tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26209323715091479112024-03-24T16:32:33.625-07:00Edward Hutton's ItalyI owe a great debt to Edward Hutton (1875-1969) whose books on the regions and cities of Italy were an inspiration. I mean to reproduce here what I consider to be the Best of Edward Hutton. Dr. Fhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08469403843869655063noreply@blogger.comBlogger194125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2620932371509147911.post-47923124527799112212024-03-22T06:31:00.000-07:002024-03-22T06:31:35.828-07:00The Roman Colosseum<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><i>In his chapter on the Colosseum, Edward Hutton described how that huge open air theater, originally an arena for contests between professional gladiators, degenerated into savage brutality and cruelty that eventually led to the transformation of the Roman world.</i></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 24px;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKtA1mcxjNiGOecIVAGBokyN9Z28yiAz9mylQmSuBV2bPqSsCnQU0H4cJRqZiGYtOEosG95J4rQrrnDSInLi80NlGnqBifFmjRYyFToPbKaOrYxpDgH0BxxLmTxE1YEh1NOxaD2PjFpQ/s1600/Colosseum-Rome-Italy.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1096" data-original-width="1600" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKtA1mcxjNiGOecIVAGBokyN9Z28yiAz9mylQmSuBV2bPqSsCnQU0H4cJRqZiGYtOEosG95J4rQrrnDSInLi80NlGnqBifFmjRYyFToPbKaOrYxpDgH0BxxLmTxE1YEh1NOxaD2PjFpQ/w400-h275/Colosseum-Rome-Italy.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">Almost all the beauty which had in the time of our grandfathers made of the Colosseum the most mysterious and the most astounding ruin in Rome, contriving out of its mere size something monstrous, spellbound, has departed from it, perhaps for ever, since it has come within the radius of action, so unfortunately wide, of the improver and the restorer of ruins. While the destruction of those trees that grew along the broken arches, waving ‘dark in the blue midnight’, and with the passing of the flowers, the Flavian Amphitheatre has become almost absurd in it rueful nakedness; a sort of inadequate monstrosity, a mighty heap of patched and ordered debris on the lower slopes of the Esquiline Hill. Stripped and ashamed, with all its wounds exposed, to say nothing of the horrible patchwork of the archaeologist, it is now just a vast and empty shell, that indeed scarcely impresses us, mere size being, after all but a poor claim upon our notice.… (66)<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.25in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">It was this monstrous colossus that overthrew paganism and the empire and served as the stage on which Christianity was at last to meet them both in combat and defeat them.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.25in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">It might seem that no people save the Romans…have made of agony and death a spectacle to amuse the populace. They alone were ignorant of pity…. Beginning, perhaps, with a genuine indifference to suffering, a certain hardness that was part of their strength, little by little this insensibility to suffering…encroached on the soul, till cruelty, a kind of joy in speculating on the endurance of others, less indifferent certainly, put to the most dreadful of tests, came to be with them a kind of delight, which secretly at first, but altogether openly at last, involved all their pleasures, their public entertainments in its marvelous horror….<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.25in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.25in;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXsA2JRuLmkFe0Fo0NBy7K2P06CzEUts2oeb9GbvZui5oA5FDjdidw1uWuM1oaHyjOqy-8Bzk46CuiVtMwhau1WdRpVrK8Tcmk3ABaaepekelUo5cqb6zjIurB_6ua1yHrTejXFEsauA/s1600/rome-colosseum.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="534" data-original-width="800" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXsA2JRuLmkFe0Fo0NBy7K2P06CzEUts2oeb9GbvZui5oA5FDjdidw1uWuM1oaHyjOqy-8Bzk46CuiVtMwhau1WdRpVrK8Tcmk3ABaaepekelUo5cqb6zjIurB_6ua1yHrTejXFEsauA/w400-h268/rome-colosseum.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-size: 18pt;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"><br /></span></div>It was there in the awful din and horror, under the cruel eyes of those who had failed to understand, that our soul was born, that soul which was to make such a spectacle as that forever impossible….<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.25in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">All the fate of the world was decided in the arena of the Flavian Amphitheatre. It was Rome who stood there at the tribunal of humanity and heard the verdict—guilty. In passing through the Forum, or among the ruins of the Palatine Hill, and remembering the disastrous story of her days since then, we may well ask—for are we not of her company—is her punishment harder than she can bear?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.25in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">Yes; it was on the bloody floor of the Colosseum that Rome contrived her own slavery and our freedom. It was there that Christianity met the world and overthrew it, there the martyrs won for Christ His kingdom in the hearts of men—and certain poor folk, almost nameless, men, women, and children, weak too, weeping and afraid overthrew forever the despotism of Rome. (73-74).<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">###<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.25in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.25in;"><br /></div><p><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18pt;">Edward Hutton: </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18pt;">Rome</i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18pt;">, fourth edition, 1922, pp. 66-74</span> </p>Dr. Fhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08469403843869655063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2620932371509147911.post-71202621480265405512024-03-15T06:34:00.000-07:002024-03-15T06:34:21.110-07:00Roman Forum<p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><i> In his book on Rome Edward Hutton devoted a whole chapter to a tour of the remains in the Roman Forum. Despite his love of ancient Rome, its philosophy, laws, and poetry, he saw in the art of these monuments the cruelty at the core of pagan Rome.</i></span></p><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXp3fa-GNkkI7CdWcqecZr3E4xXYX8mKDvyLm9fWz-fbsac5yzaOMYH42dg4kCjMd6KxJ7N3BUIeVedr4BWFwd1mOD7DT388zg36Zb9sJnbd0cg1Ye06VJ5bvnEG2VXGUniDO6ivaKQg/s1600/unnamed.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" data-original-height="256" data-original-width="512" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXp3fa-GNkkI7CdWcqecZr3E4xXYX8mKDvyLm9fWz-fbsac5yzaOMYH42dg4kCjMd6KxJ7N3BUIeVedr4BWFwd1mOD7DT388zg36Zb9sJnbd0cg1Ye06VJ5bvnEG2VXGUniDO6ivaKQg/s400/unnamed.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Arch of Titus</span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">How different is this hard and realistic Roman art from the work of the Greeks in the frieze of the Parthenon! There, with a perfect feeling for animals, Pheidias has carved the bull led to sacrifice, the victim of the Gods, amid the chanting of the priests, the songs of the people; but the Roman artist seems to have understood nothing and to have seen after all only with his bodily eyes. It is before such work as this that we seem to realize almost for the first time the limitations of Rome, the immense gulf that—yes, we must admit it at last—separates us from her. Her artists lacked a certain delicacy and clairvoyance and were without spirituality or finesse. They seem, here at least, to have been mere copycats of Nature without insight or sensibility. We seem to understand at last, before such work as this, how even Aurelius* could sit through all the brutality of the amphitheatre, and drag, even he in his Triumph, along the Sacred Way that little German family, the father and mother in chains, their child crying in her arms, on the threshold of a home brought bodily over the mountains ‘to make a Roman holiday,’ for the enjoyment of the Roman people.Yes, that explains too, the failure of Rome, not in art only, but in life, in government. To the heart which would refuse to look on just that with indifference—that and the rest—the future belonged. Yet we may well ask ourselves, if only to avoid a kind of vulgar self-complacency, what latent cruelty we still entertain…which in certain circumstances might induce us to do the like… (41-2)<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLfWhi-QrTZMP-TiK05sZLTVpH35eYwKys1-se0WSDZ09I0G6KqRmoVIQfUbwgvPCHt54jQ16-Bkch5dELgBryWdmv3_f1Lqf7I63Dgl8nO_YQNU4i46MyQ42QGNXiwqHNH6rIi5iorQ/s1600/arch-of-titus-menorah-1594235403.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" data-original-height="879" data-original-width="1575" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLfWhi-QrTZMP-TiK05sZLTVpH35eYwKys1-se0WSDZ09I0G6KqRmoVIQfUbwgvPCHt54jQ16-Bkch5dELgBryWdmv3_f1Lqf7I63Dgl8nO_YQNU4i46MyQ42QGNXiwqHNH6rIi5iorQ/s400/arch-of-titus-menorah-1594235403.png" width="400" /></span></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">There is one splendor in the forum which might seem to sum up, as it were, the whole significance of the place. I mean the Triumphal Arches…. Of the two which are left to us the Arch of Titus is the earlier. Set up in his honour by the Senate, to commemorate the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70…Consisting of a single arch supported by composite pillars, it is decorated with fine reliefs. In the tympana are set winged Victories bearing palms and crowns, while beneath the inscription is carved a sacrificial procession as a frieze. Within, under the arch, are two marble reliefs in which we see Titus crowned by Victory proceeding along the Sacred Way to the Capitol in a chariot driven by Roma. Opposite is another relief of a Triumphal procession with the captives and the spoils; the table with the showbread, and the seven-branched candlestick from the temple at Jerusalem; while in the vault the divine Emperor is borne to heaven by the bird of Jove. Carved some twenty years before the balustrades of the Rostra, these reliefs have much of their character and as little feeling or sense of beauty as they. The work of those who were always the victors, they celebrate a strength and persistence which have suffered neither a love of beauty nor a love of truth to cheat them of reality. It is as though we saw an indomitable tyranny, already a little weary of itself marching once more, how uselessly, over the humble and meek. Rome was already incapable of any sort of expression save that of government. For her, life no longer had illusions or promises; one not only died at the word of command, one lived by it also. (44-45)<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span>###</span><b><i><span><o:p></o:p></span></i></b><br /><span><br /></span><span>Edward Hutton: <i>Rome</i>. 1922, fourth edition. First edition, 1907.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.25in;"><span><span style="font-family: verdana;">* <i>Marcus Aurelius, the philosopher Emperor.</i></span></span></div>Dr. Fhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08469403843869655063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2620932371509147911.post-8850316309970063882024-03-08T05:55:00.000-08:002024-03-08T05:55:56.545-08:00Roman Vision<p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><i> Edward Hutton began his book on Rome with a retrospective account of a personal vision that came to him as he looked over the city from the Janiculum. </i></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDYd9scviGgOHSLw-oGyVP7zbCO-UR-Np7HXYa8nzm15YFQzpF1AdZC7-Dw0CXP9T27WtDbZvouAOvomlg_3VescEepQ0cyJ7zYNRNcjVpxm-zHoz92v1XXpgfQiPgg4TonedmZUmIdg/s1600/85324641-view-of-rome-through-a-marble-balustrade-from-the-janiculum-hill-il-gianicolo-.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="1300" height="230" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDYd9scviGgOHSLw-oGyVP7zbCO-UR-Np7HXYa8nzm15YFQzpF1AdZC7-Dw0CXP9T27WtDbZvouAOvomlg_3VescEepQ0cyJ7zYNRNcjVpxm-zHoz92v1XXpgfQiPgg4TonedmZUmIdg/s400/85324641-view-of-rome-through-a-marble-balustrade-from-the-janiculum-hill-il-gianicolo-.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">It was on an April evening in my earliest manhood, as I stood on the vast bastion of the Janiculum in the sudden silence of the hour after the sunset—Rome was looking terrible as a crater under the conflagration of the sky—that I seemed to realise for the first time the true aspect of a place so augustly familiar, which, as Dante has perceived, nature herself has formed for universal dominion… and out of which has risen all Europe and our Faith, all that is really worth having in the world.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">It was my last evening in Rome. On the morrow I was to return to the North. All day I had wandered aimlessly about looking for my lost illusions, till, weary at last, I had come towards evening to sit beside the parapet of the Janiculum, turning all things over in my heart as I watched the sun set over the City. How will I remember it?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">It seems to me that I was but a child then, that I had believed in everything, and was altogether discouraged and dismayed, for Rome had been like a stranger to me. With an incredible loyalty I had dreamed of her in the North (shall I confess it?) as the city of Horatius, of the Gracchi, of Scipio Africanus, of Sulla and Marius, of Caesar, of that spiritual Caesar, too, who for so many ages has appointed there his dwelling, communing with the eternal in an eternal place. And I had found there a new city, spoiled by old things, full of all the meanness and ugliness of modern life, the rush and noise of electric trams, even in the oldest and narrowest ways, a place of change and destruction.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Take heart, I had continually told myself, even on the first morning beside the imprisoned Tiber bridged with iron, among the new slums about the Vatican, in the brickfield of the Forum: take heart, the Capitol remains. Therefore, not without thankfulness… I had made my way along the ruined Corso to the Piazza Venezia.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Well, I had rejoiced too soon. I was prepared for destruction…but for destruction heaped on destruction, for a rascal impudence that might put Phocas to shame, I confess it at once, I was not prepared…. For there, where long and long ago the Temple of Juno passed into the gentler dominion of the Madonna Mary, the modern barbarian had raised indeed a fitting monument to his king, who resembles great Caesar in this alone that in the heaven of the populace he has become divine. Was it a temple or a tomb, that ghastly erection of ghostly stone, that, standing on a ruined convent, seemed to bellow like Behemoth… It has remained, however, I told myself, for the kingdom of Italy to surpass both Caesar and Popes in vulgarity, rapacity, and insolence…<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbGb0My1FX4cXl8xkDT-wiJ6z8hgwXWUlnBGs9ESd8lx-GyRMnvwBi5qXuvf9edTUKJLaWwgO9jI9YbkCoefYDvR5oRP8EPkAqq7eUkAJSgjNnWPU4lvs4fkiaacaFRafEIfO1Eh9_VA/s1600/Rome-Piazza-Venezia.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" data-original-height="494" data-original-width="1030" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbGb0My1FX4cXl8xkDT-wiJ6z8hgwXWUlnBGs9ESd8lx-GyRMnvwBi5qXuvf9edTUKJLaWwgO9jI9YbkCoefYDvR5oRP8EPkAqq7eUkAJSgjNnWPU4lvs4fkiaacaFRafEIfO1Eh9_VA/s400/Rome-Piazza-Venezia.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">It was these things, I remember, that rose before me at the close of my last day in the City as I waited for the sunset by the parapet of the Janiculum. So that I said in my heart: Rome is not any more immortal; all that is gone for ever. It is finished. Let us pass by and be silent.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Nevertheless, it was in this moment of despair, of denial, that I began to understand.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">An incredible majesty had descended upon the City and the hills…. the City loomed out of the night like some mysterious and lovely symbol, a visible gesture of the infinite, decisive and affirmative, never to be recalled or modified.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The material world, that close, impassable prison, seemed just then to be dissolving before my eyes, and it was as though in the silence, I had heard again these words, so full of assurance and all gladness: Sed confidite, Ego vici mundum: be of good cheer, I have overcome the world. And all my heart was changed suddenly, and in a moment I was comforted.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">But that was long ago. Today as I look down on Rome in the long summer that is so quiet still within her walls—is it that I have grown wiser, or may be only older? —I find her immortality not alone in the continuity of Nature or in such a vision as that of which I have spoken, but in the City herself, in the life of the City I have come in some dim way to understand and to reconcile with my dreams…. I feel the eternity of Rome as I feel the brief sweetness of every passing moment there; she seems to me as eternal and persistent as life, as strangely various, as mysteriously secret.<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">###<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Edward Hutton: <i>Rome</i>. 1922, fourth edition, pp. 1-4. The first edition appeared in October 1907. </span></div>Dr. Fhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08469403843869655063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2620932371509147911.post-35425082684095532712024-03-01T06:36:00.000-08:002024-03-01T06:36:39.943-08:00Urbino<p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><i> Urbino was the last stop on Edward Hutton's tour of Romagna and the Marches. It was not the most beautiful city he had seen but it had a fabled past.