit with their Christmas finery, which made the night seem very cheerful--and of course all the shops were still open. I headed from Dorsoduro across the Accaedemia bridge and through to San Marco--which was completely dark! Possibly something to do with the massive Carnival preparations going on in the square, who knows. I headed off on the Merceria with all of the other promenading tourists, went over the Rialto, and then back through the much darker streets of San Polo and Dorsoduro to the guesthouse, having made a big circuit around the heart of the city. I was pretty happy with the durability of my 'mental map' of the city, despite not having been there since 2012. Of course I got lost--it's Venice, everyone gets lost eventually--but not too much.
The next morning I woke up to an iron-grey sky. It had rained overnight. Leaving the guesthouse, I turned left to go to Calle San Barnaba, a fairly large thoroughfare by Venetian standards (meaning you can't stretch your arms out and touch the shops on either side), but stopped short when I saw a huge mass of water at the corner. Oh no. Aqua alta! 113 cm of it, to be precise, and unbeknownst to me, I had gone out just at high tide, and had left my rubber boots, purchased on a similar occasion in 2010, in Rome. Fine then, no Calle San Barnaba; I'd go the other way, through Campo Santa Margherita. I crossed a small canal, come down the other side and saw, at the end of the narrow calle, more water, and deeper this time--maybe 6 inches. Fuckkkk. I turned back around to take my chances in the shallower water. A man with a handcart was waiting in Calle San Barnaba, and had seem my to-and-fro little dance; he came sloshing over and was somehow offering to ferry me through the water, but I declined. Maybe it's a cottage industry, like the guys selling umbrellas who come out of nowhere when it rains?
Anyway, my newly-purchased leather boots, which come up a couple of inches over the ankle, did themselves proud, as I gingerly moved through the water, trying not to kick up any froth (canal water: not awesome). Around me, much wiser Venetians were going about their daily business with the addition of knee-high boots. I wonder what all the dogs do during acqua alta? There are certainly enough of them, and there's dog crap smeared all over the place. Anyway, I was congratulating myself for having survived the worst when I turned the corner near La Toletta and realized there was more. Ughhhh. I sloshed through again, but when I got the Calle dei Contarini, where you cross a fairly big canal, and turn right at what seems like a dead end to continue on toward the Accademia, the water had to be eight inches deep, way higher than my poor boots could handle. This time, luckily, there was an alternate route that was mostly not-flooded, and I got to my destination, the Salute, with only minor dampness on my jeans.
I should be terribly dramatic and add to that "but there was a heaviness in my heart..." because honestly, there kind of was. I sat down in the freezing cold church and looked up and thought, "what the hell am I doing here?" The day before, Leslie had met me at the Frari right after my arrival to show me the Pala Pesaro in restoration, in a makeshift lab in one of the spaces past the sacristy. It was a fantastic opportunity because it's off view to the public. I felt like I should have had a stronger response, both emotional and intellectual, to a painting I've always enjoyed and which is one of Titian's most seminal--and one which deeply occupied David Rosand--but nothing really came. Then, in the Salute, I was looking at the St. Mark altarpiece, which had only been removed from its frame and set up in a restoration space within the Salute (albeit in this case with a plexiglass viewing spot for visitors). David and Ellen had paid for most of this restoration themselves with a gift to Save Venice. Looking up, still in the Salute, I could see the three huge canvases of the 1540s that I mention in my dissertation proposal that I would be 'reconsidering'. Reconsidering what? Nothing came to mind except the crick in my neck from staring at the ceiling.
My existential problems aside, a few better things happened. For example, I found out I still had 10 vaporetto rides on my iMob card from July 2012...those are 7 euro a pop purchased singly, so that was great news. I rode the very slow vaporetto up the Grand Canal to buy a hat by the train station, my first hat ever--that's how cold it was! Then I walked to Madonna del Orto, and admired Tintoretto's Presentation of the Virgin, noticing this time how all the attention is on mothers and children--all the men are pushed off and in shadow. His Miracle of Saint Agnes reminded me a big of the Night Watch--the golden figure in the darkness. And Cima's Saint John altarpiece was full of pure, clear colors as always. This was the church where I accidentally left my camera on the stoop outside two years ago, and didn't realize it until I was halfway across the city. Lighting matters so much in these churches, by the way. I've never seen Sebastiano's San Crisostomo altarpiece with anything like the clarity of published images, because the church is so dim; same goes for Titian's Annunciation in San Salvador. There are lights on his Transfiguration, but not the Annunciation; I don't get it.
The event at the Academy in David's honor was low-key. A number of people, including the former director of the museum, the head of Save Venice, the restorers he worked with, and one of his former students read brief reflections on the incredible impact he had on them and on Venice. Ellen concluded with a brief reflection on their life together, in which Venice had always played a starring role--they came there for the first time on their honeymoon, and almost never missed a year for decades. Afterwards, Save Venice hosted a little cocktail reception in their offices, which are currently just on the other side of the Accademia bridge, but which will be moving to Palazzo Polignac this spring, in part to house the newly-donated David Rosand Library and Study Center. He bequeathed all 4,000 of his books to Save Venice.
I met a nice Columbia grad student at the cocktail reception named Sofie, who is living in Florence and working on a dissertation on painted organ shutters with her Italian boyfriend. We chatted for most of the reception, and wound up having dinner together afterward, after I had had a brief chance to talk to Ellen (who had perhaps had a few glasses and was more communicative than usual!) and to meet their son Jonathan. We ate at a place called Oniga in Dorsoduro, not far from my hotel, and I ate a heaping pile of fritto misto from the lagoon, including tiny shrimps whose eyes I tried not to look at as I crunched into them...
Saturday morning turned out to be incredibly beautiful, if still chilly. With plenty of time to spare, I rode the vaporetto up the Grand Canal again (it takes forever). The trip home was pretty great: the train was there early, so I didn't have to wait all that time in the cold, and it was only half full, so I could move to a seat facing in the right direction. We enjoyed beautiful sunshine down through Florence, and then a deep gloom settled over the landscape with accompanying fog. That in itself was pretty cool. By the time we reached Rome, it was reduced to just regular stormy skies and occasional rain. Every time I travel I'm reminded that traveling is really annoying and time consuming, but I try to remind myself that if they invented teleportation I'd miss out on beautiful sights like the countryside south of Florence, gleaming in the afternoon sun.
Tuesday, January 27, 2015
A Surprisingly Welcome Companion
In preparation for my brief trip back to Venice, I looked through Deborah Howard's history of Venetian architecture. Goethe's letters from his Italian journey were frequently cited, and with enough interested content that I thought I should check them out. (I had previously tried, briefly, to engage myself with "Sorrows of Young Werther" but eventually threw it down in disgust. Apparently Goethe shared my disdain for the youthful novel that had made him famous, which makes me feel much more kindly toward him). He's no Mark Twain, but there is a surprising undercurrent of humor in some of his observations, particularly regarding his German social circle in Rome. He was also travelling incognito, so that polite people were constrained to pretend they didn't really know his identity, even though he was a celebrity among his countrymen. That's pretty unthinkable today.
When it comes to something like 18th-century German, the quality of the translation also really matters, which is a point made in the introduction to this edition, translated by W.H. Auden. In fact, rather than transcribe all the below quotations that I wanted to save, I tried to Google them, and almost every one came from a more antiquated translation which struck me with none of the force of Auden's. I still wound up using them for the longer quotations, as a kind of shorthand--they're highlighted in white, an effect of copy-pasting that I've never figured out how to get rid of.
On a French gentleman who feels out of place in Venice, not having troubled to learn any Italian: "it was amazing to me that a man who, in this way, was well educated, brave and decent could travel without noticing anything in the world outside himself."
Inspired by Raphael's Saint Cecilia: "But in order to understand Raphael aright, and to form a just appreciation of him, and not to praise him as a god, or as Melchisedec, "without descent" or pedigree, it is necessary to study his masters and his predecessors. These, too, had a standing on the firm soil of truth. Diligently, not to say anxiously, they had laid the foundation, and vied with each other in raising, step by step, the pyramid aloft, until at last, profiting by all their labours, and enlightened by a heavenly genius, Raphael set the last stone on the summit, above which, or even at which, no one else can ever stand." Initially reading this I was impressed by his willingness to consider historical context and precedence rather than pure genius, but after thinking about this, his view isn't really much different than Vasari's biological/teleological notion of artistic development. For example, where can one go when Raphael has already hit the summit? Art must plunge again I suppose.
Despite his Vasarian leaning above, Goethe wasn't very well-educated in art history; for example, he was apparently unaware of the long Italian tradition of the "sacred conversation" altarpiece, including holy figures separated in both time space space. As he wrote after seeing Titian's Vatican altarpiece: "We said to ourselves, "Some ancient holy legend must have furnished the subject of this picture in order that these various and ill-assorted personages should have been brought together so artistically and so significantly." We ask not, however, why and wherefore: we take it all for granted, and only wonder at the inestimable piece of art."