</i></span></p><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgs6nbXcKT6Yad-mee_0gtUt1LBQ5ERFPb3J6095hJnvwEFlulbvWAl8YbbQfzOGoH18Jbi9PFWTi67kF9o7xTNMXO9DCEX3eZmoiaWoQhw_tQ9iDgaf1xREy279S5A2gzWdqAQcQLmxw/s1600/Urbino+.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" data-original-height="534" data-original-width="800" height="269" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgs6nbXcKT6Yad-mee_0gtUt1LBQ5ERFPb3J6095hJnvwEFlulbvWAl8YbbQfzOGoH18Jbi9PFWTi67kF9o7xTNMXO9DCEX3eZmoiaWoQhw_tQ9iDgaf1xREy279S5A2gzWdqAQcQLmxw/w400-h269/Urbino+.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;">Of Urbino, who can speak as he should or conjure up in words, for the pleasure of him who has not seen it, that dark and gaunt city crouched upon its double hill, never venturing to tower up into the sky, but stooping there gazing over the tangled valleys to S. Marino, to S. Leo, to Pesaro, to the great peaks of the Apennines and to the sea? Bleak and rain-sodden, battered by the wind, burnt by the sun, Urbino seems the last place in Italy to have nourished a court renowned for its grace and courtesy. … <o:p></o:p></span></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span>For, astonishing though it may seem, civilization, the ritual of life—life itself being, as some of those great candid minds of the Renaissance were not slow to observe, a kind of religious service-- was very punctually and strictly observed at Urbino in the sixteenth century. Here on the hills, in this rain-swept, sun-baked place, the Renaissance in all its liberty, beauty and splendor, was played out in its curious medley of contrasts, almost like a play. The most learned and refined of all the courts of Italy, the court of Urbino gathered to itself all the wit and genius of this imperishable Latin people, filled itself with the finest scholars and the noblest gentlemen of Italy, while its Duke and Duchess lived a life that reads almost like a fairy tale, till Cesare Borgia blasted the place like a lightning flash and nothing was ever really quite the same again….</span><span> (276-7)</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHTtcoRyYG542r3xsEwFlgAVX6jjsEk7VWL_0V27cE-ev5FFyjHKQl7yrBdL9QQnJKoqfpX1ksg9YWC81CAbfdVMOH_QJIEGhj87bO35Dfbv0IjCTne0LlDzzDRNmhoNGUI7Xsyzkbnw/s1600/Piero_della_Francesca_044.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1012" data-original-width="1438" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHTtcoRyYG542r3xsEwFlgAVX6jjsEk7VWL_0V27cE-ev5FFyjHKQl7yrBdL9QQnJKoqfpX1ksg9YWC81CAbfdVMOH_QJIEGhj87bO35Dfbv0IjCTne0LlDzzDRNmhoNGUI7Xsyzkbnw/s320/Piero_della_Francesca_044.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><i>The Duke and Duchess named by Hutton are Federigo da Montefeltro (1422-1482) and his wife, Battista Sforza both pictured in this famous painting by Piero della Francesca that now hangs in the Uffizi. Federigo was succeeded by his son, Guidobaldo (1472-1508) who though driven out by Cesare Borgia returned to continue the courtly tradition. * (See Note)</i></span><br /></span><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;">Suddenly, almost as suddenly as Cesare Borgia had leapt upon Urbino, Alexander VI died. In a moment Cesare’s magical empire departed from him, and he himself was a fugitive. Guidobaldo returned to Urbino, and… passed the rest of his life among his treasures in the retirement of his court. It was then that the Golden Age began for Italy which in its expression and production has never since been equaled. Every sort of scholar came to Urbino; great poets, painters, sculptors, architects, engineers, doctors, priests, quacks of every kind, fools and nobles, dancing-masters and beautiful women, musicians and preachers flocked to the court of one of the most humane princes Italy had ever seen. It was then that Castiglione wrote his Cortegiano and his life of Guidobaldo; it was then that Santi entertained Piero della Francesca, that Melozzo da Forli came to court, and Luca Signorelli painted his work in San Spirito. … (284)</span></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">But who could hope to sum up the riches of this stormy, wind-battered, rain-sodden, sun-baked acropolis? This, at least, should not be forgotten. I mean the church of S. Bernardino. This is a little convent of the Zoccolanti which stands at the end of a dusty road on a hill-top opposite Urbino, from which there is a notable view of the city, but not of the palace. S. Bernardino stands under the cypress-ringed Campo Santo of the Urbanati. It has itself always been a graveyard, and here, in the little cruciform church under its blind, round lantern, a truly Bramantesque dream of a church all in rosy brick, the Dukes Federigo and Guidobaldo lie….<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV_KxKwTNAQgt3bQCCLOZ_mwGmfaMsWrrqKG7k2NgKpBqCaS4zO1Bnyulv8IGUvey8vLU7-Af2V9QdxLDehPduhF8Bde_4W5ra3LqBFmRZThIHol_CRwu3W4rsMbXZ4Pxt7XyV_qen_g/s1600/urbino.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1152" data-original-width="1536" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV_KxKwTNAQgt3bQCCLOZ_mwGmfaMsWrrqKG7k2NgKpBqCaS4zO1Bnyulv8IGUvey8vLU7-Af2V9QdxLDehPduhF8Bde_4W5ra3LqBFmRZThIHol_CRwu3W4rsMbXZ4Pxt7XyV_qen_g/w400-h300/urbino.JPG" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Church of San Bernardino**</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><br /></span><span>It was there I took farewell of Urbino, before I set out down the long road for Pesaro, the railway, and home. All that way was pleasantly filled, as I came into the valleys, with great bullock wagons piled up with vast barrels or boxes with the family sitting on top, for it was the time of vintage. The happiness of all that!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span>At evening, my head full of songs, I came into Pesaro by the Rimini gate, thronged today with bullock-waggons loaded with grapes….and when a few days later I set out for home, it was in the new bubbling wine my health was pledged, and in the new pressed grapes I, too, drank to all my friends. (295)<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span><br /></span><span>###</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Edward Hutton: The Cities of Romagna and the Marches, NY, 1925.<span><o:p></o:p></span><br /><br />*Note: When he was still young, Federigo, who was destined to attain to so much splendor, was sent as a kind of hostage to Venice. It was while in that city that he came under the influence of Vittorino de' Ramboldoni da Feltre, the learned professor of Mantua. This great man was a Greek scholar of no mean attainment, and his ideal of education soon took possession of the greatest princes in Italy. He taught Greek, Latin, Grammar, Philosophy, Mathematics, Logic, music, and Dancing at the Casa Goija, the "House of Joy," where he had settled in 1425 at the invitation of Gianfrancesco II of Mantua.... such scholars as could not afford to pay him he taught for the "love of God." His pupils included the noblest names in Italy; all the children of the Gonzaga house were educated at Casa Goija, and no doubt met the Duke Federigo in the lecture rooms and the meadows. Later, Duke Federigo placed the great scholars portrait in his palace at Urbino with this inscription: "In honor of his saintly master Vittorino da Feltre, who by word and example instructed him in all human excellence, Federigo has set this here."<br /><br />**Image courtesy of David Orme.</span></div>Dr. Fhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08469403843869655063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2620932371509147911.post-31345231896913023212024-02-23T07:06:00.000-08:002024-02-23T07:06:36.944-08:00Cagli and the Furlo Pass<p> </p><p><br /></p><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: large;"><i>Toward the end of his tour of Romagna and the Marches Edward Hutton stopped in little Cagli where he saw something perhaps more beautiful than all the lovely landscapes and paintings he had seen on his journey.</i> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">Now Cagli is the most delightful of all these little towns between Fabriano and Urbino, a shady, cool, quiet little place full of interesting buildings and beautiful pictures. ...</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjii0l72lvIRu1SSwbkglWeZJoyvhc_pU1pEfWCRQs1ZL8uIabOV-AaWC-m_EVy6Z5WTgMoks1sxDxiSKim2HS94RBsfeGateiWqbItNxEkZnEXMOrwJPk84ba-FogoeDgrcDTZbRryHQ/s1600/cagli.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="533" data-original-width="800" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjii0l72lvIRu1SSwbkglWeZJoyvhc_pU1pEfWCRQs1ZL8uIabOV-AaWC-m_EVy6Z5WTgMoks1sxDxiSKim2HS94RBsfeGateiWqbItNxEkZnEXMOrwJPk84ba-FogoeDgrcDTZbRryHQ/w400-h268/cagli.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-size: 18pt;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"><br /></span></div>I shall not easily forget my arrival in Cagli. I had waited for the evening to set out on account of the heat, so that when I arrived at Cagli which is some distance from the station, it was quite dark. There was little or nothing near the house in the dark street where the posta put me down to indicate that here was an inn, and it was with some misgiving that I made my way up a dark staircase to the first floor. There, however, all my fears forsook me, for I was greeted by one of the most beautiful women it has ever been my good fortune to meet, and, what is rarer than physical beauty in Italy, she had one of the softest and most delicious voices I have ever heard anywhere. It was a great pleasure all the time I was in Cagli to be greeted every morning by this beautiful creature, and ‘twixt sleeping and waking, while the sun came in little daggers through the closed shutters, to hear her say “acqua, Signore.” I don’t think I had ever realized before what a language of liquid music Italian is, nor how true the old saying that “the devil tempted Eve in Italian.” This beautiful lady really managed the whole business of the inn, and with so glorious a dignity and so consummate a tact that even the Italian commercial travelers, about as horned a beast as flourished in the peninsula, forgot his vulgarity when she was by, mended his flamboyant manners, and tried to look like a man. Beauty herself never had a more wonderful power over the Beast; and indeed, the power of this young woman was an effect of sheer beauty in which, yes, even in hers, which was provocative enough, there was something of holiness…. (268-9)<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 24px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLlNPE7UEwnegBTNspDUVpxrGqFdLmf7euUMNvLs9LrDUs_wfdSBf4iDwq2Y2ytb5r24xpoawl2qGdYb_0QG-JwsvfBtqzLrWbo-fBxAEa352lGg7iudghrE7aD8SSAJHlahb2Kwn6gzZJOmGaL7ykFI_vJ8mzD5wyD3Iz8x6L9hwY-MbwDaaZ-U9t/s768/cd0146b90f464e3784698ef7327c6a77.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="512" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLlNPE7UEwnegBTNspDUVpxrGqFdLmf7euUMNvLs9LrDUs_wfdSBf4iDwq2Y2ytb5r24xpoawl2qGdYb_0QG-JwsvfBtqzLrWbo-fBxAEa352lGg7iudghrE7aD8SSAJHlahb2Kwn6gzZJOmGaL7ykFI_vJ8mzD5wyD3Iz8x6L9hwY-MbwDaaZ-U9t/s320/cd0146b90f464e3784698ef7327c6a77.jpeg" width="213" /></a></div><i><br /></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 24px;"><i>After a pleasant stay, Hutton left Cagli and walked to Urbino, the last stop on his tour. He had to go through the spectacular Furlo Pass.</i></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH5RsuTzNoMsKRzlE_layaVi5H92MHbFiklBlhhg-WEEqiaX7aN0HwLLwbQq9DvgLEoG_1pwb2B55AE1cr7axsL7lM-rSIr_WJyz00PkQpF2GmTQXS_lzLPV3Inb_7ACenQWCScwEySw/s1600/Furlo+pass.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH5RsuTzNoMsKRzlE_layaVi5H92MHbFiklBlhhg-WEEqiaX7aN0HwLLwbQq9DvgLEoG_1pwb2B55AE1cr7axsL7lM-rSIr_WJyz00PkQpF2GmTQXS_lzLPV3Inb_7ACenQWCScwEySw/w400-h300/Furlo+pass.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">It was still very hot, and therefore, very early one summer morning when I set out from Cagli. Before me stretched the great white road, Via Flaminia, and above me presently rose the Furlo, its white brows just kissed by the sun in the dawn I could not see. It was not long before I was in the midst of a fantastic fairyland and of strange and horrid cliffs, threatening crags, changing lights, and tremendous gateways. I cannot hope to describe the enormous grandeur of those gates, eyries for eagles, as indeed they are. Presently I came to the remarkable tunnel or gallery which Rome hewed through the living rock to make a way for her armies, and which she knew as Petra Pertusa…. The work was achieved under Vespasian according to the inscription cut into the rock and was constructed in A.D. 75. …<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">Nothing in Italy is more amazing that this great Roman thing, which seems almost awful in its achievement, and curiously enough ends as suddenly and dramatically as it begins. One goes down towards Fossombrone through a smiling and delicious country of oak woods out of all that loneliness and silence, through which—yes, even through the impassable rock—Rome near two thousand years ago forged a way. (274-5)</span><br /><span style="font-size: 18pt;"><i><br /></i></span><span style="font-size: 18pt;"><i>### <o:p></o:p></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheep05ObRBg9CihOxcoIDsFSoMt1KyxS1B6HFW-Db3GVRWCEEs7AzwtGcGp7yB0WQYxXyvdIHwdrYsQ9nr1lD6oRkY0skT2hm9SbCsVfhItSiIpoRNZHE69Qd5f2o9r7QBSiYICEA__Q/s1600/E87.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1587" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheep05ObRBg9CihOxcoIDsFSoMt1KyxS1B6HFW-Db3GVRWCEEs7AzwtGcGp7yB0WQYxXyvdIHwdrYsQ9nr1lD6oRkY0skT2hm9SbCsVfhItSiIpoRNZHE69Qd5f2o9r7QBSiYICEA__Q/s320/E87.jpg" width="243" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption">Image by David Orme</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>Edward Hutton: The Cities of Romagna and the Marches, NY, 1925.</div>Dr. Fhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08469403843869655063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2620932371509147911.post-28733187207910917792024-02-16T07:24:00.000-08:002024-02-16T07:24:33.245-08:00Camerino and Matelica<p><i> </i><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18pt;"><i>This post is longer than usual because it offers Hutton's contrasting view of two towns: lofty Camerino, a shell despite its spectacular views, and lowly Matelica which still retained its soul.</i> </span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiG30v_ZghjaZQpYGYJibp53-2xP7LWxJo9n2FxmowIgk2VKoQ97q-pRl81UQByObNDQyQpGNH-OhBQWNVEAuJnAKwvvdpJhlhJfi6yYpm0fUwUMF6ATeV5LMpSJSLCPUxf8KS63NZHg/s1600/camerino-italy-georgia-901a5871aa4c79c8e5d1187fd4a5bcb3.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="374" data-original-width="1280" height="117" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiG30v_ZghjaZQpYGYJibp53-2xP7LWxJo9n2FxmowIgk2VKoQ97q-pRl81UQByObNDQyQpGNH-OhBQWNVEAuJnAKwvvdpJhlhJfi6yYpm0fUwUMF6ATeV5LMpSJSLCPUxf8KS63NZHg/s400/camerino-italy-georgia-901a5871aa4c79c8e5d1187fd4a5bcb3.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption">Camerino</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">But Camerino is worth all the labours it costs to reach her. Of all the March cities she is the most characteristic, with the most to offer us, at any rate in the way of natural beauty. For even in a country which can boast of such a place as Fermo or Macerata she is easily queen—a noble, dark, medieval city set on the top of a mighty hill nearly two thousand feet over the sea, commanding a view of unsurpassed splendor and beauty, towering over her world. (244) …<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">No one who has ever looked out from the road beyond Porta Giulia at evening will ever forget what he has seen. It is as though all those dreams of landscape, which were all that Perugino really cared about, had suddenly been translated into a reality more beautiful and more wonderful than anything of which he had been able to conceive… (245)<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">Wandering about Camerino recalling these things to mind, one is touched by the melancholy of the city from which everything except the beauty of the world in which it stands seems to have fallen away. How empty are all these churches of which there are so many; all the pictures have gone, and the fragments only remain and these not in places for which they were painted, but gathered into another empty and desecrated church, now a museum…. (250)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">The curious poverty of Camerino, that noble city, in works of art, cannot but strike every traveler; happily, not far away at the foot of that prodigious hill upon which Camerino stands, there is a little city in the valley of the Esina which is as rich in paintings as Camerino is poor; its name is Matelica…. (254)<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">I came as a stranger into Matelica, I took lunch at the inn, the Aquila d’Oro, a not very brilliant hostelry, and after lunch, in the very hour of the siesta, I demanded of all and sundry the way to the Museo expecting to see everything there was to see in an hour or two. The Museo was closed and I was directed by the barber, who had courteously accompanied me, to apply to Father Bigiaretti, the director. I did as I was bid. I found Father Bigiaretti, like any other decent and sane person at that hour of a summer day, taking his siesta. But do you think he sent me away? Not at all. Cheerfully and without complaint he brought his siesta to an end and issued out of his cool house into the appalling heat because a stranger wanted to see his beautiful city. Without a thought he devoted the whole of his leisure to showing me not only the Museo, but everything he thought I would care for in Matelica, and this not for the sake of my book, of which he was quite unaware, but because I was a stranger. (255)<o:p></o:p></span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig9nGNE20_q6pDvXdsmhqDzH2b6L15DZxiK7h7yFU6im6T_inR5lm7V3s-HV5oL048xaXi0FGXKMqZeg4aHsra0ctTHsas9EWO5zfmIXO04ffALXk4qK09RaB-LYWr71m-LRsJzLF1EQ/s1600/enrico_mattei.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="435" data-original-width="640" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig9nGNE20_q6pDvXdsmhqDzH2b6L15DZxiK7h7yFU6im6T_inR5lm7V3s-HV5oL048xaXi0FGXKMqZeg4aHsra0ctTHsas9EWO5zfmIXO04ffALXk4qK09RaB-LYWr71m-LRsJzLF1EQ/w400-h275/enrico_mattei.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption">Matelica Piazza</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">And now as to Matelica. I have said that no one who travels through the Marches should miss it… It is a little gay town, as gay as Camerino is melancholy, set about a fine open Piazza, where is a double loggia, a fountain of 1590, the great palazzo del Municipio and the church of S. Soffragio. This charming Piazza is the centre of Matelica; all of the churches, which are the great feature of Matelica, are to be sought from it, the Museo and the Duomo being but a few steps away. …. (256)<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">The soul of a city, the genius loci, least of all of such a quiet and retiring place as Matelica, cannot be taken by surprise… how often it escapes the assiduous and him who possesses no patience, but would see all in a moment, and pry into secrets that belong to the ages… His mind is a whirlwind and he has lost the command of his own heart. What are the flowers by the wayside to him, and what are the works of Lorenzo da Sanseverino, Crivelli, Palmezzano and the rest of the pictures which hide shyly in these little churches, but flowers? Just because these beautiful things have not been collected into a museum for those who come by railway, they are living still by their wayside, filling the little churches with their beauty and their pageants, shining in the love of the lowly and the meek, who kneel shyly and silently before them, offering up their petitions and watching with a new wonder every morning the priest make Christ out of bread and wine—things they know, of which we are ignorant, things they find precious, for they are poor, and more precious still because they are the instruments of a Sacrament and a Sacrifice which has given a new meaning to life, which has involved even the hills in its mystery and lifted up forever the souls of men... let us tread softly by these peasants as they kneel with free hearts and bowed heads before Him who has made all that was so worthless most precious, in Whose honour and for Whose glory every picture in Matelica was painted…<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">Here, in Matelica, how the children linger in the churches, so that, though they be but peasants, they are acquainted with all that the highest culture can give as a reward alter long years—sweetness and light; so that from their earliest years they are used to the ways of a great court, the greatest court in the world, the sanctuary of the King of kings, with its beautiful ceremonies, precious robes and elaborate ritual. ... But because of this, which even in the humblest village, and assuredly in Matelica, the smallest and the poorest children may follow and love, there is about them a graciousness which one misses altogether in the north, that four hundred years ago was ours also, and is visible, for instance, in every gesture of Chaucer’s pilgrims, but that we have missed and shall perhaps never have again. (260-262)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">###</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;">Edward Hutton: The Cities of Romagna and the Marches, NY, 1925.</div>Dr. Fhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08469403843869655063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2620932371509147911.post-18810604134113485082024-02-10T06:15:00.000-08:002024-02-10T06:15:34.969-08:00Sanseverino<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"><i>In Sanseverino Edward Hutton found a beautiful work of art but more than anything else it was the city and its people, living things that a guide book could never express, that impressed him. </i></span><br /><span style="font-size: 18pt;"><br /></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-mtjYQcajzQKzepsmzjKqlbXg5B8qhZIKavF0XmY2TDdaf6sctGbkWxnFR88-Pj0kil-xSeMTmdrOIX9ZIg40G_eF0G7gMvry9YKUHIO7NNW2wxHRtvIAK9S3AckAgJv2KiWvOV791w/s1600/San_Severino_Marche_3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="269" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-mtjYQcajzQKzepsmzjKqlbXg5B8qhZIKavF0XmY2TDdaf6sctGbkWxnFR88-Pj0kil-xSeMTmdrOIX9ZIg40G_eF0G7gMvry9YKUHIO7NNW2wxHRtvIAK9S3AckAgJv2KiWvOV791w/w400-h269/San_Severino_Marche_3.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-size: 18pt;"><i><br /></i></span><span style="font-size: 18pt;">Sanseverino, in the narrow valley of the Potenza, under the steep hill upon which its Castello still stands, wins you at once by its beauty, its smiling aspect, its air of the Middle Age, of whose works it is full, and of which it might well stand as an example in its picturesque and daring loveliness. The days one spends there wandering from the beautiful long Piazza so happily arcaded on the south, from church to church up to the old Castello, entered by that prodigious gateway, Porta S. Francesco, on the hill, are all days of delight and happiness. There can be no one who has ever wandered through these long valleys, or climbed these great hills, but has rejoiced to enter Sanseverino and regretted to depart, though it be for a city so marvelous as Camerino, or so hospitable and delicious as Matelica. For Sanseverino, in some wonderful way known only to itself, renews one’s youth and one’s first careless delight in Italy—in these beautiful hill cities always so surprising to an Englishman, who is wont to build his towns and villages anywhere rather than upon a hill; but, then, how much that is left to us in England is as old as Sanseverino? (235)<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"><b><i>Madonna Pacis</i></b><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg40nvWI718NFWXm5O2F1nYs31st-mLLK8o8XUIBELmpWIDVvV5NtU7yKKA_GlYC5r9xDFZimgobjvNMkKT9lbC-r9llPMrgRy4FCpTUJ_krbfdbbh6r9S1iUiVG1hXNJGABqf6ES9_EQ/s1600/Sanseverino+Pintericchio.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="883" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg40nvWI718NFWXm5O2F1nYs31st-mLLK8o8XUIBELmpWIDVvV5NtU7yKKA_GlYC5r9xDFZimgobjvNMkKT9lbC-r9llPMrgRy4FCpTUJ_krbfdbbh6r9S1iUiVG1hXNJGABqf6ES9_EQ/w220-h400/Sanseverino+Pintericchio.png" width="220" /></a></div><span style="font-size: 18pt;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: 18pt;">This is the beautiful work of Pintoricchio, and it probably dates from about 1496. It represents in a beautiful landscape—a valley with far-away mountains and curious rocks beneath woods—Madonna seated with her little Son standing on a rich cushion on her knee, as He blesses the donor, a priest…who kneels humbly, his hands pointed in prayer. In Our Lord’s left hand is a crystal ball surmounted by a little cross; and on either side of Madonna is an angel. Above, in the lunette, appears God the Father, surrounded by the cherubim. This very noble work is called the Madonna of Peace, Madonna Pacis, and its effect upon one is just that; it is as though all the softness of Umbria had suddenly crept, on some summer afternoon, into this harder and more violent country of narrow, broken valleys, and precipitous mountains, and had left here for ever this much of its own beatitude…. (239)<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">When the traveler has seen these things he has seen perhaps the finer sights of Sanseverino, but no one should forget that the city remains—remains to be loved and for our delight. Anyone can follow a guide book, if he can find one, from church to church and picture to picture, but let not such an one deceive himself; when he has seen everything that is there set down there must always remain the city itself with its by-ways, shrines and, above all, its people and the life and happiness of the place. These, in such a book as this, I have not the space nor perhaps the skill to speak of, as they should be spoken of. They remain, when all is said, not merely what is best worth seeing in Sanseverino, but are rightly understood Sanseverino itself. For all that we look for and search out with so much industry is dead, after all, but these are living, and by our pleasure in them, ourselves may judge ourselves. (242)<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">###<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;">Edward Hutton: The Cities of Romagna and the Marches, NY, 1925.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><i>Note: Hutton's books usually come with excellent maps that help to follow his travels. I can't reproduce them here, but below find a map of the Marches that may be useful. You will find Sanseverino near to Tolentino. </i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP0RdICYHnYGjXtHHssMbgAZL1ITnoEQ3o7Goa7fE-PY8gvYVNgrhxR1KdvZgLQtFOpCL-63lY4XA1JrfWUvt-gHjWFIEhPQLQjYJEq2q4_ZZZQTLE5H3aysGbynG2cbpmAsjx-q3N-HKBKOYGhNC3CaS3zsi7bmqaJlTuXp767ATl_u2M2iqaruUj/s512/unnamed.gif" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="463" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP0RdICYHnYGjXtHHssMbgAZL1ITnoEQ3o7Goa7fE-PY8gvYVNgrhxR1KdvZgLQtFOpCL-63lY4XA1JrfWUvt-gHjWFIEhPQLQjYJEq2q4_ZZZQTLE5H3aysGbynG2cbpmAsjx-q3N-HKBKOYGhNC3CaS3zsi7bmqaJlTuXp767ATl_u2M2iqaruUj/s16000/unnamed.gif" /></a></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><br /></div>Dr. Fhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08469403843869655063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2620932371509147911.post-64455753964085919082024-02-02T07:14:00.000-08:002024-02-02T07:14:49.705-08:00Tolentino and St. Nicholas<p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><i>Before the unification of Italy, Romagna and the Marches had been part of the Papal States for about a thousand years. Hutton viewed unification as a conquest of the South by the northern Kingdom of Piedmont, a conquest in which he believed more was lost than gained by cities like Tolentino.</i></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2WRVxakLlCKwuwQZ9lMZ4VwCMFN60nm8U6ypeCJz-H0dL264GerTVn1kJG759GiT7hD2EPR_BGXU980RmaQSV13T42mLb5NR0UrBzr01AIqFYe3ymuLS6OY6B0I-o-rLl4b0Q21e0jw/s1600/Tolentino_Basilica_di_San_Nicola_01.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2WRVxakLlCKwuwQZ9lMZ4VwCMFN60nm8U6ypeCJz-H0dL264GerTVn1kJG759GiT7hD2EPR_BGXU980RmaQSV13T42mLb5NR0UrBzr01AIqFYe3ymuLS6OY6B0I-o-rLl4b0Q21e0jw/w400-h300/Tolentino_Basilica_di_San_Nicola_01.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption">St. Nicholas Basilica, Tolentino<br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The truth would seem to be that the cities under the Papal dominion enjoyed a far greater measure of real freedom than those subject to a mere Signore, and that the difference between being actually independent and being subject to the Pope was a negligible one. Says an historian of Tolentino: “The Accoramboni were never lords in Tolentino. It is false to assert it. We were always free under the Church. The people of Tolentino would never endure tyranny. The men of Camerino—yes; but we were made of different stuff.” And this feeling, which we may be sure was based on substantial fact, was really universal throughout the Romagna and the Marches. When the Piedmontese came in, in 1860, “the people of Ravenna,” we read, “were forced to the polling booth at the point of the bayonet.” And this new liberty was recommended to those who enjoyed the reality for ages! (229)<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><i>[The most famous citizen of Tolentino was St. Nicholas (1245-1305), an Augustinian monk]</i> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Tolentino, it may be thought, as the birthplace of a great saint, may have been more Papal than her neighbors, but in fact this is not so. The great figure of S. Nicholas is not in any sense of the word political; its appeal is altogether human and universal…. <o:p></o:p></span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeC5rL2fqQZgC1sXj-wNTcMpeKghTDCCNaAlvG2TjO5IkRcUW8so8LSA5NSdN5Jg8P0wB00Tb5LVVPlsFVXZuRFcl2Et-VnvQihqO3G5a2TE_TpuM0hq20YqYK5Exdw6JZ877urCiXHg/s1600/250px-Nicholasoftolentino.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" data-original-height="336" data-original-width="250" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeC5rL2fqQZgC1sXj-wNTcMpeKghTDCCNaAlvG2TjO5IkRcUW8so8LSA5NSdN5Jg8P0wB00Tb5LVVPlsFVXZuRFcl2Et-VnvQihqO3G5a2TE_TpuM0hq20YqYK5Exdw6JZ877urCiXHg/s320/250px-Nicholasoftolentino.jpg" width="238" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Perugino: S. Nicholas<br /><br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">It might seem that in S. Nicholas of Tolentino we have an example of that rare sweetness of character which is perhaps in greater or lesser degree the portion of all the saints, but which in him was so overwhelming that men and women followed him, flocked to his Masses, or sought him in the confessional for no other reason. As a preacher, no doubt, he was amazingly successful, but rather by reason of some inward sweetness and charm than of the victorious eloquence of his mere words. For thirty years he lived in Tolentino in the Augustinian convent there, a star in the March, something which men could not explain or dismiss from their minds, women knelt to kiss his robe, and even those in the flower of their age gladly heard his voice, as though it had been some sweet far-away music. By the very beauty of his nature he drew thousands from the half-brutal worldliness in which they lived, and seems indeed to have brought to them something of the strange incomprehensible beauty of his own vision. (229-230)<o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><i>[On the way to Tolentino Hutton passed through tiny Monte San Giusto and mentioned a painting by Lorenzo Lotto.]</i></span><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /><br /></span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Beyond Pausula, by a rough and hilly road across the Cremone valley, we come to the little walled town of Monte San Giusto, and there in the church of S. Maria is a Crucifixion by Lotto, painted in 1531. (227)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif"><i>I wonder if he actually saw this magnificent painting by the Venetian master. The small church of S. Maria in Telusiano is hard to find and the painting would have been difficult to see before the invention of coin-operated lighting. A few years ago my wife and I visited Monte San Giusto to see the painting. Here is a <a href="https://giorgionetempesta.blogspot.com/2019/01/lorenzo-lotto-crucifixion.html">link</a> to my account.</i></span><br /><br /></span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_8ZFQUwlZ9VktE4jE76sxqpjavWTDuaqeMgcBxD8PqoJrG0VdC_NcBs6SwSmgZQLFE5oyonWOTZeaBEL3eYe7VYqfIqGmTYKhdxSqYhwpu16jvhPSDr5NSD-SfkTvm4374iyeEQHyfw/s1600/Lotto%252Ccroci_detail.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" data-original-height="599" data-original-width="506" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_8ZFQUwlZ9VktE4jE76sxqpjavWTDuaqeMgcBxD8PqoJrG0VdC_NcBs6SwSmgZQLFE5oyonWOTZeaBEL3eYe7VYqfIqGmTYKhdxSqYhwpu16jvhPSDr5NSD-SfkTvm4374iyeEQHyfw/w339-h400/Lotto%252Ccroci_detail.jpg" width="339" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Lorenzo Lotto: Crucifixion detail</span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">###<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Edward Hutton: The Cities of Romagna and the Marches, NY, 1925.</span></div></div>Dr. Fhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08469403843869655063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2620932371509147911.post-50466534356192837382024-01-26T06:40:00.000-08:002024-01-26T06:40:26.022-08:00Amandola<p> </p><p><br /></p><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><i>Edward Hutton's descriptions of Italian inns and the hospitality he found there are some of his most charming passages. As he noted, in Italy it would be wrong to judge by appearances, even in the most humble town or inn.</i></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWHbqIBEGcMd29JBRXCkgY_ljY56Juu1Tf1-pUD-C-CuYnpLX_Y4LaDtUPEniKiXVsS-bbFbbRQidPEh2tVwuYK4KJv7v1BDX6S6wQOIrWAS8eANv81sLHu1FQFqOIqvWtUwp0PNCXoQ/s1600/Amandola+Piazza.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" data-original-height="404" data-original-width="720" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWHbqIBEGcMd29JBRXCkgY_ljY56Juu1Tf1-pUD-C-CuYnpLX_Y4LaDtUPEniKiXVsS-bbFbbRQidPEh2tVwuYK4KJv7v1BDX6S6wQOIrWAS8eANv81sLHu1FQFqOIqvWtUwp0PNCXoQ/w400-h225/Amandola+Piazza.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">It was already night when, after a brief halt at Comunaza , a wretched but beautifully situated village of the lower hills, the dilegenza came up to the gate of Amandola and stopped in a bleak Piazza at the foot of the little hill town, of which I could discern nothing but a gaunt and shadowy tower. There was no sign of an inn, but presently I was led by the hand over the cobbles, for it was very dark, to a little door that opened on a vast kitchen reeking with a most savoury smell of cooking. The place was full of light and warmth, and crowded with all kinds of people, peasants and a priest or two, but especially I noticed an amazingly ugly old woman, who presently came up to me and demanded my business. Then when she knew I desired a bed she took me by the hand and led me up a foul and broken stairway to the first floor of her home, where, to my astonishment, I saw that all was fair and clean, as was the room and bed she offered me. And here let me say at once that my days in Amandola were all days of delight and happiness. It is never well in Italy to judge by appearances, and in Amandola, as I soon found, least of all. Nowhere have I received greater kindness; nowhere have I found so nice a courtesy. Nothing I required was denied me; everything was done for my comfort and pleasure. I slept soft and I lived well, I found the best company in the world, among the shepherds and peasants and priests of the mountains. They brought me fruit out of their little store, the children danced and sang songs for me, the shepherds blew the mountain airs on their pipes and told me tales of the snow, of witches and the evil eye, and of the adventures of Our Lady fleeing with our little Lord from Herod and the Pharisees, which befell, it seems, but yesterday, as is indeed most true. And so I who had feared to stay a single night in Amandola, remained for my own delight a whole seven days, not one of which I reckoned ill-spent or unrepaid, though Amandola itself is little more than a village. (214-215) …<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw6yGNVke1XB0v4T9W_U2FCaE0cIQYUieIW6_lrCKDOMDc-r4ClyNfzYX6aSBRxmQQZBQJFa2t0-GBqotdRYWZWG_Q-DNP11nPgV2Xtjwj2xpGZUKjDAxQNmtsnUPhwOx_M2jMMMlD2Q/s1600/Amandola+mts.