On experiencing Rome: "The most important monuments I take very slowly; I do nothing except look, go away, and come back and look again. Only in Rome can one educate oneself for Rome."
And again later: "Rome is a world, and it would take years to become a true citizen of it. How lucky those travelers are who take one look and leave."
On the lack of serendipity in Rome's location: "...I am convinced that no inhabited site among the peoples of old was as badly placed as Rome. In the end, when they had swallowed up everything, in order to live and enjoy life, the Romans had to move out again and build their country villas on the sites of the cities they had destroyed."
After attending a blessing of the candles ceremony in the Sistine and leaving early in annoyance: "I thought to myself: these are the very candles which for three centuries have blackened the frescoes, and this is the very incense which, with sacred insolence, not only wraps the sun of art in clouds, but also makes it grow dimmer every year and in the end will totally eclipse it."
When it comes to something like 18th-century German, the quality of the translation also really matters, which is a point made in the introduction to this edition, translated by W.H. Auden. In fact, rather than transcribe all the below quotations that I wanted to save, I tried to Google them, and almost every one came from a more antiquated translation which struck me with none of the force of Auden's. I still wound up using them for the longer quotations, as a kind of shorthand--they're highlighted in white, an effect of copy-pasting that I've never figured out how to get rid of.
On a French gentleman who feels out of place in Venice, not having troubled to learn any Italian: "it was amazing to me that a man who, in this way, was well educated, brave and decent could travel without noticing anything in the world outside himself."
Inspired by Raphael's Saint Cecilia: "But in order to understand Raphael aright, and to form a just appreciation of him, and not to praise him as a god, or as Melchisedec, "without descent" or pedigree, it is necessary to study his masters and his predecessors. These, too, had a standing on the firm soil of truth. Diligently, not to say anxiously, they had laid the foundation, and vied with each other in raising, step by step, the pyramid aloft, until at last, profiting by all their labours, and enlightened by a heavenly genius, Raphael set the last stone on the summit, above which, or even at which, no one else can ever stand." Initially reading this I was impressed by his willingness to consider historical context and precedence rather than pure genius, but after thinking about this, his view isn't really much different than Vasari's biological/teleological notion of artistic development. For example, where can one go when Raphael has already hit the summit? Art must plunge again I suppose.
Despite his Vasarian leaning above, Goethe wasn't very well-educated in art history; for example, he was apparently unaware of the long Italian tradition of the "sacred conversation" altarpiece, including holy figures separated in both time space space. As he wrote after seeing Titian's Vatican altarpiece: "We said to ourselves, "Some ancient holy legend must have furnished the subject of this picture in order that these various and ill-assorted personages should have been brought together so artistically and so significantly." We ask not, however, why and wherefore: we take it all for granted, and only wonder at the inestimable piece of art."
On experiencing Rome: "The most important monuments I take very slowly; I do nothing except look, go away, and come back and look again. Only in Rome can one educate oneself for Rome."
And again later: "Rome is a world, and it would take years to become a true citizen of it. How lucky those travelers are who take one look and leave."
On the lack of serendipity in Rome's location: "...I am convinced that no inhabited site among the peoples of old was as badly placed as Rome. In the end, when they had swallowed up everything, in order to live and enjoy life, the Romans had to move out again and build their country villas on the sites of the cities they had destroyed."
After attending a blessing of the candles ceremony in the Sistine and leaving early in annoyance: "I thought to myself: these are the very candles which for three centuries have blackened the frescoes, and this is the very incense which, with sacred insolence, not only wraps the sun of art in clouds, but also makes it grow dimmer every year and in the end will totally eclipse it."
Tuesday, January 13, 2015
Back in Rome
I was fairly grumpy when I got back to Rome on Sunday. Separating from Sean was harder the second time around (even though now we have only a little less than two months to wait until we're together again) and the experience of being "a stranger in a strange land" had lost its novelty. Not being able to eaves-drop on strangers, always feeling on the wrong foot in a casual conversation with a shopkeeper, always feeling a bit nervous over whether the cab driver is going to try to screw me over...being plunged right back into it produced a general feeling of "meh" that wasn't alleviated by coming back to the Academy at noon on a Sunday, when the building is at is most deathly-silent. Only a few hours later, after I had grudgingly marched out to the grocery store to get provisions (having to carry my groceries uphill again! people on the street not smiling or making eye contact!) and was making pasta in the kitchen, did my mood finally break, thanks to a warm greeting and hug from Adam. That little bit of human contact was enough to make me think "oh, fine, this place doesn't suck that much." The feeling amplified that evening, when there was a screening of La Grande Belleza downstairs in the lecture room. Halfway through we stopped and had a potluck dinner together upstairs in the salone; someone had made a vast pot of bolognese, and there were olives, cheese, fruit, and, of course, plenty of wine. I still laid down that night missing my soft bed, and my quiet house with Sean in it, and my kitchen where all the good mugs are mine and don't go missing, but...this can be good too.
I do have some resolutions that I've brought back with me. Avoiding the pasta at lunch, having less wine in the evenings (especially when I have to pay for it) and generally trying to save money where possible. That sort of thing. I've also decided, a little late, to start Buzzfeed's January monthlong fitness challenge, which is alternating interval running and cardio/bodyweight exercises, five times a week. I decided to just consider Sunday as Day 1, which was, conveniently, a rest day. I even saved the calendar as a .jpg so every day I can open it in Paint and do this:
I do have some resolutions that I've brought back with me. Avoiding the pasta at lunch, having less wine in the evenings (especially when I have to pay for it) and generally trying to save money where possible. That sort of thing. I've also decided, a little late, to start Buzzfeed's January monthlong fitness challenge, which is alternating interval running and cardio/bodyweight exercises, five times a week. I decided to just consider Sunday as Day 1, which was, conveniently, a rest day. I even saved the calendar as a .jpg so every day I can open it in Paint and do this:
Saturday, December 20, 2014
Fall Semester, Over
A number of unexpected things which have become part of my life over the last three and a half months. For example, I drink caffe macchiato, I eat olives, and I can (almost) run a 5k without stopping. I've spent more time with kids than I ever have before; this week alone, I performed in a children's Christmas play and attended an Italian elementary school recital. I've played so many parlor games, from the standards like Cards Against Humanity, Werewolves, Pictionary to ones of our own invention, like Lesbian Processing (since re-named Twelve Angry Fellows). I've been more social than I ever thought myself capable of being, and enjoyed it more than I expected. Really it feels like the end of fall semester at college; I'm ready to pack up and go home for a visit, but with the awareness that it's just to visit, and not to stay. The Academy, strangely enough, feels like home.
Sunday, December 07, 2014
The Holidays Begin
I haven't posted in weeks, I realize! The holiday season officially kicked off with Thanksgiving, which the Academy delivered in typically impressive fashion. Unbeknownst to me, it was a dressy event; I came downstairs for the aperitivi and saw people in dresses and suits, and scampered back upstairs to change into a dress, a choice which turned out to be more comfortable than the jeans I'd originally put on! They'd just been in the dryer, and I had walked downstairs thinking, ok, I'm definitely not going to be eating that much today.
It was a delicious meal in a packed dining room, but it didn't really feel like Thanksgiving. After all, how could it be Thanksgiving without my aunt's comfortable kitchen, my traditional turkey leg, my sister's antics? Even being without Sean for Thanksgiving (though it sucked) wasn't as strange as being without my family, in a way. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday in no small part because I spend it with my rarely-gathered clan, and we always have such a good time. Later in the afternoon, I Skyped into Donna's house, and they were all laughing and making fun of each other and mildly poking fun at my oblivious Aunt Janice, who was herself Skyping in via another iPad from Arizona. Me in Rome, her in Scottsdale, both of us "meeting" in my aunt's living room in Westwood, MA! Technology is incredible.
We spent the afternoon and evening playing games in the Salone, which was a fun way to wrap up the holiday--particularly with Werewolves, which has become an Academy favorite! The next morning we had a Baroque walk-and-talk, visiting Borromini and Bernini churches; afterward Lakshmi and I had lunch at a great bistro in Monti, Barzilai, and then went on our own Caravaggio tour, led by yours truly! On Saturday a group of us went down to Naples for a tour of Pompeii with Sarah, who is researching the brothel there. Elaine and I ended up having a later train back than others, so we had pizza, fried things, and wine in a little dive by the train station.
On Sunday, she and Craig held an open studio to wish us all goodbye. I really wish they were full-year fellows, not residents; they're really wonderful people, and I've enjoyed Elaine's company particularly. Lakshmi and I had each requested a photo of one of the gorgeous drawings they had up in their studio: she asked for one of Elaine's "papal vultures" and I asked for a picture of Cragi's sketch of an alleyway. We had then printed off (as photos, not matte, alas) in Trastevere, and Craig and Elaine signed them at their open studio. Elaine had also made a drawing for me and Lakshmi to commemorate our failed Tivoli/Frascati adventure, which I also want to frame. We ended the night with another few rounds of Werewolves, and then a bunch of us turned out in the morning to see Craig and Elaine off, first with a last coffee at the bar, and then on the steps of the Academy.