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" data-original-height="545" data-original-width="766" height="228" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw6yGNVke1XB0v4T9W_U2FCaE0cIQYUieIW6_lrCKDOMDc-r4ClyNfzYX6aSBRxmQQZBQJFa2t0-GBqotdRYWZWG_Q-DNP11nPgV2Xtjwj2xpGZUKjDAxQNmtsnUPhwOx_M2jMMMlD2Q/w320-h228/Amandola+mts.png" width="320" /></span></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Figure to yourself a little place of rosy brick piled up on a great precipitous hillside, on the crest or saddle of which it is spread out eastward, threaded by rude and stony streets between gaunt houses. A wretched place enough, but filled with a people so hospitable and charming that when I think of the Marches Amandola appears in my mind as the heart and rose of a country which for friendliness and charm is second to none in Italy.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">###</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Edward Hutton: <i>The Cities of Romagna and the Marches</i>, NY, 1925.</span></div>Dr. Fhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08469403843869655063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2620932371509147911.post-32639141850352009372024-01-19T06:32:00.000-08:002024-01-19T06:32:39.259-08:00Fermo and Monte Giorgio<p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><i> Edward Hutton loved the hill towns of the Marches. He was especially impressed with Fermo: "The little walled city with its curious acropolis so wonderfully lifted up above its neighbors is the queen of all this country." In nearby Monte Giorgio he found a special treasure. </i></span></p><div><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDVUdO3W4w_J8sN0OmkWXHHt64AVqoY5uCFNxizmB0_ssi35La_-0VvBoPmr8EcUTO622pbtdhpCJyGto9V_ii3PSVNG8Q-rAQfO3BHSWYeLxTgtEc0dx7Ku5VikNO2tI-YeqiPL3Z5w/s1600/1-Panoramica-aerea-Fermo---ritoccata-copia.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="900" height="177" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDVUdO3W4w_J8sN0OmkWXHHt64AVqoY5uCFNxizmB0_ssi35La_-0VvBoPmr8EcUTO622pbtdhpCJyGto9V_ii3PSVNG8Q-rAQfO3BHSWYeLxTgtEc0dx7Ku5VikNO2tI-YeqiPL3Z5w/s400/1-Panoramica-aerea-Fermo---ritoccata-copia.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption">Fermo</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">But, after all, Fermo is to be loved not for the works of art or architecture or painting which it has to show, bur for itself, for its own beauty and nobility, its wonderful command of the glorious world in which it stands up like a great tower or bastion looking so proudly across the mountains and the sea. No one, certainly, who has ever spent a few days within its walls can leave it without a real regret. For to live within its gates is to be made a partaker of the sky, to breathe an air so large and noble that even the greatest work of art, did it possess it, would be at last unregarded while we turned to Nature itself, here for once wholly satisfying and able, without leaving us a single resentment, to absorb us into herself, to overwhelm us with her largeness, her majesty, her sweetness. Those lines of hills that lead our eyes up to the great mountains, those mysterious sweet valleys, those silver gardens of olives against the darkness of the cypresses yonder, the spaciousness of the sky where God dwells, the largeness of the earth He has surely especially blessed; where in the world shall we possess them with such completeness as here, or where shall we be made at one with them so profoundly and without an afterthought? (195-6)…<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBoWKyZTM3XiqeF_eN3o3K7Yf8UV5W7OgBmg1Vgd-dp5Cb-E4yqOIeg3IkOgW2HjxsauF_46HYkNL6RgzO-nLvS9ExRcyhChFCy-JSJMpPsGIkgDovT8qS7dNoMsa6jCuq2din2EiXog/s1600/149980279.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="1024" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBoWKyZTM3XiqeF_eN3o3K7Yf8UV5W7OgBmg1Vgd-dp5Cb-E4yqOIeg3IkOgW2HjxsauF_46HYkNL6RgzO-nLvS9ExRcyhChFCy-JSJMpPsGIkgDovT8qS7dNoMsa6jCuq2din2EiXog/w400-h225/149980279.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: small;">Monte Giorgio</span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">I know not rightly how to speak of this place which I love so much, nor how to persuade him who is secure in Fermo and set down at an inn more or less furnished with modern comforts, to visit a place so humble, so poor and so holy. For holy it is. Figure to yourself a little white village shining on the hills under the stainless sky above a thousand valleys—beautiful with vineyards and olive gardens, and surrounded by hills greater than its own, crowned by villages scarcely less fair. Such is Monte Giorgio, whose heart is the convent of S. Francis, which should be one of the most famous Franciscan shrines in Italy, for it was there that the <i>Fioretti</i> were written by the Ugolino da Monte Giorgio, who as he looked out of the window of his cell, could see shining across this blessed country all the little holy places of the March, humble Franciscan dwellings which figure in his beautiful book: Massa, Fallerone, Penna S. Giovanni, Fermo, Monterubbiano.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyLsPfoKDHQPVBG7igxvQ9khsGrz1RZvVntZrdEdCrR1d9ogk946Upt7GnikaJnZ1eI18qb3v586susG6d7kf7IB94Udoq1EjpwmypS9L3O6_CfXfUci5gI8mqAPewBMml0CrUAT3Dvw/s1600/51DuyWRxzML._SX331_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="333" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyLsPfoKDHQPVBG7igxvQ9khsGrz1RZvVntZrdEdCrR1d9ogk946Upt7GnikaJnZ1eI18qb3v586susG6d7kf7IB94Udoq1EjpwmypS9L3O6_CfXfUci5gI8mqAPewBMml0CrUAT3Dvw/s320/51DuyWRxzML._SX331_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" width="214" /></span></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><br /></span><span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">The convent, as we see it to-day, is fair enough and holy still and full of manuscripts, and there and in the olive garden about the place, one may, better than anywhere else in the world, turn the pages of that matchless volume in which all the simplicity and and charm of the Middle Age which produced S. Francis lies hid, as in no other book… the <i>Fioretti</i> is for all, for ever—for all who may find in their hearts, even in middle life, even in old age, that something of the little child, without which no one can enter the kingdom of heaven. (196-197)</span><span><o:p></o:p></span></span><br /><span><br /></span><span>###</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;">Edward Hutton: The Cities of Romagna and the Marches, NY, 1925.</div></div>Dr. Fhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08469403843869655063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2620932371509147911.post-42067860128296969562024-01-12T06:46:00.000-08:002024-01-12T06:46:29.546-08:00A Walk to Recanati<p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><i> <span>In his travels in Italy Edward Hutton often walked from town to town. Below he describes a </span><span>nighttime walk and its surprising aftermath. While in Recanati, he also saw Lorenzo Lotto's Annunciation, "one of the most interesting pictures in the Marches."</span></i></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJitdPD_o8KQ8t0zj_ESWmiwHW0Zeg8v-xutwPDINi3kCIO1Gh1Y5HIWnPg_dkteTe0t1hiV_ZxSn9v9m0fFfhxaU47osJ1ZEShnrISim2CY1PR64qMw6tO7lGy7vq6BjMXI_kMFWx4g/s1600/recanati-1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" data-original-height="783" data-original-width="1170" height="269" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJitdPD_o8KQ8t0zj_ESWmiwHW0Zeg8v-xutwPDINi3kCIO1Gh1Y5HIWnPg_dkteTe0t1hiV_ZxSn9v9m0fFfhxaU47osJ1ZEShnrISim2CY1PR64qMw6tO7lGy7vq6BjMXI_kMFWx4g/w400-h269/recanati-1.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Night had already fallen and hidden the sea, when I left Loreto to walk in the summer moonlight up to Recanati some seven miles away in the hills. Over all that great world of mountain and valley, darkness had fallen like a transparent veil, the luminous darkness of summer, out of which there came to me as I went the soft noises of the night, the hoot of an owl, the bark of a fox, the curious and bitter song of the night cecco among the olives, the wind among the leaves. I shall not forget the beauty of that way. The road lay over the hills; high in heaven, the moon, crescent still, hung like the immaculate Host in an invisible monstrance about which were set, for candles, innumerable stars. One by one as I went the little cities far away each on a hill-top shone out full of lights, glittered and was lost between the infinity of earth and sky….<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Presently I came to the big gate, deserted and silent in the midst of the night. Up and up I passed through the paved, deserted streets between the tall houses, looking for the inn; missed it and had to return, back through the silent street, to find it at last with the help of another benighted like myself.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The first appearance of the Albergo della Pace was anything but promising. The entrance was at the bottom of a dirty, dark court, lighted only by a small lamp burning before an image of the Madonna; but it was too late and I too tired to trouble about appearances, and when the door was opened and a room was shown me I accepted it without demur and was soon in bed….<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">When I awoke it was to find the room still in darkness, for the window was closely shuttered. I jumped out of bed, and unhooked the iron fastening and thrust back the creaking casement, to be almost blinded by the sudden blaze of light. But when my eyes had grown accustomed to the sun, what a sight met my gaze! The whole world seemed to be spread out at my feet. The inn, it appeared, was set upon the city wall; fifty or sixty feet sheer below me the road wound down toward Loreto, and before me on their hill-tops rose half a hundred little cities, half lost in the sunlight, in a great world of mountain and valley backed by the far dim peaks of the central Apennine. It was a sight almost to stop the heart, so great it was; a landscape indeed, if it were a landscape, and not rather something in a dream, that could never be forgotten, and its gentle serene nobility won me at once. How often and how long I sat in that window in Recanati that I might never forget the lines of the hills, the sunlight and the shadow over the olive gardens, the visionary glory of those far-away peaks! (179-181)…<o:p></o:p></span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLiRYSUUokFk_9QQFRK7X4fQ7_2Hc9PECX56TxeYmSggvubKgyy_cGfjZxL5pVqQui0ygULSVZpWfS4M24yEIzQ7Fiz8QD0QZqaBi1ky1a7ui57MAdh4GqI7UZqzzlP09TyS6fcH62RA/s1600/06annun1.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="1049" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLiRYSUUokFk_9QQFRK7X4fQ7_2Hc9PECX56TxeYmSggvubKgyy_cGfjZxL5pVqQui0ygULSVZpWfS4M24yEIzQ7Fiz8QD0QZqaBi1ky1a7ui57MAdh4GqI7UZqzzlP09TyS6fcH62RA/s400/06annun1.jpg" width="280" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Lorenzo Lotto: Annunciation<br /><br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">But undoubtedly the most interesting work of art to be found in Recanati is Lotto’s picture of the Annunciation in the little church of S. Maria sopra Mercanti…. In a great and high room, very different from the Santa Casa, and open under a lofty round arch to a garden full of trees and a pergola, Madonna, who has been kneeling in prayer at a prie-dieu upon which lies an open book of hours, has suddenly turned away with uplifted protesting hands in astonishment and even fear at the sudden entrance of the archangel, S. Gabriel, whose streaming hair tells of the swiftness of his flight. So suddenly, indeed, has been the advent of the angel that Madonna’s little cat, asleep till then in some corner, scampers in terror across the room. Under the arch appears God the Father, a majestic figure, His two hands stretched forth like those of a swimmer; He seems indeed to have dived down from heaven. The room is furnished with almost Flemish realism and completeness… (182-3)<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">###<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The Cities of Romagna and the Marches, NY, 1925.</span></div>Dr. Fhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08469403843869655063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2620932371509147911.post-79579706932084005332024-01-05T06:40:00.000-08:002024-01-05T06:40:52.817-08:00Loreto and the Santa Casa<p><i> <span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: x-large;">Edward Hutton was warned by friends not to visit Loreto and its famous shrine because of the hordes of mutilated beggars that could be found there. He went anyway and found his friends were mistaken. He tells the whole story of the origins of the Holy House and then records his own impressions of the city and its shrine.</span></i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3Cd_dxSffSMCiaYck2NnXuUube-zw3z-J3fjgr1oQCEdm6qiL-3wjdZTMGRoj4sXLkBCOHydTeikSpM55kHPHL-lL716W5ifBnypAA9rHkUt59R-lxs1erjcEMTnJwZ7pJ1d7b9YPew/s1600/Basilica_Pontificia_della_Santa_Casa_di_Loreto.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1295" data-original-width="1600" height="325" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3Cd_dxSffSMCiaYck2NnXuUube-zw3z-J3fjgr1oQCEdm6qiL-3wjdZTMGRoj4sXLkBCOHydTeikSpM55kHPHL-lL716W5ifBnypAA9rHkUt59R-lxs1erjcEMTnJwZ7pJ1d7b9YPew/w400-h325/Basilica_Pontificia_della_Santa_Casa_di_Loreto.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">Loreto, which all the world sought these many centuries, is not only one of the holiest, but one of the most beautiful places in Italy. The most sacred shrine of the Blessed Virgin in the West, though not the only one which professes to hold something of the nature of a relic of the Mother of God, it is set most gloriously on its olive-clad hill looking eastward over the sea. It was on a summer afternoon that I came from Osimo to the golden house of Our Lady so strangely to be found in this little town of the March…. (164)<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">The Santa Casa of Loreto is the house in which the Blessed Virgin was born in Nazareth, miraculously transported hither by angels in the thirteenth century; since when it has been one of the major places of pilgrimage in Europe….<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">The pilgrims still come to it from all lands and in all seasons; not a week passes in the year but some kneel there who perhaps during their whole lives have dreamed of little else but the journey and the great sight at the end of it—the House of Her who is the Mother of God, the Mother of us all. …<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">It is a place for tears, and if there be any consolation here you will find it. For in its universal human appeal, it resolves all the bitterness of life for a moment into sweetness, all its pettiness into an act of worship, all its insecurity into security, all its doubt and hatred into assurance and love….<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">The Holy House of Loreto, if you choose to regard it as a superstition, must be one of that human and kindly sort which in every age has refreshed the weary, for its fruits have been altogether noble. It has produced a series of great works of art by some of the greatest masters of a great time, it has produced the Litany of the blessed Virgin, than which nothing lovelier was ever sung in heaven, and all over the world it has brought men together in love, and has comforted millions who were without consolation….<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsBP0-uuLO5bcjaxRTolaLCkLqfGq3Jun4zoPUD2tdi7NgDuT_7vh55pXiOIrV5P7JaLTDKTpruzeGdYxcGvl6X86FrwTjDCxhv9ZIKvgpvJFvgheLA7xErcKTlFCo-th91vNjabDYCA/s1600/loreto.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="561" data-original-width="900" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsBP0-uuLO5bcjaxRTolaLCkLqfGq3Jun4zoPUD2tdi7NgDuT_7vh55pXiOIrV5P7JaLTDKTpruzeGdYxcGvl6X86FrwTjDCxhv9ZIKvgpvJFvgheLA7xErcKTlFCo-th91vNjabDYCA/w400-h250/loreto.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">No shrine in all the world that I have ever seen is half so impressive as this little House of rude brick polished bright with kisses. Without, upon the marble of the platform about the Santa Casa, the sacristan points out two deep grooves in the marble that in the course of centuries have been worn so deep by the knees of the waiting pilgrims. I do not wonder. Here is a sanctuary claiming a holiness and antiquity beyond any other in Europe… Here, so the peasants think, as S. Ignatius and S. Carlo Borromeo thought, is the House of Mary, and the maiden from the Abruzzi comes here and dreams of the girlhood of Her who was to be the Mother of God, and crouched there, with beating heart, sees Gabriel in all the splendor of his snowy white wings, kneeling before Our Lady, hears the words that redeemed the world, AVE MARIA GRATIA PLENA, DOMINUS TECUM BENEDICTA TU IN MULIERIBUS… Indeed, I think he who is less simple of heart than this child should not enter that little House, sacred at least to the childhood of the world and hallowed now if only by the faith, the love, and the lives of such as she.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">### </span><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;">Edward Hutton: <i>The Cities of Romagna and the Marches,</i> NY, 1925. 164-173.</div>Dr. Fhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08469403843869655063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2620932371509147911.post-21362800823116603952023-12-29T06:56:00.000-08:002023-12-29T06:56:46.069-08:00Pesaro and Gradara<p><i><span style="font-family: verdana;"> Edward Hutton's The Cities of Romagna and the Marches was written over 100 years ago and although Italy has changed, a traveler today can still appreciate the way he loved to sit, listen and observe the country and its people. </span></i></p><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmqDqbPXV2UspjR5zu5pIHgSmQyJ0i4SvkOJOCdUmJziQubHQrgIduyUdxjeG5pKVbUC6e16Pz0sTnIEUKUBbVdRAfmmoVckbBUUeOwkrvT8wjHuN-k0sxbxPoawl6l11An5zsfMrkqA/s1600/7a28f6614742f8b6fa5909ffeb5a3763.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" data-original-height="356" data-original-width="475" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmqDqbPXV2UspjR5zu5pIHgSmQyJ0i4SvkOJOCdUmJziQubHQrgIduyUdxjeG5pKVbUC6e16Pz0sTnIEUKUBbVdRAfmmoVckbBUUeOwkrvT8wjHuN-k0sxbxPoawl6l11An5zsfMrkqA/w400-h300/7a28f6614742f8b6fa5909ffeb5a3763.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Pesaro</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">It was a rainy morning when I left Rimini at last, and by train on account of the weather, for Pesaro; but I had not been in that delightful little city—one of the pleasantest in all the Marches—more than a few hours when the sun shone out again and Pesaro showed me a smiling face, as indeed I cannot but think she does to every one who enters her gates. I do not rightly know what it is in Pesaro that makes me feel always so happy there; whether it be the charm of her wide Piazza with its beautiful Palazzo della Prefettura, or the kindness and hospitality of her citizens, and not least of these who keep the inn, the Albergo Zongo, that noble old palace once a cardinal’s, dark and forbidding at first, but always to be remembered with pleasure and gratitude, or whether, after all, one’s pleasure lies not so much in Pesaro herself as in the delight of the country in which she lies. Perhaps the happiness and lightness of heart that always comes to me in this little city by that shining morning sea is the result of all these charming things, for once to be had altogether and enjoyed without an afterthought.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigz-sk3NGMnfuK93869pxdyndjm9XX2pYLmRKXxmeMi73rBymATEhUBq7PZf8h0JAXn7N4wCBlc8WE-8BQC14ANgWiSDnCfuAxUHoptZlu5PLYjwJYzAgHj__nsJsRbUF0ADgOCL5xBQ/s1600/Unknown.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" data-original-height="208" data-original-width="242" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigz-sk3NGMnfuK93869pxdyndjm9XX2pYLmRKXxmeMi73rBymATEhUBq7PZf8h0JAXn7N4wCBlc8WE-8BQC14ANgWiSDnCfuAxUHoptZlu5PLYjwJYzAgHj__nsJsRbUF0ADgOCL5xBQ/s1600/Unknown.jpeg" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Titian: Venus detail</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">For you may spend your morning pottering about the old town where there is nothing very serious to see, but where everything that meets your eye is graceful and charming. Your afternoon you may spend in the delightful rooms, gardens and terraces of the Villa Imperiale, where that Leonora, whom it is said Titian painted as Venus, as you may see in the Uffizi Gallery to this day, will seem to pass and repass, waiting the return of Francesco Maria of Urbino, or you may drive out to the great Rocca of Gradara, which the Malatesta built and held so long where there are two priceless treasures that certainly Pesaro cannot match *…. </span><br /><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">And for the evening, one strolls out of the great shadowy rooms of the Albergo Zongo and down the rough way into the Piazza and sits in the caffe under the arches of the Prefettura, listening to a country song, watching the people and catching now and then the tinkle of a mandolin, the throb of a guitar. All one’s days and nights in Pesaro are full of melodies, of form and colour and sound, and no one can be the least surprised that Rossini was born there, for the whole city and the hills and woods about it are full of music, to which the sea continually beats a grave and sober accompaniment gently breaking in a line of foam along the shore. (129-130)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">*One of the art works in Gradara is a Della Robbia altarpiece.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim-M_RlhWHbAaOo5arYRCEiS7TSOwsbag7FFxuBz1zV1U2D1H-1ioYy2jT6nkzqwlmu5ivrU__dqoaqfmlTNDbjyWF3I22Ytj0LuBU2tvWpRlEjqWqnSuccdaR5xfPNL1bvR82v154ag/s1600/4212999504_14816725cc_b-908x1024.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="908" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim-M_RlhWHbAaOo5arYRCEiS7TSOwsbag7FFxuBz1zV1U2D1H-1ioYy2jT6nkzqwlmu5ivrU__dqoaqfmlTNDbjyWF3I22Ytj0LuBU2tvWpRlEjqWqnSuccdaR5xfPNL1bvR82v154ag/s320/4212999504_14816725cc_b-908x1024.jpg" width="284" /></span></a></div><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">The Robbia altarpiece is in a little desecrated chapel half-way up the Rocca. There we see the Madonna and Child with S. Jerome and Mary Magdalen, S. Catherine and S. Bonaventure, and beneath, in the predella, three scenes—S. Francis receiving the Stigmata, the Annunciation, and S. Mary Magdalen in the desert communicated by an angel. (137)<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Edward Hutton: <i>The Cities of Romagna and the Marches</i>, NY, 1925</span><span style="font-size: large;">.</span></span></div>Dr. Fhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08469403843869655063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2620932371509147911.post-46264352227192039442023-12-22T07:15:00.000-08:002023-12-22T07:15:57.205-08:00Christmas in Dolcedorme<p><span style="font-family: verdana;"> <b><b><b><span><i>Edward Hutton interrupted his tour of Umbria to spend the winter in Rome. But he did take time to visit Ulisse, his young traveling companion, in the boy's hometown of Dolcedorme where they attending the Christmas Midnight Mass. Hutton's charming account is a unique historical document.</i></span></b></b></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><b><b><b><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></b></b></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: verdana;"></span></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><b><b><span style="font-family: verdana;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDMUL7Z83YvnekTxFxJ7vC6ursqnqYKaUFsb8zg5e8yU9Tgu6_Fdk296X8l01Qo2Bx20rAgH4bRgi0Tew0e7i19gTOHo593UbMxp1bDwPLUKhBNy5fVKd51uGNoyYRz0q9NdfDOMdY1lV-TaO1Pj1xQvF04PSbGs28vS7FrfxtgUeqDgQVhkAGrItW/s800/135941-1c0eebda058a1b0559c927f6eb771d5d-1499414967.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDMUL7Z83YvnekTxFxJ7vC6ursqnqYKaUFsb8zg5e8yU9Tgu6_Fdk296X8l01Qo2Bx20rAgH4bRgi0Tew0e7i19gTOHo593UbMxp1bDwPLUKhBNy5fVKd51uGNoyYRz0q9NdfDOMdY1lV-TaO1Pj1xQvF04PSbGs28vS7FrfxtgUeqDgQVhkAGrItW/s320/135941-1c0eebda058a1b0559c927f6eb771d5d-1499414967.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></b></b></b></div><b><b><b><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /> </span></b></b></b><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><b><b><b><span style="font-family: verdana;">Ah! That Midnight Mass! … I am not likely to forget it. I had gone with Ulisse, who guided me through the dark and narrow ways, up to the Collegiata, enthroned above the city, under those enormous and precipitous rocks, like giant’s teeth, which distinguish Dolcedorme.<o:p></o:p></span></b></b></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><b><b><b><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></b></b></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><b><b><b><span style="font-family: verdana;">It is a large church, rebuilt after an earthquake, in the seventeenth century; but large and spacious though it was, it was full. And not only of the faithful, not only of the women and the <i>poveri</i>. The whole city seemed to be there when the bell sounded for the third time.<o:p></o:p></span></b></b></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><b><b><b><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></b></b></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><b><b><b><span style="font-family: verdana;">In their own place sat the women, young and old, devout enough, and for the most part already on their knees. Behind and about, against the pillars and side-altars, stood the men, a vast crowd. And the noise! The whole church was filled with it, and the air was already stifling.<o:p></o:p></span></b></b></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><b><b><b><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></b></b></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><b><b><b><span style="font-family: verdana;">Over all the tumult came at last the organ. In the <i>cora</i> they began to sing <i>Te Deum</i>. It was the end of Matins. Mass was about to begin.<o:p></o:p></span></b></b></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><b><b><b><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></b></b></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><b><b><b><span style="font-family: verdana;">Still the people came in under the heavy leather curtains. The church was packed. More candles were lighted: more music poured from the organ. Finally, in procession, behind the great Byzantine cross, came <i>Sua Ecclenzia</i>—the whole concourse bent like a field of corn under a wind—blessing as he came. He was to sing Mass. Over the Crucifix on the high altar his single candle shone.<o:p></o:p></span></b></b></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><b><b><b><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></b></b></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><b><b><b><span style="font-family: verdana;">Ulisse and I stood before a pillar on the Epistle side, half-way down the great nave. Mass began. <i>Domine dixit ad me … Kyrie eleison … Christie eleison … Kyrie eleison.</i><o:p></o:p></span></b></b></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><b><b><b><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></b></b></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><b><b><b><span style="font-family: verdana;">Monsignor intoned the <i>Gloria in excelsis</i>. The organ burst out into a great peal of music, the bells rang, everyone sang or whistled. …Most whistled.<o:p></o:p></span></b></b></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><b><b><b><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></b></b></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><b><b><b><span style="font-family: verdana;">Whistled!<o:p></o:p></span></b></b></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><b><b><b><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></b></b></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><b><b><b><span style="font-family: verdana;">Not with the lips only as one whistles an air, but with the fingers in the mouth to make a noise, as much noise as possible. Still others had brought whistles with them, and were using them with all their might. <o:p></o:p></span></b></b></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><b><b><b><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></b></b></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><b><b><b><span style="font-family: verdana;">I was astonished. I was scandalized. Surely my ears deceived me. It was so hot and the odour.…<o:p></o:p></span></b></b></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><b><b><b><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></b></b></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><b><b><b><span style="font-family: verdana;">But no, the whistling continued. There was Ulisse with both his fists at his mouth, whistling for all he was worth.<o:p></o:p></span></b></b></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><b><b><b><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></b></b></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><b><b><span style="font-family: verdana;"><b><i>Ma come!</i></b><b> Was this a theatre or a church? Was this some piece being hooted off the stage or the first Mass of Christmas? I turned to Ulisse.<o:p></o:p></b></span></b></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><b><b><b><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></b></b></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><b><b><b><span style="font-family: verdana;">“Ma si, signore, di qua e di la si fischia.”<o:p></o:p></span></b></b></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><b><b><b><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></b></b></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><b><b><b><span style="font-family: verdana;">“They’re whistling all over the place!” But why?<o:p></o:p></span></b></b></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><b><b><b><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></b></b></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><b><b><b><span style="font-family: verdana;">There was a little silence; the Gloria had finished itself.<o:p></o:p></span></b></b></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><b><b><b><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></b></b></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><b><b><b><span style="font-family: verdana;">Surely Monsignor would not continue? But no, the Mass proceeded as usual. The great Epistle proclaimed Him <i>qui dedit semetipsium pro nobis, ut nos redimeret ab omni iniquitate….<o:p></o:p></i></span></b></b></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><b><b><b><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></b></b></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><b><b><b><span style="font-family: verdana;">The Gospel, known from childhood, unfolded itself from the edict of Caesar Augustus to the peace born on earth to men of good will.<o:p></o:p></span></b></b></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><b><b><b><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></b></b></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><b><b><b><span style="font-family: verdana;">Slowly we came to the Christmas Preface, the Christmas <i>Sanctus</i>, sung here to a strange dancing measure as in the picture of Botticelli. I had forgotten the unseemly interruption at the <i>Gloria</i>. I had forgotten everything.…<o:p></o:p></span></b></b></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><b><b><b><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></b></b></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><b><b><b><span style="font-family: verdana;">There it was again! Suddenly, at the Elevation! But worse than before, more exulting, more joyous, more insolently enthusiastic and rejoicing. It was beyond all possible bounds. In England….<o:p></o:p></span></b></b></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><b><b><b><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></b></b></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><b><b><b><span style="font-family: verdana;">“But what is it then?” I leant to Ulisse.<o:p></o:p></span></b></b></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><b><b><b><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></b></b></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><b><b><b><span style="font-family: verdana;">“Ma signore, it is the shepherds! E un pio ricordo dei suoni pastorali quando necque nostro Signore.” “A pious remembrance of the shepherds’ music when Our Lord was born.” But I… I, too, would whistle. I … I, too, whistled—only the sounds would not come. What could be the matter with my throat?<o:p></o:p></span></b></b></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><b><b><b><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></b></b></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><b><b><b><span style="font-family: verdana;">“<i>Peccato</i>!” whispered Ulisse, that one cannot hear also the voice of the ox and the ass.<span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></b></b></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><b><b><b><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></b></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><b><b></b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><b><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjI7dH5QYb9On3qXw3Ta3uqqIZx-ZVlnYsPU-Ol9Uzoj5TFp-PV5YkK1qh55QPThB9sNHHsmjwRRWCTmZ5VcO1VvmJJhLh2Ut5f0zPq1r-XRVzFf-Fs6EddEwYKMkfkwOQzhkAoKTKSkkAOca1iliVtTS8gDoZnDYtbxFh1JOCwB9fuHVAvvCOTheXi/s274/images.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="184" data-original-width="274" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjI7dH5QYb9On3qXw3Ta3uqqIZx-ZVlnYsPU-Ol9Uzoj5TFp-PV5YkK1qh55QPThB9sNHHsmjwRRWCTmZ5VcO1VvmJJhLh2Ut5f0zPq1r-XRVzFf-Fs6EddEwYKMkfkwOQzhkAoKTKSkkAOca1iliVtTS8gDoZnDYtbxFh1JOCwB9fuHVAvvCOTheXi/w400-h268/images.jpeg" width="400" /></a></b></b></b></div><b><br /><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><b><b><b><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"> </span></b></b></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><b><b><b><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">###</span></b></b></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><b><b><b><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></b></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><b><b><span style="font-family: verdana;">Edward Hutton: <i>Assisi and Umbria Revisited, </i>London, 1953. Pp. 124-125.</span></b></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><b><b><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></b></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><b><b><span style="font-family: verdana;">Note: This post originally appeared on this site on 6/20/23.</span></b></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><b><b><b><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></b></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><br /></p>Dr. Fhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08469403843869655063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2620932371509147911.post-37833704315226570212023-12-15T06:38:00.000-08:002023-12-15T06:38:51.688-08:00Bologna: Accademia and Museo Civico<p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><i> Edward Hutton's art sympathies were with the pre-Raphaelites, as evidenced by his appraisal of Raphael's St. Cecilia. Below are highlights from his tour of Bologna's Accademia and Museo Civico.