It was a delicious meal in a packed dining room, but it didn't really feel like Thanksgiving. After all, how could it be Thanksgiving without my aunt's comfortable kitchen, my traditional turkey leg, my sister's antics? Even being without Sean for Thanksgiving (though it sucked) wasn't as strange as being without my family, in a way. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday in no small part because I spend it with my rarely-gathered clan, and we always have such a good time. Later in the afternoon, I Skyped into Donna's house, and they were all laughing and making fun of each other and mildly poking fun at my oblivious Aunt Janice, who was herself Skyping in via another iPad from Arizona. Me in Rome, her in Scottsdale, both of us "meeting" in my aunt's living room in Westwood, MA! Technology is incredible.
We spent the afternoon and evening playing games in the Salone, which was a fun way to wrap up the holiday--particularly with Werewolves, which has become an Academy favorite! The next morning we had a Baroque walk-and-talk, visiting Borromini and Bernini churches; afterward Lakshmi and I had lunch at a great bistro in Monti, Barzilai, and then went on our own Caravaggio tour, led by yours truly! On Saturday a group of us went down to Naples for a tour of Pompeii with Sarah, who is researching the brothel there. Elaine and I ended up having a later train back than others, so we had pizza, fried things, and wine in a little dive by the train station.
On Sunday, she and Craig held an open studio to wish us all goodbye. I really wish they were full-year fellows, not residents; they're really wonderful people, and I've enjoyed Elaine's company particularly. Lakshmi and I had each requested a photo of one of the gorgeous drawings they had up in their studio: she asked for one of Elaine's "papal vultures" and I asked for a picture of Cragi's sketch of an alleyway. We had then printed off (as photos, not matte, alas) in Trastevere, and Craig and Elaine signed them at their open studio. Elaine had also made a drawing for me and Lakshmi to commemorate our failed Tivoli/Frascati adventure, which I also want to frame. We ended the night with another few rounds of Werewolves, and then a bunch of us turned out in the morning to see Craig and Elaine off, first with a last coffee at the bar, and then on the steps of the Academy.
Friday, November 21, 2014
Recent Doings
The week-long constant and occasionally torrential rain broke earlier this week, just in time for our excursion to Monte Testaccio. This artificial hill was created in ancient Roman times by the discarded fragments of circa 53 million amphorae, which had been used to ship oil (apparently they couldn't be re-used since the terracotta was lightly porous and the oil would turn rancid). Rather than a random trash heap, excavations have shown that the fragments were laid in careful strata with frequent buttressing, to prevent the entire mound from collapsing. There wasn't a terrible amount of stuff to look at (you've seen one pot shard, you've seen them all) but there was an interesting view of southern Rome, a more industrial district, and really incredible interactions of light and post-rain clouds, particularly over the Colli Albani.
On Wednesday we had another excursion, one that had to be booked months in advance: the Aula Gotica of SS. Quattro Coronati, a still-operating convent that was once an Augustinian monastery. In the 1990s, routine conservation of a Gothic-style room revealed that under the white-washing lay an incredible fresco program covering the entire wall space and the vaults. Painted in the 13th century, it had probably already been covered over by the middle of the 14th, meaning the frescoes had less of a change to be damaged and degraded (vs something like the Sistine, subject to constant use for centuries). The colors are extraordinarily vivid, including a green shade that I'm not used to seeing in medieval painting, though it is frequently found in fresco.
One half of the room has a "secular" theme, with a cycle of the months as well as the four seasons. Pagan figures, gods and goddesses appear, but often with Christianizing elements. For example, January is represented by the Roman god Janus, but aytpically he has three faces, not two, making it a trinitarian figure. On the other side of the transverse arch, the program is explicitly religious. Female Beatitudes, dressed as soldiers, carry aloft tiny figures of saints on their backs (it's weird), and trample on figures representing the opposites of their good values (Mahomet and the Jews appear, for example, but also Alexander the Great as the opposite of "fear of God"). In the center of this cycle, on one of the short walls, Solomon appears alone. This detail has led to an interpretation of the room (which was constructed for a cardinal) as a place not only for banquets but also of the dispensation of justice.
Finally, this morning our walk-and-talk took us to Villa Farnesina, built by papal banker Agostino Chigi and frescoed by Raphael, Peruzzi, and Sebastiano del Piombo. The whole complex has been beautifully restored. It's a little over-the-top for me, but I love Sebastiano's heavy-limbed Polyphemus, looking mournfully at the escaping Galatea, who is looking over her shoulder from Raphael's adjacent scene like "whew, see ya later, creeper!" Giovanni da Udine's fruit and vegetable-laden swags, which divide the compartments in the Loggia di Psiche, are also really incredible to look at. Peter reminded us that since this was painted around 1511, we're seeing some of the literal "first fruits" of New World exploration--corn, squash, etc. I had never made that connection before!
Aside from these excursions, which really do help frame my understanding of the city (although if I have to hear the phrase 'Rome is a palimpsest' one more time...) I'm still feeling really at sea about what I'm doing here. I have a massive list of secondary literature that I'm slowly tackling, but I feel rudderless somehow, like I should have burning questions that I'm constantly applying to the material in front of me. There's no one else at the Academy who's at the beginning of their dissertation, which kind of sucks. I'm vacillating on reaching out to Lindsay, who as Mellon Professor-in-Charge is technically supposed to advise us...but she's never had grad students, and also, I admit, I'm a bit nervous about admitting how lost I feel. That goes for talking about it with other fellows, too. When you're constantly surrounded by very accomplished, very driven people who are buzzing on about their latest dissertation chapter or their book or their article, it feels weird to raise my hand and say "um, I'm still confused about whether I have original ideas to offer this discipline..."
It also sucks that there are no other early modernists here. I met a Fulbright scholar who is tangentially linked to the Academy today at the Farnesina.. She works on Raphael, and I may have slightly thrown her off by my over-enthusiasm. Someone who literally speaks my language! She said it herself, on hearing I'm working on Titian: "Someone else who works on canon!" But she also clearly has that sense of direction and drive that I feel like I'm lacking--she buries herself in the Vatican archives every day, working on reconstructing the contents of Julius' library (which was housed in Raphael's Stanza della Segnatura, and informed the fresco program). Le sigh. I've been putting off reaching out to Coop about this, but I think I have no choice...
On Wednesday we had another excursion, one that had to be booked months in advance: the Aula Gotica of SS. Quattro Coronati, a still-operating convent that was once an Augustinian monastery. In the 1990s, routine conservation of a Gothic-style room revealed that under the white-washing lay an incredible fresco program covering the entire wall space and the vaults. Painted in the 13th century, it had probably already been covered over by the middle of the 14th, meaning the frescoes had less of a change to be damaged and degraded (vs something like the Sistine, subject to constant use for centuries). The colors are extraordinarily vivid, including a green shade that I'm not used to seeing in medieval painting, though it is frequently found in fresco.
One half of the room has a "secular" theme, with a cycle of the months as well as the four seasons. Pagan figures, gods and goddesses appear, but often with Christianizing elements. For example, January is represented by the Roman god Janus, but aytpically he has three faces, not two, making it a trinitarian figure. On the other side of the transverse arch, the program is explicitly religious. Female Beatitudes, dressed as soldiers, carry aloft tiny figures of saints on their backs (it's weird), and trample on figures representing the opposites of their good values (Mahomet and the Jews appear, for example, but also Alexander the Great as the opposite of "fear of God"). In the center of this cycle, on one of the short walls, Solomon appears alone. This detail has led to an interpretation of the room (which was constructed for a cardinal) as a place not only for banquets but also of the dispensation of justice.
Finally, this morning our walk-and-talk took us to Villa Farnesina, built by papal banker Agostino Chigi and frescoed by Raphael, Peruzzi, and Sebastiano del Piombo. The whole complex has been beautifully restored. It's a little over-the-top for me, but I love Sebastiano's heavy-limbed Polyphemus, looking mournfully at the escaping Galatea, who is looking over her shoulder from Raphael's adjacent scene like "whew, see ya later, creeper!" Giovanni da Udine's fruit and vegetable-laden swags, which divide the compartments in the Loggia di Psiche, are also really incredible to look at. Peter reminded us that since this was painted around 1511, we're seeing some of the literal "first fruits" of New World exploration--corn, squash, etc. I had never made that connection before!
Aside from these excursions, which really do help frame my understanding of the city (although if I have to hear the phrase 'Rome is a palimpsest' one more time...) I'm still feeling really at sea about what I'm doing here. I have a massive list of secondary literature that I'm slowly tackling, but I feel rudderless somehow, like I should have burning questions that I'm constantly applying to the material in front of me. There's no one else at the Academy who's at the beginning of their dissertation, which kind of sucks. I'm vacillating on reaching out to Lindsay, who as Mellon Professor-in-Charge is technically supposed to advise us...but she's never had grad students, and also, I admit, I'm a bit nervous about admitting how lost I feel. That goes for talking about it with other fellows, too. When you're constantly surrounded by very accomplished, very driven people who are buzzing on about their latest dissertation chapter or their book or their article, it feels weird to raise my hand and say "um, I'm still confused about whether I have original ideas to offer this discipline..."