</i></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Of the school of Bologna, the school painting that is native to the city…there can be nothing to say, for until very late times there was no tradition of art peculiar to Bologna, which for the most part leant almost entirely upon Ferrara…We therefore learn without surprise that in the second half of the fifteenth century the Ferrarese Francesco Costa established himself here in Bologna and was followed in 1483 by his countryman Lorenzo Costa. It was from them that the first Bolognese painter to show any sign of genius learnt his art. This man was Francesco di Maria Raibolini, whom all the world knows as Francia. ...<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_PzlVNcl74m__8ctEQnz7IBB3ES-WM1yp9lx84IIpQlORBIMoxYQf_p8TPNNpi0PaaWiuEU0d3B6iEHyJBZbnJkvQOgukeWY2gRaIVyUVnlhm8SDMzv1Ai2MSt4Z7sUHK_ZL_QZjsQA/s1600/adorati.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="966" data-original-width="850" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_PzlVNcl74m__8ctEQnz7IBB3ES-WM1yp9lx84IIpQlORBIMoxYQf_p8TPNNpi0PaaWiuEU0d3B6iEHyJBZbnJkvQOgukeWY2gRaIVyUVnlhm8SDMzv1Ai2MSt4Z7sUHK_ZL_QZjsQA/w354-h400/adorati.jpg" width="354" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption">Francia</td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Bologna is rich in his work, the Accademia possessing no less than nine of his works… the too refined and eclectic art of Francia cannot recompense us for the fact that the unself-conscious art of the fourteenth century and early fifteenth century is not to be had in Bologna.<o:p></o:p></span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqSSVJPDQprI8XeixQNZJpA5808_pTVAjnsZ2Zv7HZRCmH6pd1mroOTcM1CSBfg854zSNTuZ1AGX3xl0mtw4ClrAnhePtFVMI9YuQoNsUf2bSPtWLcBC3uvqri0jEJK5vAlGgqtPMA_g/s1600/Cecilia_Raphael+Bologna.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" data-original-height="483" data-original-width="300" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqSSVJPDQprI8XeixQNZJpA5808_pTVAjnsZ2Zv7HZRCmH6pd1mroOTcM1CSBfg854zSNTuZ1AGX3xl0mtw4ClrAnhePtFVMI9YuQoNsUf2bSPtWLcBC3uvqri0jEJK5vAlGgqtPMA_g/w249-h400/Cecilia_Raphael+Bologna.jpg" width="249" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Raphael: St. Cecilia<br /><br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Through Timoteo Viti, who was, after Giovanni Santi Raphael’s first master, we reach Raphael, by whom there is here the famous S. Cecilia, from the church of S. Giovanni in Monto, where it adorned the altar dedicated in honour of Beata Cecilia Duglioli. There, as we know, S. Cecilia stands in the midst, a small organ reversed in her hands, her eyes lifted to heaven, her own music quite put out by the songs she heard of the angels. About her stand S. John, S. Augustine, and S. Paul and S. Mary Magdalen. The picture has suffered greatly, and we are not sure how much of it was even due to Raphael himself, and this, I suppose, must excuse our disappointment in it. Indeed we turn from it with a real eagerness to that Madonna and Child in Glory with S. Michael, S. John, S. Catherine, and S. Apollonia by Perugino which hangs in this same room, and curiously enough was painted for the same church, but in 1498, whereas Raphael’s picture is, I think, of 1516….<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPk4oSvPx_kcbVh5-QqYfuzlsStuTDEYNIpIihQYsJkzUR4KMITiURKDKmnid1uvetmezFDmX1m8KSchUwj0SfaJPI02MOO0ZcIWkQiLMThx_TYyb4F3WXOhAPjRriJ8lTPLr2bgGSLg/s1600/Perugino_Bologna.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1199" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPk4oSvPx_kcbVh5-QqYfuzlsStuTDEYNIpIihQYsJkzUR4KMITiURKDKmnid1uvetmezFDmX1m8KSchUwj0SfaJPI02MOO0ZcIWkQiLMThx_TYyb4F3WXOhAPjRriJ8lTPLr2bgGSLg/w300-h400/Perugino_Bologna.jpg" width="300" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Perugino</span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The excellent Museo Civico is not so disappointing as the Academia, for it does not promise so much. It contains too, what I should suppose is one of the finest collections of Etruscan antiquities in existence, but, for me it holds but two things of real delight, I mean the two reliefs of Jacopo della Quercia, the first a relief of the Birth of the Virgin in Sala xv, the other a relief of the Madonna and child in Sala xvi. For these in their beauty no words are good enough, nor may one ever really forget them. <o:p></o:p></span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjriofJz6y_2s2JttUylnyda4u4qiKXIDv4mBghUQc1yHQ6RxCcoj_Uvkox5MGwG0lONgnxmNTd65Y796JbzsHJ-QtWiM_-V_0rCBfTPdz43O4523x8TMQwNeeRheDjL-ZScbnF99tKWA/s1600/Jacopo_della_quercia%252C_madonna_col_bambino%252C_1410_circa%252C_terracotta_policroma_01.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="741" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjriofJz6y_2s2JttUylnyda4u4qiKXIDv4mBghUQc1yHQ6RxCcoj_Uvkox5MGwG0lONgnxmNTd65Y796JbzsHJ-QtWiM_-V_0rCBfTPdz43O4523x8TMQwNeeRheDjL-ZScbnF99tKWA/s320/Jacopo_della_quercia%252C_madonna_col_bambino%252C_1410_circa%252C_terracotta_policroma_01.JPG" width="148" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Jacopo della Quercia</span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">###<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Edward Hutton: <i>The Cities of Romagna and the Marches</i>, NY, 1925. Pp. 86-88.</span></div>Dr. Fhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08469403843869655063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2620932371509147911.post-63812781636384327002023-12-08T06:52:00.000-08:002023-12-08T06:52:37.293-08:00Edward Hutton: Bologna<p><i> <span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18pt;">Edward Hutton published</span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18pt;">The Cities of Romagna and the Marches</span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18pt;">in 1925 shortly after the conclusion of World War I, then know as the Great War. The cities and towns he visited seemed hardly effected by the War. He started in Ravenna and ended in Urbino. This first post records his change of mind about Bologna.*</span></i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrJjtt1OUzLSxB1UDHTZU8-Awr-Wi3A7PWD-8joag-n8EpsFOv0Rr1DMo4j6pUZCe0JPe2neuDJsBmRjJu7Smks0OQ-z6_ktf_b75UKpby3SkLwQL3iXbGnajoyxfug8WoRZlt4YBXbQ/s1600/Bologna-Emilia-Romagna-Italy.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="683" data-original-width="1024" height="269" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrJjtt1OUzLSxB1UDHTZU8-Awr-Wi3A7PWD-8joag-n8EpsFOv0Rr1DMo4j6pUZCe0JPe2neuDJsBmRjJu7Smks0OQ-z6_ktf_b75UKpby3SkLwQL3iXbGnajoyxfug8WoRZlt4YBXbQ/w400-h269/Bologna-Emilia-Romagna-Italy.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">I had been in Bologna many times and had never really liked this somber and learned city, with its gloomy arcaded streets and grotesque leaning towers, its sober brown churches, its gallery full of late pictures, its general air of disillusion, when circumstances compelled me spend a month there, and it was only then I discovered, not without astonishment, that I had never really understood Bologna at all—how essentially charming she is, how cool and delightful those arcaded streets, how glowing those numberless churches, where the people worship with so simple an earnestness, how beautiful her environment, that countryside neither of the plains nor of the mountains, among the foothills of the Apennines.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">And certainly my experience is not unique. Very many travelers, I think, have felt much the same disappointment in Bologna, nor is it strange perhaps that this should be so. For the most part we come to this sober university town from all the dancing light and colour of Venice, from the sheer beauty of Florence, or from the inexhaustible interest and strength of Milan, and we feel that Bologna beside them is insipid and without a character of her own, a place to which one can only be indifferent.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIcURs5QVhhv-oVWwjyHPgvpbwNPMegGQnmeTB2U-hhRec8Ii7ll0Uun2vPuD5Pr3xsMVLsHvZQkASlZ6E-hkRVI7pa6_DZz73Pra7GvlrpVCPYsDYCA35GTD9rakDBNkewumtEAmP9g/s1600/7c45f56e54d6b8ef106a4db64aabaac1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1250" data-original-width="1000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIcURs5QVhhv-oVWwjyHPgvpbwNPMegGQnmeTB2U-hhRec8Ii7ll0Uun2vPuD5Pr3xsMVLsHvZQkASlZ6E-hkRVI7pa6_DZz73Pra7GvlrpVCPYsDYCA35GTD9rakDBNkewumtEAmP9g/s320/7c45f56e54d6b8ef106a4db64aabaac1.jpg" width="256" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">But, indeed, if approached in the right way, Bologna may be loved at once, and without an afterthought. Only to come to her directly, with the best of all in your heart, is too hard a test. Let the traveler who would understand her great delight come to her not from Venice or Florence, but from the cities of the plain, from Ferrara, or best of all along the great Roman road, the Via Emilia, from Picenza, through Parma, Reggio and Modena; only then can he truly appreciate her dry superiority and that strange beauty of hers which is neither of the plain nor of the mountains, but of the marriage here made between them. (61-62) …<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">The Towers<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhheWGJeRv6JqEV8s-YdBSH4blQFYtbBwcuWsMlRCDXeYyDqtuQ06472kz2CrBQKEcF2TTidYjgFJOCTDwKCJFypsay_FgZifq5AL75sN6vYVd8IAF3-_8OeNwkv-4lKfo6cxAHDDo6Vg/s1600/Present-picture-of-the-Two-Towers-of-Bologna-The-Garisenda-tower-is-the-lowest-one-on.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1057" data-original-width="750" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhheWGJeRv6JqEV8s-YdBSH4blQFYtbBwcuWsMlRCDXeYyDqtuQ06472kz2CrBQKEcF2TTidYjgFJOCTDwKCJFypsay_FgZifq5AL75sN6vYVd8IAF3-_8OeNwkv-4lKfo6cxAHDDo6Vg/w284-h400/Present-picture-of-the-Two-Towers-of-Bologna-The-Garisenda-tower-is-the-lowest-one-on.jpg" width="284" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">…the strangest sight in Bologna, the Leaning Towers in the Piazza di Porta Ravagnana… why these towers were built, and more especially why they lean, whether this be accidental or of set purpose, we do not know. As of everything else in Italy that was notable and strange, Dante has spoken of these towers also. …<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">these strange towers, which stand within twenty feet of one another in the small Piazza where seven ways meet, leave a more lasting impression on the mind than anything else in the city. (81)<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">###<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;">The Cities of Romagna and the Marches, NY, 1925.</div>Dr. Fhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08469403843869655063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2620932371509147911.post-42802416071180932302023-12-01T06:50:00.000-08:002023-12-01T06:50:04.510-08:00Venice: S. Giorgio and the Giudecca<p> </p><p><br /></p><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjr11mNbF3CET2G3XFVHARAzDTkYKoq6T1lWpfT4iBo42sBqJvGse72DAbPCAsq_DN4OUak3w6TmZsnImPaRvre8rBFTduXK4pbQ23dMGyBWo4iKuk8gIg7IvDHCVj1kjhHsMV84EnMGg/s1600/isola_di_san_giorgio_maggiore.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="480" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjr11mNbF3CET2G3XFVHARAzDTkYKoq6T1lWpfT4iBo42sBqJvGse72DAbPCAsq_DN4OUak3w6TmZsnImPaRvre8rBFTduXK4pbQ23dMGyBWo4iKuk8gIg7IvDHCVj1kjhHsMV84EnMGg/s320/isola_di_san_giorgio_maggiore.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-size: large;"><i>In 2010 I presented my paper on Giorgione's Tempest at the annual meeting of the Renaissance Society of America held that year in Venice. The venue was a converted monastery on the island of S. Giorgio Maggiore right across from the Piazetta. Here is part of Edward Hutton's account of his time spent visiting S. Giorgio and the Giudecca. He often toured on a gondola.</i></span><br /><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><br /><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">Let no one imagine, however, that when he has seen these two churches he has done with the islands of S. Giorgio and the Giudecca or exhausted all that they have to show. No impression could be more false than this, for the wise traveler will find in their byways more of the real Venetian life as it must have been lived by the common people for many centuries than he is likely to come upon anywhere else in Venice, who has not wandered down their deserted alleys along the great sea-wall, or waited there for sunset, looking out over the wide and lonely lagoon to the Lidi and the sea, does not know Venice at all, but has been deceived by a city which more than any other in Italy has become a showplace for Germans and the barbarians and the sentimentalists of all ages.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">For me at least the Giudecca has a charm I find nowhere else; for beautiful though the Riva or the Fondamenta delle Zattere can be in the early dawn and morning or in the evening twilight, neither the one nor the other has the gift of quietness or any garden at all, save the Giardino Publica at the Riva’s end, which, as one soon finds, is rather a park than a garden. But in the Giudecca all that you miss in Venice to-day may be found. You cross the often turbulent tide of the great sea lane that divides it from Venice, you creep all up the wonderful great road where the big ships lie at anchor and you may hear on a summer evening so many of the songs of the world, you pass quite by the Redentore and S. Eufemia della Giudecca, which stands up so grandly against the gold of the sky, you come to the Rio di S. Biagio and turn into it, quite full, as it seems, with fishing-boats, its quays laden with sea tackle and nets and baskets and the ropes and gear of the ships, among which the children play the games they have always played, dressed in rags of all sorts of colours, their dear tousled heads bending over toys, as we say, the great symbols of life after all and the affairs of men, a tiny ship or a doll, and I know not what else, intent upon their innocent business. In the doorways, in the windows, their mothers gossip and laugh softly, awaiting their men, whom you find everywhere on board these many little vessels, mending nets or sowing at a sail or stepping a new mast or splicing an oar or painting a name.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">Your gondola passes quite among these humble folk; their wide eyes of the sea gaze almost shyly into yours, you hear the children’s voices, a boy with bare feet runs towards you begging for soldi, a great bare-legged girl of sixteen insolently throws you a flower, the women stop their talk to watch you, the sailors give you greeting, till suddenly you pass out from between the houses, the quays and their various life, the noise and tumult are gone, and before you the great grey lagoon stretches away and away forever … the whole world here is caught in a smiling and serene light, a touch of gold is on the blue and grey of the waters that lap softly or impatiently about your boat as it turns in answer to the oar. As in a dream you glide along the seashore of the Giudecca.<o:p></o:p></span><br /><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-vc1zDBhj8oAXqZbJqmJ4RQDrBEpnLLjJycb-w0gNtM6wEDIOd_VvJ-hulZQdSqxLIBq2qPaCPczdRML17euN6geCr65ewW3Nl6bYsjehyphenhyphenJgxH_ns995V9xY9gY4WwRNH1WnnQ3AEJQ/s1600/69333bf43483d8db3f5641bc10094f94.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1183" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-vc1zDBhj8oAXqZbJqmJ4RQDrBEpnLLjJycb-w0gNtM6wEDIOd_VvJ-hulZQdSqxLIBq2qPaCPczdRML17euN6geCr65ewW3Nl6bYsjehyphenhyphenJgxH_ns995V9xY9gY4WwRNH1WnnQ3AEJQ/s320/69333bf43483d8db3f5641bc10094f94.jpg" width="236" /></a></div><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">###</span></div>Dr. Fhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08469403843869655063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2620932371509147911.post-85898643043938838382023-11-24T06:45:00.000-08:002023-11-24T06:45:19.442-08:00Venice: Three Churches<p> </p><p><br /></p><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif"><i><span style="font-size: large;">Edward Hutton's Venice and Venetia is a guidebook although an extremely well-informed and personal one. He walked and boated throughout the city's sestiere or districts, as well as the nearby islands. He loved the lagoons and the hidden byways but paid particular attention to its many churches. Below are descriptions of three out of the way churches that represent three different eras. *</span> </i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: large;"><b>S. Francesco della Vigna</b><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihOsistNjVPGXcblRIvDV0ce9kH9qWTNSiqQQhPnug5MTugNK67Ca8Xj1mxpA3IRsuPvqcSdSULL-5bvFtPl9LkENyGQa_Kg7VtQNw30AvTqC8U5O-5fG1y7CuuwRlJh-e6I5xo7MWtg/s1600/S.+Francesco+della+Vignante.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="514" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihOsistNjVPGXcblRIvDV0ce9kH9qWTNSiqQQhPnug5MTugNK67Ca8Xj1mxpA3IRsuPvqcSdSULL-5bvFtPl9LkENyGQa_Kg7VtQNw30AvTqC8U5O-5fG1y7CuuwRlJh-e6I5xo7MWtg/w328-h640/S.+Francesco+della+Vignante.jpg" width="328" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">The Franciscans rebuilt it in 1534 with a façade by Palladio, and an interior by Jacopo Sansovino… It contains several fine pictures… but nothing to compare for a moment with the glorious enthroned Madonna by Frat’ Antonio da Negroponte, painted in the middle of the fifteenth century, which hangs in the right transept. This is a masterpiece I would walk many miles to see, and for which I would leave any sacred picture by the later great masters of Venice. It has everything that their works so conspicuously lack, and in every way is what we have learnt in Tuscany to expect an altarpiece of the Madonna to be. It is as though before our eyes the canticle of the Magnificat had become visible, as though in a vision we had seen our hearts’ desire. (102)<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"><b>S. Maria dei Miracoli</b><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi471W5Nli30xc5xmyctsVTgCLruHtogDuUC-5NLzK9EmtDKHzWSJcVURkEfanPdPeKlBcsH62tp1XJe6VtYBW-gdTbk0fgP7er0AslFdjcsB6xmDODZ1TOuvy1-S5zfH4QuztCsxe8hg/s1600/miracoli.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1065" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi471W5Nli30xc5xmyctsVTgCLruHtogDuUC-5NLzK9EmtDKHzWSJcVURkEfanPdPeKlBcsH62tp1XJe6VtYBW-gdTbk0fgP7er0AslFdjcsB6xmDODZ1TOuvy1-S5zfH4QuztCsxe8hg/s400/miracoli.jpg" width="267" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18pt;">... close by at the other end of the Campo stands one of the most beautiful </span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: large;">architectural</span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18pt;"> treasures of the city--I mean the church of S. Maria dei Miracoli. This was built in 1480 by Angelo Amadi, the nephew of Elena Badoer, "the most beautiful Venetian of her day,"who lived close by in this quarter. He built it to receive a picture of the Madonna supposed to be miraculous, which Francesco Amadi, his uncle, the husband of the </span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: large;">beautiful</span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18pt;"> Elena, had painted. </span>...<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 18pt;"> There is no other Renaissance church in Venice to compare with this; both within and without it is altogether lovely, nor can we sufficiently praise its quadrangular domes choir uplifted above the nave, its beautiful ambones, the fine barrel vaulting with its gilded coffers by Girolamo da Treviso, nor the rich marble and carvings with which Pietro Lombardo adorned it.</span><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: large;"> (117)<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-cE21BYt0g5v8CdIGxT8UZ23Ag7sRqtEY4FIkPt_hg6lrkYYoPGLyXVg5bDFx8WvGy03z47kKu3-rBFuPqwcncheql7DbuxA7oOF_zFz_TP-K_xXqPACHXqBZL-77tjD2j7b49K1PZQ/s1600/Miracoli+interior.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="660" data-original-width="522" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-cE21BYt0g5v8CdIGxT8UZ23Ag7sRqtEY4FIkPt_hg6lrkYYoPGLyXVg5bDFx8WvGy03z47kKu3-rBFuPqwcncheql7DbuxA7oOF_zFz_TP-K_xXqPACHXqBZL-77tjD2j7b49K1PZQ/s400/Miracoli+interior.jpg" width="317" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-size: large;">S. Maria dei Miracoli, interior</span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"><b>S. Maria Assunta, or I Gesuiti.</b><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_N0GuAtSoFW49G9jx0oiLMWQIJtobiJhS632MBYa_pQurnm0IRLq_nOdHYi1gMoYAAhKdg8_e3Kpu8mS5XpnuXJ_edJwADKPBnm7-00cIAkGppLwgSY7Q-MR3z-WnfkyZfFEh6f1b5A/s1600/gesuiti.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="993" data-original-width="1081" height="367" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_N0GuAtSoFW49G9jx0oiLMWQIJtobiJhS632MBYa_pQurnm0IRLq_nOdHYi1gMoYAAhKdg8_e3Kpu8mS5XpnuXJ_edJwADKPBnm7-00cIAkGppLwgSY7Q-MR3z-WnfkyZfFEh6f1b5A/s400/gesuiti.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">As one passes along the Fondamenta one presently sees the great statues of the façade of the Church of the Gesuiti up against the sky. It is but a step down a street on the right to the church door. As we see it, the church could, I suppose, have been created by no one but the Jesuits; it is so utterly barbarous in its flaming vulgarity and crude, insolen assurance, its flamboyant splendor. … their society was suppressed in 1773 in Venice and their convent turned into a barracks. They returned, however, in 1844. Like the cancer, to which Cardinal Manning likened them, they are hard to extirpate, yet with perseverance even this will be accomplished, and the church from being a Jesuit sect become once more Catholic. (120)<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">###</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">* Edward Hutton, <i>Venice and Venetia</i>, 1911.</span></div>Dr. Fhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08469403843869655063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2620932371509147911.post-39912835636082715062023-11-17T06:15:00.000-08:002023-11-17T06:15:27.304-08:00Venice: Piazza and Campanile<p><br /></p><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;"><i>I believe it is best to arrive in Venice by train. The view as you exit the station is magnificent. On our first visit my wife and I shared a water taxi with some others down the Grand Canal to the Piazza. It is indescribable but no one has done a better job than Edward Hutton.* </i></span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfKT6VoSx0SE7hsM7IYeBFr-wK4Rw_t6cCesZ6iWIWpfcSnE2aPZMOfOtmFeb8L5zYbAq1wicM_wUZqfzhkXqIEKtj9v5nrB3fNnuZqNrSKFLDPuRvrg9-Iiz7m7mMlyAWCPMRNTkKYg/s1600/Giovanni_Antonio_Canal%252C_il_Canaletto_-_Piazza_San_Marco_-_WGA03883.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="985" data-original-width="1600" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfKT6VoSx0SE7hsM7IYeBFr-wK4Rw_t6cCesZ6iWIWpfcSnE2aPZMOfOtmFeb8L5zYbAq1wicM_wUZqfzhkXqIEKtj9v5nrB3fNnuZqNrSKFLDPuRvrg9-Iiz7m7mMlyAWCPMRNTkKYg/w400-h246/Giovanni_Antonio_Canal%252C_il_Canaletto_-_Piazza_San_Marco_-_WGA03883.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption">Canaletto--Eighteenth Century</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">The Piazza di S. Marco, in fact, is not merely the centre of modern or of medieval Venice; in many ways it is Venice herself. It not only contains the most famous and the most splendid buildings of the city—the Church, the Palace, the Government offices, the Library, the Bell Tower, and the Clock Tower of Venice—but it is the universal meeting place and the principal gateway of the calli, the canals, the lagoons, and the sea. All that is meant by the word Venezia is in truth there summed up and expressed.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">These considerations would lead us to regard it, even though we did not know it, as the most famous Piazza in Italy and in the world; the most famous and perhaps the most beautiful. Not one of the spacious Piazzas we know so well in Rome, in Florence, in Siena, in Milan, or in Naples can be compared with it either for renown or for beauty; and as we tell over their names we have to admit that, after all, they are of no importance beside the Piazza of St. Mark. Even in Rome, where it would seem we might surely expect to find something at least to compare with it, there is, in fact, nothing; for the Piazza of S. Pietro is a mere vestibule to S. Peter’s church, and has very little to do with the life of the city; the Piazza Venezia is only a cul de sac and moreover a ruin, while the Piazza Colonna is just a gap in the Corso, the Piazza di Spagna a wilderness of strangers. There is no Piazza in Rome which may be said to be the centre of the city, or, to sum it up and in fact to stand as a symbol for it in the imagination of mankind, as the Piazza of S. Mark does even today sum up and symbolize Venice. (84-85)</span><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 18pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;"><b> Campanile. </b><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">But the great treasure of the Piazza was the Campanile, which came to so tragic an end in July, 1902…. That tragic day, when the Campanile rather subsided than fell, will never be forgotten by any who witnessed it, The whole of Venice seemed to be assembled in the Piazza, and very many were weeping. Men wrung their hands in frantic helplessness while the noblest tower in Italy sank, as it seemed, into the sea, weary with age. The excavations which were undertaken previous to the rebuilding, now happily nearly completed, and the scientific examination of the debris have shown that it was no insecurity in the foundations that brought the Campanile down, but rather the great old age of the bricks, many of which were little more than dust, blown through and through by the sea wind.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">Happily the Campanile is now practically rebuilt—happily for to think of Venice without the Campanile of S. Mark is to us all almost an impossibility. It was not the Piazza alone that the famous bell-tower dominated, but all Venice across whose silent ways that bell, sounded by the watchman on the summit every quarter of an hour by day and night, seemed like an assurance of safety, of our civilization, of Europe, and our Faith. For it was, of course, first and foremost a belfry, and the great bells, that to some extent doubtless contributed by their vast weight to the fall, were the sweetest and noblest voices in Venice. That belfry that Buono made in 1510 was a beautiful open loggia of four arches on each face, which overlooked all Venice and the islands and might be seen from Asolo; for the height of the tower was very great, 323 feet on a base of 42 square feet. <i>(89-90)</i></span><br /><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb3zBNIiVEKS6pvA-xJXDZU8rn-aEcDBOcSvhOc69wagXG117Clxj8LdqsW9CBAa2TMr2qWwpsUGH1LNNXSzVNiDqsHmfob58T6YYDxDj30T5M9vXqdVl7xicu8RA1PI2qfVP7AEgDOg/s1600/84152206-venice-italy-may-19-2017-piazza-san-marco-or-st-mark-s-square-basilica-and-campanile-di-san-marco-in.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="731" data-original-width="1300" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb3zBNIiVEKS6pvA-xJXDZU8rn-aEcDBOcSvhOc69wagXG117Clxj8LdqsW9CBAa2TMr2qWwpsUGH1LNNXSzVNiDqsHmfob58T6YYDxDj30T5M9vXqdVl7xicu8RA1PI2qfVP7AEgDOg/w400-h226/84152206-venice-italy-may-19-2017-piazza-san-marco-or-st-mark-s-square-basilica-and-campanile-di-san-marco-in.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption">Modern view</td></tr></tbody></table><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">* Edward Hutton: <i>Venice and Venetia</i>, 1911. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">###</span></div>Dr. Fhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08469403843869655063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2620932371509147911.post-65808045689336654712023-11-10T06:34:00.000-08:002023-11-10T06:34:59.197-08:00Venice: S. Marco<p><br /></p><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"><i>In Venice and Venetia Edward Hutton began his exploration of the fabled city and its environs at S. Marco, the incredibly beautiful chapel of the Doges.</i></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7zdLRGlulx1uHPAVw1IKbmIIVYDa_cd7_JjRxYPsrSEN100DNWmmThKw_kpJC0K7J4Om4f3xuS_nHsjiocZygNavPNEyhnTUxECyXHtYBmmD9lZ3ZLAqrA60UStCcZDJn8Iy7Wuv6zA/s1600/basilica-san-marco-reflections-at-night-venice-italy-barry-o-carroll.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="900" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7zdLRGlulx1uHPAVw1IKbmIIVYDa_cd7_JjRxYPsrSEN100DNWmmThKw_kpJC0K7J4Om4f3xuS_nHsjiocZygNavPNEyhnTUxECyXHtYBmmD9lZ3ZLAqrA60UStCcZDJn8Iy7Wuv6zA/w400-h268/basilica-san-marco-reflections-at-night-venice-italy-barry-o-carroll.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">If St. Mark’s strikes us first by the Byzantine character of its architecture, its crowd of domes, the vast width of its façade in comparison with its height, it impresses us next, I think, by its strangely lovely colour, the gold and blue and green and red of the mosaics, colour which changes with every change of the sky, which is one thing in the blaze of a summer morning and quite another on an autumn afternoon after rain, when the sky is still full of cloud and the wind comes in melancholy gusts out of the pale gold of a watery sunset. I do not know under the influence of which sky, or at what hour of the day or of the night the church is most beautiful; I only know it is always beautiful: in the golden summer heat or standing amid the winter snow, or in the spring or late autumn when the Piazza has been flooded by the gale in the Adriatic; but I think I love it best when the sky clears in the evening, after a day of rain in early autumn, when some delicate and pure light has suddenly fallen upon the world, and the great façade seems for a moment to be made of pearl and mother of pearl, to reflect every colour and shadow of a beauty that belongs to the sea….<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">At such an hour in the flagstones of the Piazza, still wet after the day’s rain, the great façade backed by its domes, the flagstaves that stand before it on the pavement, are reflected there as a ship might be at the same mysterious hour to the grey-blue sea; it is as though some vast ship, only by conduct of some star, made her way upon the waters; a ship of pearl in which a thousand vague colours burn and fade and are merged into the grey twilight into the night and it is gone.*<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3Mgn5XWbUF6gg40ubz6hkM5GtvtJwul4DpHmANghQq7sTaOaCDXevpMHZJeiL4ueqRjZ6kv9_9HWjvwJfmA4a4wr3iVIvhd3Tq7A_iV0MrGmAh5JOdcKxckojOCeUx5_CXfrejPGoLeHVyueomVUfiOfuVvU-cF2SK21NQPqdXxj-SYDo8ssPTDSb/s900/Basilica-di-San-Marco-Piazza-San-Marco-Venice-Italy.jpg.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="675" data-original-width="900" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3Mgn5XWbUF6gg40ubz6hkM5GtvtJwul4DpHmANghQq7sTaOaCDXevpMHZJeiL4ueqRjZ6kv9_9HWjvwJfmA4a4wr3iVIvhd3Tq7A_iV0MrGmAh5JOdcKxckojOCeUx5_CXfrejPGoLeHVyueomVUfiOfuVvU-cF2SK21NQPqdXxj-SYDo8ssPTDSb/w400-h300/Basilica-di-San-Marco-Piazza-San-Marco-Venice-Italy.jpg.webp" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: 18pt;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">###<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">*Edward Hutton: <i>Venice and Venetia</i>, 1911, pp. 49-50.</span></div>Dr. Fhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08469403843869655063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2620932371509147911.post-18159405414401534092023-11-03T06:46:00.004-07:002023-11-03T06:46:55.677-07:00Venice: S. Zaccaria Altarpiece<p><i><b> </b><span style="font-family: calibri; font-size: 14pt;"><b>The church of S. Zaccaria in Venice is situated not far behind S. Marco and the Doge's Palace. As Edward Hutton noted it is gloomy inside but when you drop a coin in a box, Giovanni Bellini's masterpiece lights up in dazzling splendor. It is wonderful to see a painting where it was originally meant to be. Notice how Bellini's faux columns match the real columns. Here is Hutton's description</b>.</span></i></p><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpUx_RVpjrAUwv1LdQyeT2LcQhjUM0WoKKt6WHcRCgKmX1gD_ZZNe42SELVNsBYjqCkPbot1h1UqI8zEV7QA20iP8oUMIiKUkHJGmiMn_A1eBHCaxgEsydIIe6XoccC-YpV9uldc58qA/s1600/_San_Zaccaria_%2528Venezia%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1432" data-original-width="800" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpUx_RVpjrAUwv1LdQyeT2LcQhjUM0WoKKt6WHcRCgKmX1gD_ZZNe42SELVNsBYjqCkPbot1h1UqI8zEV7QA20iP8oUMIiKUkHJGmiMn_A1eBHCaxgEsydIIe6XoccC-YpV9uldc58qA/w359-h640/_San_Zaccaria_%2528Venezia%2529.jpg" width="359" /></a></div><span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14pt;"><b><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14pt;"><b><br /></b></span></div>The present church, with its beautiful façade, dates from the fifteenth century, and is a spacious though rather gloomy building. Eight Doges lie therin, but its great treasure is the famous altarpiece by Giovanni Bellini of the Madonna and Child enthroned with four saints. It is one of the finest of his works. Completed in 1505, it is in the new manner which came to Bellini in his age as a new vision of the world, caught perhaps from the enthusiasm of his young disciples, who were to revolutionize painting. Our Lady and the Holy Child are still enthroned in that niche with which we are so familiar, but there is something new in the picture which assures us, as it did Vasari, that it is a work in the “modern” manner. Perhaps we find it in the figure of S. Lucia, who stands on the right of the throne, her fair hair lying all gold across her shoulders, the lighted lamp in her hand, the curved palm branch, too, the sign of her martyrdom. Beside her is S. Jerome, his Bible open before him, the father of monasticism. To the left stand S. Catherine of Alexandria and S. Peter. *</b><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14pt;"><i>###</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14pt;">*Edward Hutton: <i>Venice and Venetia,</i> New York, 1911, p. 96.</span></div>Dr. Fhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08469403843869655063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2620932371509147911.post-7408332008808046712023-10-27T05:44:00.002-07:002023-10-27T05:44:23.128-07:00Venice: Frari<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: medium;"><b><i>At the time Edward Hutton visited S. Maria Gloriosa dei Frari in the first decade of the twentieth century, Titian's Assunta had been removed and placed in the Accademia. Nevertheless, two of the greatest paintings of the Venetian Renaissance were still in place. Here is his description.* </i></b></span><br /><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2pGC7gJfnyQeIeyZPddrKGU54vBAyINxfyCk3G_EY87Ern4pD_jYb-XwSL8qLIOu1MvlWfFx-s8BX5GHGFLqQUCR2D8xVHEolhOCSyyLNd6VELSIFkRcSLUyjhQiAGw9SaDkyav5_Zw/s1600/Bellini+Pesaro_triptych_by_Giovanni_Bellini.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="781" data-original-width="800" height="391" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2pGC7gJfnyQeIeyZPddrKGU54vBAyINxfyCk3G_EY87Ern4pD_jYb-XwSL8qLIOu1MvlWfFx-s8BX5GHGFLqQUCR2D8xVHEolhOCSyyLNd6VELSIFkRcSLUyjhQiAGw9SaDkyav5_Zw/w400-h391/Bellini+Pesaro_triptych_by_Giovanni_Bellini.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption">Giovanni Bellini: Pesaro Altarpiece</td></tr></tbody></table></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">Here, too, stood one of the great treasures of the church, an altarpiece by Giovanni Bellini, painted in 1488, one of the loveliest of his works. It still carries its original Renaissance frame. In the midst is the Blessed virgin, enthroned, with her little Son, standing on her knee. At her feet are two music making angels of pure delight, while on the side panels are four splendid saints on guard—S. Peter, S. Nicholas, S. Paul, and S. Benedict. Nothing that was ever in the church can have been lovelier than this quiet altarpiece. … (134-135)</span></blockquote><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAZaQzWuoLnMMb470S17QXITOlV1tUBQrF3lmhr0ClebzojZYbPGvpSFAULoVxlUEcyD9vpnVUrLRJXttTAQDsEVZUrIvbl6s3VKz7yGTSOjWEjm6Ip7w0lK1DUbQIowkcTNTrLqeE7w/s1600/Titian_Altar_of_Madona_di_Ca%2527Pesaro.