It also sucks that there are no other early modernists here. I met a Fulbright scholar who is tangentially linked to the Academy today at the Farnesina.. She works on Raphael, and I may have slightly thrown her off by my over-enthusiasm. Someone who literally speaks my language! She said it herself, on hearing I'm working on Titian: "Someone else who works on canon!" But she also clearly has that sense of direction and drive that I feel like I'm lacking--she buries herself in the Vatican archives every day, working on reconstructing the contents of Julius' library (which was housed in Raphael's Stanza della Segnatura, and informed the fresco program). Le sigh. I've been putting off reaching out to Coop about this, but I think I have no choice...
Wednesday, November 12, 2014
Archaeologists Are Cool
Last night we listened to a lecture by Brian Rose, an archaeologist from Penn who spent 25 years excavating Troy. He's been a fellow and a Resident here, and is now a trustee (meaning, I assume, that he has lots of money). When the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan started, he was also the head of the Archaeological Institute of America, and helped set up a training program to educate US military about identifying and preserving cultural heritage in conflict zones--particularly in terms of helping stop looters. The photo that showed him in Afghanistan in 2003 wearing a flak jacket was really hard to reconcile that with the short, soft-voiced, smiling man who has absolutely zero of the 'Me Big Important Scholar' ego about him. Seriously, this guy is awesome, and the other archaeologists here confirmed that he has a reputation for being a genuinely wonderful person who is always interested in helping others, particularly students.
He's also a fantastic speaker. This is the second time I've heard him talk; he gave a very informal presentation to some of us in John's studio a couple of weeks ago, both about his work with the military and his work in Troy. This talk specifically addressed the practices adopted both in his 25 years working on Troy (the excavations were completed last year) and in his current site, Gordion, also in Turkey. For example, he talked about the challenges presented by working in international teams, which is now the norm. His Troy partner was a German Bronze Age specialist. As they excavated Troy's nine city layers, Brian was most interested in the Roman stuff, but Manfred was interested in tearing through that to get to the older material--meaning they'd have to battle it out over whether a particular Roman house or floor mosaic should be preserved, or removed to allow further investigation. Archaeology, he reminded us, is by its nature a destructive form of inquiry, even though they've pioneered using non-invasive techniques like magnetic imaging to let them identify the presence of a Roman city under the fields surrounding the citadel, without having to tear them up.
The two most pressing challenges for archaeologists today seem to be the constant threat of looting, on the one hand, and diplomatic issues on the other. Working in Gordion (which, I learned, was the home of King Midas, who was a real person! They've excavated the huge burial mound belonging to Midas' father, and discovered, in testing the garments found there, that they were covered in a mineral called goethite that gives off a golden gleam...since they've found exactly zero gold at Gordion itself, this might offer an explanation for the famed 'golden touch'--what if the city elites were simply walking around shining like they wore clothes of gold?), Brian told us they realized they could be endangering sites merely by paying attention to them, because that told looters in the area that there could be something valuable there. He said once they mapped out some of the most significant tombs in an area and gave the list to the local Turkish police force to guard during the off-season--only to return to find that the police themselves had looted the sites! Looters often use backhoes indiscriminately, and at night, to tear apart burial mounds, stopping only when they hear the metal hitting stone. He showed us a photo of a sarcophagus with surviving painted sculpture--something I have NEVER seen before--but with one half of it broken off: the backhoe had sliced it in two in the rush to open the tomb. I just emailed Brian to see if the photo has been published or if he can send me a copy, because that would be awesome to use in teaching.
Perhaps Turkey is increasingly aware of its status of as one of the few places remaining in the ancient Near East where it's still safe to dig. That would explain their increasing use of bully tactics to force repatriation of artifacts--they know they've got everyone by the short hairs. According to UNESCO's rule on the subject, if something has been in a collection since before 1970, it's not up for repatriation claims, unless there is clear proof of looting. Turkey, however, doesn't care about that, and has been going after objects that have been in museum collections for 50 or 100 years--and then threatening to cut all access to Turkish sites for that country's or that university's archeologists if the object isn't handed over! They did this successfully to Germany a couple of years ago, and then they tried to do it to the UPenn museum over some gold jewelry which had been bought in the 1960s.
On grounds of style, the gold had always been linked both to Troy and to the Greek isle of Lemnos, but recently analysis of some bits of dirt found inside one of the pieces suggested it really was from Troy. The Turkish government then threatened to ban all UPenn archaeologists from ever working in Turkey again if they didn't get the gold back--gold which was not even conclusively proven to be from Turkey, and to which they had no legal claim by UNESCO standards. The university trustees refused, and Brian was summoned to Ankara to meet with the culture ministry, who had refused repeated offers of long-term loans on the museum's part. Faced with the possibility of losing his life's work in Turkey, the day before the meeting he called the Greek culture ministry and basically begged the officials there, who had no interest in the gold, to put in their own claim of interest in the jewelry! The gambit paid off, because when the Turkish officials heard that they might have to fight the Greeks for rights to the gold, they immediately accepted the long-term loan offer (which means the museum didn't have to surrender its ownership rights and thus create a precedent)! Brian said that since then Turkey has become even more warm to UPenn, offering them higher-prestige loans than ever before. High-stakes international diplomacy is not something that scholars typically imagine having to engage in, so the aplomb with which he manages to navigate these kinds of situations seems really incredible.
He's also a fantastic speaker. This is the second time I've heard him talk; he gave a very informal presentation to some of us in John's studio a couple of weeks ago, both about his work with the military and his work in Troy. This talk specifically addressed the practices adopted both in his 25 years working on Troy (the excavations were completed last year) and in his current site, Gordion, also in Turkey. For example, he talked about the challenges presented by working in international teams, which is now the norm. His Troy partner was a German Bronze Age specialist. As they excavated Troy's nine city layers, Brian was most interested in the Roman stuff, but Manfred was interested in tearing through that to get to the older material--meaning they'd have to battle it out over whether a particular Roman house or floor mosaic should be preserved, or removed to allow further investigation. Archaeology, he reminded us, is by its nature a destructive form of inquiry, even though they've pioneered using non-invasive techniques like magnetic imaging to let them identify the presence of a Roman city under the fields surrounding the citadel, without having to tear them up.
The two most pressing challenges for archaeologists today seem to be the constant threat of looting, on the one hand, and diplomatic issues on the other. Working in Gordion (which, I learned, was the home of King Midas, who was a real person! They've excavated the huge burial mound belonging to Midas' father, and discovered, in testing the garments found there, that they were covered in a mineral called goethite that gives off a golden gleam...since they've found exactly zero gold at Gordion itself, this might offer an explanation for the famed 'golden touch'--what if the city elites were simply walking around shining like they wore clothes of gold?), Brian told us they realized they could be endangering sites merely by paying attention to them, because that told looters in the area that there could be something valuable there. He said once they mapped out some of the most significant tombs in an area and gave the list to the local Turkish police force to guard during the off-season--only to return to find that the police themselves had looted the sites! Looters often use backhoes indiscriminately, and at night, to tear apart burial mounds, stopping only when they hear the metal hitting stone. He showed us a photo of a sarcophagus with surviving painted sculpture--something I have NEVER seen before--but with one half of it broken off: the backhoe had sliced it in two in the rush to open the tomb. I just emailed Brian to see if the photo has been published or if he can send me a copy, because that would be awesome to use in teaching.
Perhaps Turkey is increasingly aware of its status of as one of the few places remaining in the ancient Near East where it's still safe to dig. That would explain their increasing use of bully tactics to force repatriation of artifacts--they know they've got everyone by the short hairs. According to UNESCO's rule on the subject, if something has been in a collection since before 1970, it's not up for repatriation claims, unless there is clear proof of looting. Turkey, however, doesn't care about that, and has been going after objects that have been in museum collections for 50 or 100 years--and then threatening to cut all access to Turkish sites for that country's or that university's archeologists if the object isn't handed over! They did this successfully to Germany a couple of years ago, and then they tried to do it to the UPenn museum over some gold jewelry which had been bought in the 1960s.
On grounds of style, the gold had always been linked both to Troy and to the Greek isle of Lemnos, but recently analysis of some bits of dirt found inside one of the pieces suggested it really was from Troy. The Turkish government then threatened to ban all UPenn archaeologists from ever working in Turkey again if they didn't get the gold back--gold which was not even conclusively proven to be from Turkey, and to which they had no legal claim by UNESCO standards. The university trustees refused, and Brian was summoned to Ankara to meet with the culture ministry, who had refused repeated offers of long-term loans on the museum's part. Faced with the possibility of losing his life's work in Turkey, the day before the meeting he called the Greek culture ministry and basically begged the officials there, who had no interest in the gold, to put in their own claim of interest in the jewelry! The gambit paid off, because when the Turkish officials heard that they might have to fight the Greeks for rights to the gold, they immediately accepted the long-term loan offer (which means the museum didn't have to surrender its ownership rights and thus create a precedent)! Brian said that since then Turkey has become even more warm to UPenn, offering them higher-prestige loans than ever before. High-stakes international diplomacy is not something that scholars typically imagine having to engage in, so the aplomb with which he manages to navigate these kinds of situations seems really incredible.