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1251" data-original-width="800" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAZaQzWuoLnMMb470S17QXITOlV1tUBQrF3lmhr0ClebzojZYbPGvpSFAULoVxlUEcyD9vpnVUrLRJXttTAQDsEVZUrIvbl6s3VKz7yGTSOjWEjm6Ip7w0lK1DUbQIowkcTNTrLqeE7w/w256-h400/Titian_Altar_of_Madona_di_Ca%2527Pesaro.jpg" width="256" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">Titian" Pesaro Atarpiece</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"> </span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">The great and beautiful thing which recalls us to this aisle of the Frari again and again is Titian’s famous Madonna del Pesaro….</span><span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">Under a vast and beautiful Renaissance arch, through which we see a great sky full of snow-white clouds, between two mighty pillars, the Madonna sits enthroned, her little Son standing on her knee laughing with and blessing S. Francis, behind whom is S. Anthony. Bending a little to her right, Madonna holds her child with both hands gently, firmly, and receives the homage of Bishop Jacopo, who is introduced by S. Peter, beyond whom a bearded warrior, leading a Turk and a Moor in chains, uprears the standard of the Borgia. On the right of the picture beneath S. Francis kneel the family of the Bishop, three old men, perhaps his brothers, a youth, and a fair-haired child who gazes sweetly out of the canvas, while above one of those great white clouds has sailed into the great portico across the height of the pillars, and upon it, like children on a toy ship, are two winged angelini bearing the cross. I suppose there is no other work of Titian in Venice which is so consummate a work of art or so wonderfully original a composition as this. Its humanity and quietness, the beauty of its colour too, its inexhaustible perfection are the chief reasons why one continually returns to the Frari. (134-137)</span></span></span></blockquote>### </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><div style="font-family: cambria;">Edward Hutton, <b><i>Venice and Venetia, </i></b>London, third edition, 1929, first published 1911.</div><div style="font-family: cambria;"><br /></div><b><i>* The Assunta is now in its rightful place above the main altar. It had been removed to the Academmia in 1816 but restored to the Frari in 1916. Its 21 panels measuring 690 x 360 cm were restored in 1994.</i></b></div>Dr. Fhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08469403843869655063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2620932371509147911.post-71041474252934067142023-10-20T06:38:00.004-07:002023-10-20T06:38:44.292-07:00Venice: Tintoretto's Paradise.<p><i> </i><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: x-large;"><i>On his visit to the Doge's palace Edward Hutton saw Tintoretto's Paradise but expressed his disappointment.</i> *</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcgOx7ulAA5AAe3p3ILNep1pqYcyr4_L3mUiUnbE3XHRSUqvCYLW_nMclTSRQcz9_x3PZBOFb9oWiIHxLX8mkSFRgddLKxlu0SC9aTicmNFpOic7F4HbWZ-bL-p1mJUcRFI1ETNHusbw/s1600/tintoretto4-e1536704689141.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="444" data-original-width="720" height="394" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcgOx7ulAA5AAe3p3ILNep1pqYcyr4_L3mUiUnbE3XHRSUqvCYLW_nMclTSRQcz9_x3PZBOFb9oWiIHxLX8mkSFRgddLKxlu0SC9aTicmNFpOic7F4HbWZ-bL-p1mJUcRFI1ETNHusbw/w640-h394/tintoretto4-e1536704689141.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">I confess at once that while in the Antecollegio Tintoretto seems to me to be one of the great painters in the world, a true poet and creator of beauty, here I am altogether at a loss. The vast canvas, almost black and altogether without order or arrangement in its composition, means absolutely nothing to me, it moves me not at all, I get from it no pleasure, nor do I understand it…. For others this picture may be, as I gather it was for Ruskin, a profound revelation of beauty and joy. Me it cannot affect. I am, let me confess it, merely confused and tired by its dim ocean of figures… and if this be Heaven I had looked for a happier place and one full of light. Who for a moment would exchange this our dear world for that far ocean of murky gloom? Let us go to the great window and standing there look at the sunlight lying on the city, the dancing waves of the lagoon, the happy morning joyful along the Schiavone, the shady trees of the gardens, the adventurous Fortuna, the cold magnificent Salute, the joy of S. Giorgio of the rosy tower, the life of the ships at the Zattere quays, the ways of the little people in the Piazzeta. Is not this a heaven of heavens in comparison with that solemn black chaos within doors?—that pretentious and prideful study in anatomy and movement that has no thought at all of anything in the world or above it save the wonderful capacity of Messer Jacopo Tintoretto? Yet he is but typical of them all. After the Bellini Venice neve possessed a religious painter. Not one of them all, even the greatest, Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese, is anything but a mediocrity beside Angelico, or Gentile da Fabriano, or Sassetta, or half a dozen Sienese I could name.<i> **</i><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"><i>###</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 18pt;"><i>* I can certainly understand his feelings. Often, I have stood in Museums in Italy and elsewhere and preferred to turn my eyes from the masterpieces on the walls to look our the windows at the scenery. The view from the Uffizi in Florence is one example, as is the view from the Ca' Doro in Venice.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;">**Edward Hutton, <b><i>Venice and Venetia, </i></b>London, third edition, 1929, first published 1911, p. 82. </div>Dr. Fhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08469403843869655063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2620932371509147911.post-1338150802075131152023-10-13T07:34:00.003-07:002023-10-13T07:34:38.462-07:00Edward Hutton: Venetian Renaissance<p> </p><p><br /></p><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i>Below find Edward Hutton's thoughts on Giorgione and other great painters of the Venetian Renaissance. The </i></span><i>painting he refers to as the soldier and the gypsy is usually called The Tempest but I believe its <a href="https://giorgionetempesta.blogspot.com/2023/02/giorgione-tempest.html">subject</a> is the Rest of the Holy Family on the Flight into Egypt.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmKVBb3TVdiFWN3wM_iXdQXUdZZ_6niLmPg0hV3HG2ctKDwkYnkzr859VAiAuoFlaP_8iIBDwuyAXZJagyPcRZaeVeyiru5_Qr4o6Pck21X0j_vIyaIJgvtkRRfPDqnalYvcchr88cj8lmdGl60RBlFbM9SFEdSf8dN7TqI0JN4i6wMcBILXvp0pZN/s1300/Venice-iPiazzamay-19-2017-piazza-san-marco-or-st-mark-s-square-basilica-and-campanile-di-san-marco-in.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="731" data-original-width="1300" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmKVBb3TVdiFWN3wM_iXdQXUdZZ_6niLmPg0hV3HG2ctKDwkYnkzr859VAiAuoFlaP_8iIBDwuyAXZJagyPcRZaeVeyiru5_Qr4o6Pck21X0j_vIyaIJgvtkRRfPDqnalYvcchr88cj8lmdGl60RBlFbM9SFEdSf8dN7TqI0JN4i6wMcBILXvp0pZN/w400-h225/Venice-iPiazzamay-19-2017-piazza-san-marco-or-st-mark-s-square-basilica-and-campanile-di-san-marco-in.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><i><br /></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">For the truth is that Giorgione, Titian, and Tintoretto are each an absolutely new impulse in painting. Fundamentally they owe nothing, accidentally even very little, to their predecessors; and if, as we have said, Titian and Tintoretto were able to find full expression because of the work of Giorgione, it is only in the way that Shakespeare and Milton may be said to owe something… to Spencer;… the work of Giorgione, Titian, and Tintoretto are absolutely new things in the world, the result of a new impulse and a new vision, individual and personal to the last degree, owing little to any school and making little of tradition. (149)<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-JG1W1Zyp00fX9K_m-i0yBrWsFOEXf05RfqE1BG89enRo5bi8JZ83hkDi_XRRr03-L0wbQCTLpoWysU9ienJHHylVtqaU1yeCLFHgwYnk3IZGjSXJJ4YOl0930HB5GGs029KvDmtw7g/s1600/gio+tempesta.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="860" data-original-width="770" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-JG1W1Zyp00fX9K_m-i0yBrWsFOEXf05RfqE1BG89enRo5bi8JZ83hkDi_XRRr03-L0wbQCTLpoWysU9ienJHHylVtqaU1yeCLFHgwYnk3IZGjSXJJ4YOl0930HB5GGs029KvDmtw7g/s320/gio+tempesta.jpg" width="287" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">Giorgione: Tempest</span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">For with Giorgione (1478-1510), the pupil of Giovanni Bellini…we have a new creation in Art; he is the first painter of the true “easel picture,” the picture which is neither painted for church nor to adorn a great public hall, but to hang on the wall of a room in a private house for the delight of the owner. For Giorgione the individual exists, and it is for him, for the most part, he works, and thus stands on the threshold of the modern world…. In these short thirty-two years, however, he found time to re-create Venetian painting, to return it to its origins, and to make the career of his great fellow-pupil, Titian, whom he may be said to have formed, possible. ... (160)<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"> It is almost the same with the Gipsy and the Soldier of Prince Giovanelli, only there, I think, anyone who has ever doubted that Giorgione was born at Castelfranco has his answer, for it is that little towered city beside the Musone that we see in the background, under that gathering storm sweeping down from the hills. (233)<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7ewgAcTCgVVYi2_HZfKmfb4sndubcwrCnZDGTUFe2-M2Ip4ot3JGzUpK1OS0xFJFdiMdPmwwJf5dsz0VR3ARDWe-_C6K5_onmMWl4ZM-RfSsbzYIISXClnlAnRjixt4g27KZLTp_8vw/s1600/Giorgio+castelfranco-madonna-1505%25282%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1225" data-original-width="900" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7ewgAcTCgVVYi2_HZfKmfb4sndubcwrCnZDGTUFe2-M2Ip4ot3JGzUpK1OS0xFJFdiMdPmwwJf5dsz0VR3ARDWe-_C6K5_onmMWl4ZM-RfSsbzYIISXClnlAnRjixt4g27KZLTp_8vw/s320/Giorgio+castelfranco-madonna-1505%25282%2529.jpg" width="236" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"> [Castelfranco] This little city…is the happy possessor of what will ever remain, I suppose, the work that is most certainly his very own—I mean the altarpiece of the Madonna enthroned with her little Son between S. Francis and S. Liberale. This glorious picture…is one of the very few Venetian pictures…which possess that serenity and peace, something in truth spellbound, that is necessary to and helps to make what I may call a religious picture. For something must be added to beauty, something must be added to art, to achieve that end which Perugino seems to have reached so easily, and which almost every Sienese painter knew by instinct how to attain. That quality is serenity, the something spellbound we find here. And Giorgione is the last Venetian master to possess that secret.</span><span face="Verdana, sans-serif"><span> Is it not the same in music? God forbid that I should claim that Palestrina is a greater master than Mozart, any more than I should claim that Giorgione is greater than Titian. It remains, however, that just as Giorgione, the Sienese and Perugino, to name no others, attained to this effect, while Titian, Tintoretto, Michelangelo, and a host of very great masters</span><span> </span><span> </span><span>could not, so Palestrina, Byrd, and di Lasso could achieve it, yet Mozart, Beethoven, and the rest never once in all their work--something has gone out of the world of which we are ignorant, only we miss it more and more in looking back on the beauty that was in the hearts of our fathers. (233-234)</span></span><br /></span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"><i><br /></i></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><i><span style="font-family: verdana;">###</span> </i></span></span><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 18pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.25in;">*Edward Hutton, <b><i>Venice and Venetia, </i></b>London, third edition, 1929, first published 1911. </div>Dr. Fhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08469403843869655063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2620932371509147911.post-36224482970083518752023-10-06T06:40:00.001-07:002023-10-06T06:40:36.366-07:00Venice: Giorgione's Tempest<p> <span style="font-size: large; text-align: center;">I first saw Giorgione's</span><span style="font-size: large; text-align: center;"> </span><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><i style="text-align: center;"><b>Tempest</b></i><span style="text-align: center;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: large; text-align: center;">in 2005 in Edward Hutton's book,</span><span style="font-size: large; text-align: center;"> </span><i style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;">Venice and Venetia</span></i><span style="font-size: large; text-align: center;">, originally published in 1911. Below is his beautiful and imaginative description of Giorgione's mysterious painting as he saw it in the Palazzo Giovanelli before its acquisition by the Italian state. He was describing the art treasures of the palace. Few can match his descriptive powers but I disagree with him on the subject of this painting. See note below. *</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGgc7OA68mkp66HuxjFhnIlEVKe9rk50OljyNWpcKCz2N0yPONbwcKUYcdLEL5EEWkcf0jPFAf3vwu1nxz2lLm_pEz8IWb8CHqZDVvidUdRITPfAkdLQH2ixhs5-Ped6I-Sw6Opplhmg/s400/tempest-giorgione-1508.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="355" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption">Giorgione: The Tempest<br />Accademia, Venice </td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGgc7OA68mkp66HuxjFhnIlEVKe9rk50OljyNWpcKCz2N0yPONbwcKUYcdLEL5EEWkcf0jPFAf3vwu1nxz2lLm_pEz8IWb8CHqZDVvidUdRITPfAkdLQH2ixhs5-Ped6I-Sw6Opplhmg/s1600/tempest-giorgione-1508.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"></span></a></div><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">Undoubtedly the greatest of these is a picture by Georgione, which has passed under various names--the Family of Georgione, or simply the Gipsy and the soldier--and which in itself sums up all that we mean by the Georgionesque in painting. There we see, in a delicious landscape of green and shady valley, of stream and ruin and towered country town, a woman nude but for a cape about her shoulders giving her breast to her child in the shadow of the trees by a quiet stream. On the other side of this jewelled brook a young man like a soldier--or is it a shepherd? --stands resting on a great lance or crook and seems to converse with her. Close by are the ruins of some classical building overgrown by moss and lichen and half hidden in the trees, and not far off up the stream in the sunset we see the towers and walls and roofs and domes of a little town with its bridge across the stream leading to the great old fortified gate of the place. But what chiefly attracts us in the work is something new we find there, an air of golden reality, something dreamlike too, though and wholly of this our world, an air of music which seems to come to us from the noise of the brook or the summer wind in the trees, or the evening bells that from far-off we seem to hear ring Ave Maria. One of the golden moments of life has been caught here for ever and perfectly expressed. Heaven, it seems, the kingdom of Heaven, is really to be found in our midst, and Giorgione has contrived a miracle the direct opposite of that of Angelico; for he found all the flowers of Tuscany and the byways of the world in far off Paradise, but Georgione has found Paradise itself here in our world. And we must remember that such a work as this was the true invention of Georgione. Before him there was nothing but church pictures. It is to him we owe these pieces which have nothing directly to do with religion, that were painted to light up the rooms we live in, to bring the sun, if you will, into a cabinet and all the sunset and the quiet out-of-doors into a rich man's study. Here, in truth, we have humanism and its essence, and for once perfectly understood and expressed. **</span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">###</span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span>** Edward Hutton, <i>Venice and Venetia,</i> New York, 1911, p. 121-122.<br /><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">*Note: Giorgione: <i>La Tempesta</i>. In the fall of 2005 I interpreted the subject of the <i>Tempest </i>as “The Rest on the Flight into Egypt.” In this interpretation all the major elements in the painting are identified. The nude woman nursing an infant is the Madonna. The man standing at the left, functioning as an “interlocutor”. is St. Joseph with his traditional staff. The broken columns are commonplace in depictions of the “Rest on the Flight into Egypt.” The city in the background is Judea from where the Holy Family has fled but could also be equated with Padua during the Cambrai war. The scraggly plant in the foreground is identified as a “belladonna” a plant associated with witchcraft and the Devil. Even the bird on the distant rooftop is shown to be derived from a famous Psalm. A short essay was published in the Masterpiece column of the Wall St. Journal in May, 2006. The<a href="https://www.academia.edu/45012201/Giorgiones_Tempest_The_Rest_on_the_Flight_into_Egypt"> full paper</a> can be found on academia.edu.</span><div><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span></div><div><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">** Edward Hutton, <i>Venice and Venetia,</i> New York, 1911, p. 121-122.</span></div>Dr. Fhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08469403843869655063noreply@blogger.com0