Monday, November 10, 2014
A Lovely, If Not Quite "Fall" Weekend
After the cold snap at the end of October, the temperature has gotten mild again, hovering in the low-to-mid 60s. Although I have a sweater on now, for example, I also have the window open! It's hard to think of it as being November when you're still sweating carrying home groceries. The lack of foliage changing color--and the continued presence of flowers--is another mental stumbling block. On our bike ride yesterday I finally saw a few sparsely distributed examples of leaves turning a brilliant red--but they looked like vines, not proper trees at all.
Our 20-mile trek took us down the Via Appia Antica, riding first on cobblestones, which jar every bone in your body, and then on treacherous basalt paving stones, which can only be ridden on safely if you do so at relatively high speed (otherwise you risk getting your tire stuck being two of them and falling over). Later on we got off the main road and were on trails, which had their own mud-and-loose-rocks dangers. I had several very close calls, and have a baseball-sized bruise on my left from where I think I slammed the pedal into my calf when I was trying not to fall over, but I survived! It was a lot of fun and a beautiful day but by the last 30 minutes of the 4.5 hour ride, as we were heading back into the city and on the cobblestones again, everything hurt. When I got back home, I plunked down in my desk chair and went "OWWW!" This morning parts of me hurt that I wasn't even expecting--my wrists, from working the brakes, and my shoulders. The fact that I went jogging anyway is a point of no small pride.
I spent a lot of the ride with Stefania and Tommaso, who taught me a few finer points of Italian cursing. For example, although 'cazzo' means dick, you have to say 'cazzone', big dick, if you want to call someone an asshole. Also, 'n'do cazzo vai' is Romanesco for 'where the fuck are you going?' which was used freely against cars who tried to cut off our right of way. Seriously, I would never have ventured on a lot of the route we followed had we not been with the guide, since it involved a lot of crossing and riding on busy arterial roads with drivers who did not give a fuck. One of my close calls came while we were riding against traffic, in fact; trying to hug the massive wall to my left, a dangling vine actually managed to snag around my handlebar and jerk my bike to a stop! I almost fell off into the road, not to mention almost causing a pile-up behind me.
But again, the important thing is that I lived to tell the tale. Our worst injury happened at the outset, to poor Sarah, who stopped to take a photo of some extremely realistic-looking Roman legionnaires; in her hurry to catch up to us, her bike slipped in a muddy patch and she fell off and cut up her palms. Eeep.
Our 20-mile trek took us down the Via Appia Antica, riding first on cobblestones, which jar every bone in your body, and then on treacherous basalt paving stones, which can only be ridden on safely if you do so at relatively high speed (otherwise you risk getting your tire stuck being two of them and falling over). Later on we got off the main road and were on trails, which had their own mud-and-loose-rocks dangers. I had several very close calls, and have a baseball-sized bruise on my left from where I think I slammed the pedal into my calf when I was trying not to fall over, but I survived! It was a lot of fun and a beautiful day but by the last 30 minutes of the 4.5 hour ride, as we were heading back into the city and on the cobblestones again, everything hurt. When I got back home, I plunked down in my desk chair and went "OWWW!" This morning parts of me hurt that I wasn't even expecting--my wrists, from working the brakes, and my shoulders. The fact that I went jogging anyway is a point of no small pride.
I spent a lot of the ride with Stefania and Tommaso, who taught me a few finer points of Italian cursing. For example, although 'cazzo' means dick, you have to say 'cazzone', big dick, if you want to call someone an asshole. Also, 'n'do cazzo vai' is Romanesco for 'where the fuck are you going?' which was used freely against cars who tried to cut off our right of way. Seriously, I would never have ventured on a lot of the route we followed had we not been with the guide, since it involved a lot of crossing and riding on busy arterial roads with drivers who did not give a fuck. One of my close calls came while we were riding against traffic, in fact; trying to hug the massive wall to my left, a dangling vine actually managed to snag around my handlebar and jerk my bike to a stop! I almost fell off into the road, not to mention almost causing a pile-up behind me.
But again, the important thing is that I lived to tell the tale. Our worst injury happened at the outset, to poor Sarah, who stopped to take a photo of some extremely realistic-looking Roman legionnaires; in her hurry to catch up to us, her bike slipped in a muddy patch and she fell off and cut up her palms. Eeep.
Sunday, November 02, 2014
Lazy Sunday (Finally)
I woke up this morning and watched four episodes of Buffy, lying in bed under the massive down comforter that I was finally forced to pull out of the closet this weekend. It is cold here, and the heat won't go on for another two weeks. After the Halloween party, and after the after-party (which I miraculously stayed awake for, thanks to lots of Coke Zero), I didn't go to bed until 5am. 4:45am saw me angrily shopping for a space heater on Amazon.it, while swathed in numerous layers and a blanket. I threw in an electric blanket for good measure!
It was an exhausting week, even though it was an interesting one. After Naples, I joined Dr. Hall on Thursday for a conference in honor of the 20th anniversary of the Sistine cleaning campaign. I think that represented the most time she and I have ever spent together! Only the morning sessions actually focused on the 1980s cleaning itself. Listening to the head restorer, Gianluigi Colalucci, almost come to tears as he recounted some of the key moments in the 14-year campaign (which he described as having altered the course of his life) was really incredible, but the afternoon--four hours of the current scientific team discussing calcium deposits and air pressure and showing more charts and graphs than I've seen since high school science classes--was distinctly less awesome. If I never hear the words "calcio" and "sbiancamento" again, it will be too soon. There was a whole second day of the conference, too, focused just on technical presentations on the new lighting and filtration systems, but I quickly decided to say "fuck no" to that.
The only reason I stuck around...why most of the hundreds of people in the audience stuck around, in fact, was because the attendees were invited to a visit of the Sistine Chapel after the day was over. It was kind of surreal, since the conference happened on Via della Conciliazione, just a short distance from the Sistine, but they loaded us onto buses and drove us all the way around the perimeter of Vatican City, dropped us at the museum entrance, and required us to walk allllll the way back to the chapel. Since I was with Dr. Hall, who was grudgingly escorting Kathleen Weil-Garris Brandt, a very elderly, very famous Michelangelo scholar who was about 5-feet tall and walked with a cane, it was slow going. Then Dr. Hall spotted another Michelangelo scholar, Bill Wallace, whose fabulous lecture I enjoyed at RSA in March, and straight-up abandoned me with this woman! Not cool, Marcia, not cool.
On the plus side, our visit did include the chance to visit the Sala Regia (begun by Paul III as a demonstration of his temporal power) and the Paoline Chapel (the pope's private chapel, which contains Michelangelo's last two painted works, done on Paul's orders). I even got a peek down Bernini's Scala Regia, though it was blocked by a scowling Swiss Guard. The crush waiting to get into the Paoline chapel (which is a small space) was intense, though. I actually felt for a hot second like I might pass out or something--I couldn't breathe, it was really hot, and people were pressing so tightly against me. Luckily it passed, and since most Italians are short I quickly found some breathing space!
The downside was that once I got into the chapel itself and could really breathe freely, I was a little too worn out to really focus deeply on the frescoes themselves. Their color was extraordinarily bright (they were cleaned in the early 2000s, I think), and they were much less ugly than they appear in reproduction--even though the ugliness is actually a structural part of their compositions! Michelangelo seems to really have lost faith in humanity, and shown them in both paintings (the conversion of Paul and Peter's crucifixion) as gross, graceless creatures, perhaps unworthy of the salvation that the apostles will eventually offer them. Still, there is a power to Michelangelo's work that can never be denied, particularly the Peter fresco, because Peter, as he's being lifted onto the cross, wrenches his head around to stare angrily at...well, the Pope, it seems, because he meets your eyes only when you go and stand near the altar. This space saw the actual ballotting for a new pope, and in fact the victor, in the Renaissance, would first be physically enthroned on the altar of the chapel before going into St. Peter's. It's as if Peter is warning his new successor, and it's quite striking. It's also cool that I just saw the surviving cartoon for three of the soldiers from this fresco in Naples!
After the Paoline came the Sistine, where we saw the new LED system, which seems super-bright but in fact really renders the paintings so much more legible and beautiful than ever before. I was very impressed, but I was also very tired, and hungry, and the prospect of hors'd'ouevres in the Vatican garden was less appealing than a delicious Academy dinner. Bill Wallace and I ended up trotting back the length of the museum together, he to meet his girlfriend and I to race to catch a cab to make it in time for dinner. I arrived with five minutes to spare! And then overdid it on the wine at dinner and paid the price. Ah well.
Skipping the Friday sessions meant that I had time to actually help set up for Friday's Halloween party, not to mention put the finishing touches on my Coke Zero costume (ie, paint my nails black, which I haven't done since I was in college). The party was a lot of fun, even though it was freezing in the front courtyard. Carla's van Gogh painting came out incredibly well--she reminded me that this was the benefit of scene-painting training at Theater Fairfield. The theme was inanimate objects and there were lots of great costumes, both among Academy folk (Falke's shrimp, Dave's boat-in-fountain, Ruth's incredible pasta headdress, the Panino Five) and outsiders--the prize went to the fellows from the Spanish academy, who came as a group of classical busts, but I also liked the group who came as a Rembrandt group portrait, complete with carefully-crafted paper ruffs and picture frame and the Bocca della Verita' girl from the British School. The Germans came with no costumes. Go figure!
It was an exhausting week, even though it was an interesting one. After Naples, I joined Dr. Hall on Thursday for a conference in honor of the 20th anniversary of the Sistine cleaning campaign. I think that represented the most time she and I have ever spent together! Only the morning sessions actually focused on the 1980s cleaning itself. Listening to the head restorer, Gianluigi Colalucci, almost come to tears as he recounted some of the key moments in the 14-year campaign (which he described as having altered the course of his life) was really incredible, but the afternoon--four hours of the current scientific team discussing calcium deposits and air pressure and showing more charts and graphs than I've seen since high school science classes--was distinctly less awesome. If I never hear the words "calcio" and "sbiancamento" again, it will be too soon. There was a whole second day of the conference, too, focused just on technical presentations on the new lighting and filtration systems, but I quickly decided to say "fuck no" to that.
The only reason I stuck around...why most of the hundreds of people in the audience stuck around, in fact, was because the attendees were invited to a visit of the Sistine Chapel after the day was over. It was kind of surreal, since the conference happened on Via della Conciliazione, just a short distance from the Sistine, but they loaded us onto buses and drove us all the way around the perimeter of Vatican City, dropped us at the museum entrance, and required us to walk allllll the way back to the chapel. Since I was with Dr. Hall, who was grudgingly escorting Kathleen Weil-Garris Brandt, a very elderly, very famous Michelangelo scholar who was about 5-feet tall and walked with a cane, it was slow going. Then Dr. Hall spotted another Michelangelo scholar, Bill Wallace, whose fabulous lecture I enjoyed at RSA in March, and straight-up abandoned me with this woman! Not cool, Marcia, not cool.
On the plus side, our visit did include the chance to visit the Sala Regia (begun by Paul III as a demonstration of his temporal power) and the Paoline Chapel (the pope's private chapel, which contains Michelangelo's last two painted works, done on Paul's orders). I even got a peek down Bernini's Scala Regia, though it was blocked by a scowling Swiss Guard. The crush waiting to get into the Paoline chapel (which is a small space) was intense, though. I actually felt for a hot second like I might pass out or something--I couldn't breathe, it was really hot, and people were pressing so tightly against me. Luckily it passed, and since most Italians are short I quickly found some breathing space!
The downside was that once I got into the chapel itself and could really breathe freely, I was a little too worn out to really focus deeply on the frescoes themselves. Their color was extraordinarily bright (they were cleaned in the early 2000s, I think), and they were much less ugly than they appear in reproduction--even though the ugliness is actually a structural part of their compositions! Michelangelo seems to really have lost faith in humanity, and shown them in both paintings (the conversion of Paul and Peter's crucifixion) as gross, graceless creatures, perhaps unworthy of the salvation that the apostles will eventually offer them. Still, there is a power to Michelangelo's work that can never be denied, particularly the Peter fresco, because Peter, as he's being lifted onto the cross, wrenches his head around to stare angrily at...well, the Pope, it seems, because he meets your eyes only when you go and stand near the altar. This space saw the actual ballotting for a new pope, and in fact the victor, in the Renaissance, would first be physically enthroned on the altar of the chapel before going into St. Peter's. It's as if Peter is warning his new successor, and it's quite striking. It's also cool that I just saw the surviving cartoon for three of the soldiers from this fresco in Naples!
After the Paoline came the Sistine, where we saw the new LED system, which seems super-bright but in fact really renders the paintings so much more legible and beautiful than ever before. I was very impressed, but I was also very tired, and hungry, and the prospect of hors'd'ouevres in the Vatican garden was less appealing than a delicious Academy dinner. Bill Wallace and I ended up trotting back the length of the museum together, he to meet his girlfriend and I to race to catch a cab to make it in time for dinner. I arrived with five minutes to spare! And then overdid it on the wine at dinner and paid the price. Ah well.
Skipping the Friday sessions meant that I had time to actually help set up for Friday's Halloween party, not to mention put the finishing touches on my Coke Zero costume (ie, paint my nails black, which I haven't done since I was in college). The party was a lot of fun, even though it was freezing in the front courtyard. Carla's van Gogh painting came out incredibly well--she reminded me that this was the benefit of scene-painting training at Theater Fairfield. The theme was inanimate objects and there were lots of great costumes, both among Academy folk (Falke's shrimp, Dave's boat-in-fountain, Ruth's incredible pasta headdress, the Panino Five) and outsiders--the prize went to the fellows from the Spanish academy, who came as a group of classical busts, but I also liked the group who came as a Rembrandt group portrait, complete with carefully-crafted paper ruffs and picture frame and the Bocca della Verita' girl from the British School. The Germans came with no costumes. Go figure!
Friday, October 31, 2014
Neapolitan Interlude
Naples embodies many things I dislike about cities. It's noisy, for a start. Neapolitans, true to type, are extremely energetic and loud. Drivers honk there the way they only do in movies in the US these days. It's incredibly crowded, though not with tourists. It's filthy, too. The buildings are peeling and dilapidated, and there's not only trash, but graffiti absolutely everywhere--including historical monuments, entrances to churches, etc. It's dangerous, both in terms of traffic (drivers have zero respect for the zebra crossing) and crime. There's very little green space, and the streets are so narrow, with such (relatively) high buildings, that they can be dimly lit even in full daytime. The city itself is difficult even to conceptualize, with no central open space, and very few direct sight-lines.
Despite (or because of?) all of these factors, I really liked Naples. I kept thinking how much more alive it felt, much more so than other city I've visited in Italy, and maybe even beyond. Rome might be grand, yes, but it's also conservative and staid, as befits a capital. Venice and Florence are tourist theme-parks. Naples, in contrast, felt real--for example, there was no discernible different between the "centro storico" and the rest of the city: it had less car traffic, sure (not that everyone was bothering to actually obey those laws of course) but the noise, the filth, the chaos, it was all still there.
I only spent three days there on this trip, but it felt like more. On the first day, my goal was the Archaeological Museum, which I visited once before when the Rome seminar I was taking took a day trip to Herculaneum. It was in slightly better repair inside than I remembered it. The collection is just fantastic. From the Farnese collection wing, the Farnese Hercules is always a stunner, not to mention a good reminder of one inspiration for Michelangelo's later, comically over-muscled bodies. I was also really taken by a Venus of the Capitoline Venus type. For some reason I found this version particularly lovely, from the dimples at the base of her spine to her soft-looking hands (though these were later restorations). I stood there for a moment, letting the caffeine high from the coffee I'd had outside the museum fuel my imagination, and pictured her turning her head to look at me, unbending her back from that half-bend these Venuses find themselves in, and stretching.
The finds from Pompeii and Herculaneum were also awesome, as before, though I was told only afterward that some of the best stuff is in galleries that are closed because of staffing shortages, but which the guards will open for you if you ask. If only that worked at the Capodimonte museum, which I've never visited before--seemingly an entire half of the building was closed, including everything after Baroque art and the Royal Apartments. The Botticelli gallery was closed off too, and down a roped-off, unlit hallway, I could make out one of Caravaggio's Beheading of Holofernes. The Danae wasn't even there--I had forgotten it's still in DC until next week!
Despite all of the disappointments, the museum was incredible. It felt like a voyage of discovery--enter another gallery, see another familiar face from the books! The Parmigianinos, in particular, were excellent, as was Sebastiano's moody portrait of Clement VII. I was surprised to be moved by Annibal Carracci's Pieta, in a way I rarely ever am by religious art. Finally, the positioning, and lighting, of Caravaggio's Flagellation was just perfect. You can see it down one axial wing of the museum, perfectly framed by the intervening doorways. I love Sebastiano's Flagellation in S. Pietro in Montorio for the elegantissimo leg of Christ, but this one...the whole composition was like a dance, the three tormenters moving around their victim, light starkly spotlighting different parts of their bodies. Enthralling--and then surprising to visit the original location, S. Domenico, the next day where a reproduction hangs in the chapel, and to realize that it looks better in the museum!
That afternoon Carla came down for a late lunch. We had pizza at Brandi's, the pizzeria that invented the pizza margherita for Queen Margherita in the 19th century. They were very friendly, the pizza was great (though honestly, not the best I've ever had), and the prices were surprisingly low for a place running a looping video showing pictures of all the celebrities and politicians who have come to eat there (Pavarotti seems to have been a big fan) including the current "heir" of the Savoy dynasty, who were the kings of Italy from unification until the 1946 referendum. Naples, in fact, was almost alone in Italy in voting for monarchy in that referendum instead of democracy. The book I was reading noted that as a holdover of the historically strong affection the city has had for its kings--even though since the Middle Ages, these have all been imposed from without.
The third day I saw as many of the major churches as I could, many with wonderful surviving Trecento frescoes that attest to the influence of Giotto, who spent time in Naples but left no surviving works behind. I took the funicular up to Sant'Elmo, which offered a lovely view over the city. I visited the monastic complex of Santa Chiara, with its wonderful 19th-century maiolica cloister. The most striking site, though, was the Cappella Sansevero, with its famous central statue of the Draped Christ. Adorning the walls are complex allegorical sculptures conceived by the chapel's builder to honor his family members, with the most famous being the veiled Modesty for his mother, and Disillusionment for his father--a man freeing himself from a marvelous sculpted net that symbolizes vice. In the lower level were the two "anatomical machines", which Sansevero created by injecting some alchemical fluid into the dead bodies of two of his servants, preserving their blood vessels and veins in metallic form--and nothing else. They're two skeletons covered in a cloud of what seems like wire but is really preserved tissue! It's freaky, and apparently no one has ever really discovered the trick of how he did it. Of course, legend also suggests the two servants were not necessarily dead at the moment of the experiment...dun dun DUNNNNN!
Despite (or because of?) all of these factors, I really liked Naples. I kept thinking how much more alive it felt, much more so than other city I've visited in Italy, and maybe even beyond. Rome might be grand, yes, but it's also conservative and staid, as befits a capital. Venice and Florence are tourist theme-parks. Naples, in contrast, felt real--for example, there was no discernible different between the "centro storico" and the rest of the city: it had less car traffic, sure (not that everyone was bothering to actually obey those laws of course) but the noise, the filth, the chaos, it was all still there.
I only spent three days there on this trip, but it felt like more. On the first day, my goal was the Archaeological Museum, which I visited once before when the Rome seminar I was taking took a day trip to Herculaneum. It was in slightly better repair inside than I remembered it. The collection is just fantastic. From the Farnese collection wing, the Farnese Hercules is always a stunner, not to mention a good reminder of one inspiration for Michelangelo's later, comically over-muscled bodies. I was also really taken by a Venus of the Capitoline Venus type. For some reason I found this version particularly lovely, from the dimples at the base of her spine to her soft-looking hands (though these were later restorations). I stood there for a moment, letting the caffeine high from the coffee I'd had outside the museum fuel my imagination, and pictured her turning her head to look at me, unbending her back from that half-bend these Venuses find themselves in, and stretching.
The finds from Pompeii and Herculaneum were also awesome, as before, though I was told only afterward that some of the best stuff is in galleries that are closed because of staffing shortages, but which the guards will open for you if you ask. If only that worked at the Capodimonte museum, which I've never visited before--seemingly an entire half of the building was closed, including everything after Baroque art and the Royal Apartments. The Botticelli gallery was closed off too, and down a roped-off, unlit hallway, I could make out one of Caravaggio's Beheading of Holofernes. The Danae wasn't even there--I had forgotten it's still in DC until next week!
Despite all of the disappointments, the museum was incredible. It felt like a voyage of discovery--enter another gallery, see another familiar face from the books! The Parmigianinos, in particular, were excellent, as was Sebastiano's moody portrait of Clement VII. I was surprised to be moved by Annibal Carracci's Pieta, in a way I rarely ever am by religious art. Finally, the positioning, and lighting, of Caravaggio's Flagellation was just perfect. You can see it down one axial wing of the museum, perfectly framed by the intervening doorways. I love Sebastiano's Flagellation in S. Pietro in Montorio for the elegantissimo leg of Christ, but this one...the whole composition was like a dance, the three tormenters moving around their victim, light starkly spotlighting different parts of their bodies. Enthralling--and then surprising to visit the original location, S. Domenico, the next day where a reproduction hangs in the chapel, and to realize that it looks better in the museum!
That afternoon Carla came down for a late lunch. We had pizza at Brandi's, the pizzeria that invented the pizza margherita for Queen Margherita in the 19th century. They were very friendly, the pizza was great (though honestly, not the best I've ever had), and the prices were surprisingly low for a place running a looping video showing pictures of all the celebrities and politicians who have come to eat there (Pavarotti seems to have been a big fan) including the current "heir" of the Savoy dynasty, who were the kings of Italy from unification until the 1946 referendum. Naples, in fact, was almost alone in Italy in voting for monarchy in that referendum instead of democracy. The book I was reading noted that as a holdover of the historically strong affection the city has had for its kings--even though since the Middle Ages, these have all been imposed from without.
The third day I saw as many of the major churches as I could, many with wonderful surviving Trecento frescoes that attest to the influence of Giotto, who spent time in Naples but left no surviving works behind. I took the funicular up to Sant'Elmo, which offered a lovely view over the city. I visited the monastic complex of Santa Chiara, with its wonderful 19th-century maiolica cloister. The most striking site, though, was the Cappella Sansevero, with its famous central statue of the Draped Christ. Adorning the walls are complex allegorical sculptures conceived by the chapel's builder to honor his family members, with the most famous being the veiled Modesty for his mother, and Disillusionment for his father--a man freeing himself from a marvelous sculpted net that symbolizes vice. In the lower level were the two "anatomical machines", which Sansevero created by injecting some alchemical fluid into the dead bodies of two of his servants, preserving their blood vessels and veins in metallic form--and nothing else. They're two skeletons covered in a cloud of what seems like wire but is really preserved tissue! It's freaky, and apparently no one has ever really discovered the trick of how he did it. Of course, legend also suggests the two servants were not necessarily dead at the moment of the experiment...dun dun DUNNNNN!
Friday, October 24, 2014
Benvenuto al Sud
Last Friday, we left the Academy at 6:45am, in a train of taxis to
Termini. It was a four-hour ride south
to Bari, where we were met at the station by Daniele, the driver of a mini
touring bus (there were only two dozen of us, so not enough for the huge coach
bus). Our first stop was Polignano a
Mare, on the sea as its name implies.
I’ve never seen the Adriatic from any vantage point besides Venice! It was beautiful. We had lunch at a seafood restaurant
recommended by local friends of the Academy staff (I opted vegetarian and was
pleased with my choice). We stopped in
town at a contemporary art foundation, checked out the quaint seaside-town
aspect of the place, and argued about the odd proportions of the main church,
which was broad and squat, with a weird combination of Romanesque and later
characteristics.
Then we drove to Lecce, where our hotel was really quite
luxurious. Robes and slippers in the
rooms! Denise and I made sure to make
use of them. Because lunch had been big,
expensive, and had included wine (bad idea if you want to stay awake in the
afternoon) many of us decided to skip the arranged dinner and find something
small to eat on our own. This experience
would later be dubbed Cheesegate, because when we tried to confirm that the
cheese plates we were ordering were enough for four people, our waiter decided
to bring us four times as much cheese. Literally, we got a massive platter heaped
with 40 euros’ worth of locally-made artisanal cheese, which was about 30
euros’ worth more than we wanted—plus two plates of mozzarella and some really
delicious ricotta. It was all very tasty
cheese, but to paraphrase Samuel L. Jackson, there was too much motherfuckin’
cheese on my motherfuckin’ plate! We
were divided in opinion over whether the waiter was honestly confused (at the
time of ordering, there were a lot more in our group than eventually stayed
around to eat) or whether there was malice aforethought. I thought he seemed very nice. Anyway, we
did our best, but maybe only killed 60% of the cheese. Our real concern was the bill, since it
burned us to think we might have skipped the 25 euro prix-fixe dinner only to
spend more accidentally elsewhere!
There, at least, we were lucky—only 18 euro a person. We took the rest of the cheese to go, and
agreed to attend the other planned dinners, tails between our legs.
After touring some of the sights in Lecce the next morning, and admiring the strength of the southern sun striking all the white pietra leccese, we were off toward Matera, the city of caves. On our way, Heather mentioned that there was an ancient Greek temple in the area, so we detoured to take a look. It was a lovely, quiet spot, and the remains of the temple were impressive. Then we drove to a lookout that faced Matera proper, as the sun was setting. The country was rugged, mountainous, and rocky--the soft stone that would furnish the caves inhabited by the local residents for centuries.
If Matera looked wonderful from the outside, that was nothing relative to the fairy-land aspect it held once you were inside, looking from hill to hill covered with warrens of stone-cut structures, seemingly sprouting organically from the hillside. Our hotel was in fact a cave hotel, with each room in its own cave, ranging all the way up a very steep hill to Liz, Krys, and Anna's room, which had a terrace, down to the valley floor, where Denise and I shared a passable-but-nothing-special chamber. It was basically cool to say "hey, I slept in a cave!" but if I came back I would certainly go stay in a modern hotel overlooking the cave. World's tiniest shower, that room had...it was a big change from the luxury of the previous evening.
The next morning we had one of those cool moments that happen only by good fortune. While a few of us were checking out the town center, we realized that the huge underground cistern was about to open. This was 9:30, and we needed to meet our group at 9:45. The cistern is visit-able by a 25-minute guided tour...in theory. Denise asked the surly man who came to unlock the gate if we could just pay the three-euro fee and pop in for a few minutes--and he said yes! We descended into this ghostly, cavernous space, with walls that looked worn smooth by simple erosion but were in fact carved by manual labor. We had the place to ourselves for ten minutes. As we hurried back to the exit, the first tour group was entering, and the cacophony produced by all those voices was surprising. We really got a treat in being able to visit it in silence. The acoustics were tremendous--Denise sang for us briefly, and it was magical.
That morning we explored the cave churches (chiese rupestre) and cave dwellings of Matera, learning about its incredible history. After World War II, the living conditions of Matera was branded "the national shame of Italy", and the government eventually built a brand-new town, Martella, and forced its 18k residents to leave, condemning the entire city. Fast-forward a few decades, and Matera has become a tourist mecca. It was even announced as EU Capital of Culture for 2019 the day before we arrived!
That afternoon we went to a town called Canosa di Puglia, where we met Renato, "the man with the keys." Literally--this little satyr of a man had a massive ring of keys at his built, which opened seemingly every archaeological site in this town. It was one of the differences we saw in the south, terms of organizing access to cultural sites; since there's no money to keep these places open all the time, visiting tends to be by guides only, on appointment. The plus side is that the guides are local, well-informed, and extremely proud of their heritage. The two highlights were a 2nd-century BCE tomb chamber, underneath a modern apartment complex, with surviving frescoes above the temple-front entrance, and the medieval Baptistery, which was built over Roman-era ruins. The Canosian tribe sided with the Romans against Hannibal, and fought with them at Cannae; they managed to capture some Carthiginians despite the defeat, and ritually executed them back home as a sign of friendship to Rome. Diplomacy! The skeletons--far too tall to be ancient Italic people--are visible in the excavated holes inside the baptistery.
After a fairly exhausting day, our destination was the seaside city of Trani, where our hotel was vast in scale, if somewhat tired in furnishings. Our bathroom was the size of my AAR bedroom, so large it was kind of unsettling, because it was all empty space! No bathtub, and a regulation-size shower, and then emptiness. Still, the hot shower before dinner was much appreciated. Our final group meal was at a place called Locanda dei Quattro Ducati, and it was divine. It also was largely fish, but this time I went for it, and was not disappointed! One of the appetizers was riso da venere (black local rice) with a cream that turned out to be smoked salmon aioli. Now, typically if you told me "rice with fish sauce" I would run away, but it was subtle and perfectly flavored. We entertained ourselves at the table with a game that everyone has been playing: casting people with their opposite-gender Hollywood doppleganger. I was given Mark Ruffalo, which pleased me thoroughly!
On our last morning, Monday, we toured Trani's medieval sites, and in particular some of its synagogues, which survived because they were converted into Christian churches. At the Duomo, I managed to muster enough of my Italian (and the polite subjunctive phrase "se fosse possibile..." learned from Carla) to request that the rector allow Nathan and I onto the altar to photograph a medieval mosaic of Alexander the Great. Win! We climbed the belltower afterward, and enjoyed the spectacular view over the ocean. I spent a pleasant half-hour reading Il Gattopardo on the stone benches on the wall that lines the public park, which stretches for a mile or so down the coastal side of the city.
Our very last site visit was Castel del Monte, an odd, unfinished octagonal fortress crowning one of the tallest hills in the region, which may have belonged to Frederick II, a famous medieval ruler. The interior was nothing special, but outside, the view over the surrounding countryside was magnificent. I sat in the grass for a while, soaking up the fairly weak sun that day, and there was a brief period, maybe just 5 minutes, when there was...silence. No sounds of voices, no crunching gravel, no breeze, just near-total quiet and the incredible view. It was a Wordsworth-ian moment, broken shortly thereafter by the two teenagers who were desporting themselves on the hillside not far away.
It was a great experience. The strength of the light in the south, the great beauty of the countryside--so different from what I've seen in Lazio, in Tuscany, and in the Veneto...I look forward to going back. Carla and I might go to Matera, in fact, in honor of her birthday when both us get back in January. No caves, though. Absolutely no caves.
The next morning we had one of those cool moments that happen only by good fortune. While a few of us were checking out the town center, we realized that the huge underground cistern was about to open. This was 9:30, and we needed to meet our group at 9:45. The cistern is visit-able by a 25-minute guided tour...in theory. Denise asked the surly man who came to unlock the gate if we could just pay the three-euro fee and pop in for a few minutes--and he said yes! We descended into this ghostly, cavernous space, with walls that looked worn smooth by simple erosion but were in fact carved by manual labor. We had the place to ourselves for ten minutes. As we hurried back to the exit, the first tour group was entering, and the cacophony produced by all those voices was surprising. We really got a treat in being able to visit it in silence. The acoustics were tremendous--Denise sang for us briefly, and it was magical.
That morning we explored the cave churches (chiese rupestre) and cave dwellings of Matera, learning about its incredible history. After World War II, the living conditions of Matera was branded "the national shame of Italy", and the government eventually built a brand-new town, Martella, and forced its 18k residents to leave, condemning the entire city. Fast-forward a few decades, and Matera has become a tourist mecca. It was even announced as EU Capital of Culture for 2019 the day before we arrived!
That afternoon we went to a town called Canosa di Puglia, where we met Renato, "the man with the keys." Literally--this little satyr of a man had a massive ring of keys at his built, which opened seemingly every archaeological site in this town. It was one of the differences we saw in the south, terms of organizing access to cultural sites; since there's no money to keep these places open all the time, visiting tends to be by guides only, on appointment. The plus side is that the guides are local, well-informed, and extremely proud of their heritage. The two highlights were a 2nd-century BCE tomb chamber, underneath a modern apartment complex, with surviving frescoes above the temple-front entrance, and the medieval Baptistery, which was built over Roman-era ruins. The Canosian tribe sided with the Romans against Hannibal, and fought with them at Cannae; they managed to capture some Carthiginians despite the defeat, and ritually executed them back home as a sign of friendship to Rome. Diplomacy! The skeletons--far too tall to be ancient Italic people--are visible in the excavated holes inside the baptistery.
After a fairly exhausting day, our destination was the seaside city of Trani, where our hotel was vast in scale, if somewhat tired in furnishings. Our bathroom was the size of my AAR bedroom, so large it was kind of unsettling, because it was all empty space! No bathtub, and a regulation-size shower, and then emptiness. Still, the hot shower before dinner was much appreciated. Our final group meal was at a place called Locanda dei Quattro Ducati, and it was divine. It also was largely fish, but this time I went for it, and was not disappointed! One of the appetizers was riso da venere (black local rice) with a cream that turned out to be smoked salmon aioli. Now, typically if you told me "rice with fish sauce" I would run away, but it was subtle and perfectly flavored. We entertained ourselves at the table with a game that everyone has been playing: casting people with their opposite-gender Hollywood doppleganger. I was given Mark Ruffalo, which pleased me thoroughly!
On our last morning, Monday, we toured Trani's medieval sites, and in particular some of its synagogues, which survived because they were converted into Christian churches. At the Duomo, I managed to muster enough of my Italian (and the polite subjunctive phrase "se fosse possibile..." learned from Carla) to request that the rector allow Nathan and I onto the altar to photograph a medieval mosaic of Alexander the Great. Win! We climbed the belltower afterward, and enjoyed the spectacular view over the ocean. I spent a pleasant half-hour reading Il Gattopardo on the stone benches on the wall that lines the public park, which stretches for a mile or so down the coastal side of the city.
Our very last site visit was Castel del Monte, an odd, unfinished octagonal fortress crowning one of the tallest hills in the region, which may have belonged to Frederick II, a famous medieval ruler. The interior was nothing special, but outside, the view over the surrounding countryside was magnificent. I sat in the grass for a while, soaking up the fairly weak sun that day, and there was a brief period, maybe just 5 minutes, when there was...silence. No sounds of voices, no crunching gravel, no breeze, just near-total quiet and the incredible view. It was a Wordsworth-ian moment, broken shortly thereafter by the two teenagers who were desporting themselves on the hillside not far away.
It was a great experience. The strength of the light in the south, the great beauty of the countryside--so different from what I've seen in Lazio, in Tuscany, and in the Veneto...I look forward to going back. Carla and I might go to Matera, in fact, in honor of her birthday when both us get back in January. No caves, though. Absolutely no caves.