display font (13. 761)

Though the lapidary angle is a bit of a red herring—still a useful heuristic as the idea occurred to the author whilst strolling through a cemetery, a profound and timeless repository of typefaces and fashion conserved and preserved better than the ephemera of an age, wondering at the lack of a certain kind of popular letterform ornament and how the inscriptions on the gravestones might look in that style—we enjoyed very much learning about Tuscan Letters, courtesy of Language Hat. Properly a special subcategory of what’s called a reverse-contrast or reverse-stress typeface or custom lettering (called Italienne auf Deutsch), where horizontal lines are more prominent over the usual balance or emphasis with vertical strokes for text that stands out—due to printing slugs mimicking script as written by right-handed scribes with a quill making the up-down marks relatively heavier, no one is certain how the toponym figures into typography—some theorising it was an invention of Victorian font foundries to evoke the cultured language and literature (see previously) of that region and lend an element of classicism despite no examples of the ornate, steroidal serifs that we recognise and associate with circuses and side-shows and the Wild West. Click through for a gallery of historic billboards and signage, with local vernacular, of the decorative family of fonts.

synchronoptica

one year ago: courts challenge legality of Trump’s tariff scheme (with synchronoptica), redevelopment plans for Gaza plus the geometrical property of rupertness

two years ago: union label plus assorted links worth the revisit 

three years ago: anthropomorphised food mascots plus twenty-plus years of badgers

four years ago: a misquoted rebuttal, a banger from Madonna plus more links to enjoy

five years ago: your daily demon plus the Battle of Actium (31 BCE)

six years ago: even more links, vaccine development efforts at cross-purposes, Stuttgart’s transit map plus scandal for the Scots language version of Wikipedia 

splendor solis (13. 751)

The earliest version of the illuminated manuscript appearing in Augsburg around 1530, the alchemical guide with allegorical instructions on transmutational experiments is attributed to legendary Renaissance natural philosopher Salomon Trismosin and features rich illustrations by Albrecht Dürer, Lucas Cranach and Hans Holbein with a format comparable to a book of hours. According to the author’s own lore as laid out in a brief autobiography in a second volume attributed to him, Aureum Vellus (the Golden Parchment), Trismosin set out on a quest to find the true Philosopher’s Stone after observing a miner called Flocker transform lead into gold but took the secret to his grave. Encountering only charlatans during his search, Trismosin finally met a genuine alchemist in Venice, a fellow German seeker called Tauler, who taught him the rudiments of preparing the Stein der Weisen (Lapis philosophorum). Producing precious metals, however, was a rather basic trick when it came to wielding its power, which was said to be able to imbue bodily rejuvenation as the panacea or even immortality, and Trismosin is said to have then travelled East to unlock its further secrets. Early Renaissance surgeon Paracelsus encountered Trismosin in Constantinople where he was mentored in the arts of alchemy himself. The text does not contain the recipe but rather the process of discovery that one has to be willing to submit to comprehend humanity’s place in the natural world—the symbolism of the imagery is unknown, perhaps lost on us novices—but may, read with the text provide a key to esoteric alchemical reaction. Much more from Open Culture at the link above—which although most appreciative of the introduction, the way on the main page it bleeds into the previous article about how AI companies are buying and shredding antique books without a break gave us a little scare that The Splendour of the Sun had already been consigned to the woodchipper as well.

day one-hundred forty-one (13. 649)

Dragged into the next forever war, the UN chief and Chinese government sounds alarm over the situation quickly escalating out of control. After the thirteenth consecutive night of raids on Iran, Trump threatens that a “massive attack” is coming soon plus consequences for the Houthi rebels for blocking the Bab al-Mandab strait. Tehran declares states outside of the Middle East hosting US military in Europe and the UK to be legitimate targets. After consulting with his police force, Mamdani concedes that as mayor, he cannot apprehend the Israeli leader should he visit New York, but expresses hope that the US will enforce the International Criminal Court arrest warrant. Washington says that as part of its nuclear deal, Riyadh must recognise Tel Aviv and establish diplomatic relations.

day one-hundred ten (13. 531)

After increasingly deadly clashes in the wake of the US-Iranian truce that threatened to sabotage the peace settlement before talks (postponed with the US vice president delaying his departure to Switzerland, despite proclaiming that the sixty-day period for negotiations had started) could even begin, Hezbollah and the IDF declare a ceasefire. The term made increasingly Orwellian in practise, we will see if it plays out like the ceasefire arrangement in Gaza, the opposite of an armistice that’s seen a thousand Palestinian deaths and the population squeezed into a smaller and smaller area as Israel occupation expands. Ukrainian forces launch a retaliatory drone attack on Moscow, the largest yet during the four year conflict, aim to bring the realities of war to the home-front for the Russian people. Trump, messy drama queen that he is, scripts his own Italian soap-opera, claiming that Giorgia Meloni begged him for a picture together on the sidelines of the G7 summit. The prime minister called out his made up story and cancelled a trip to America scheduled for her foreign minister. Tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz surges, from a trickle to approaching a quarter of pre-war crossings. The MOU stipulates that Iran will keep the waterway open to all for a thirty-day period in order to clear the backlog of ships stranded, but leaves open the possibility to impose tolls or restrict certain vessels flying under the flag of enemies in the future. Quite a few other significant concessions to Tehran are emerging, amplified by Trump’s attempts to defend his grand deal—claiming without him Israel wouldn’t exist and he saved the world economy from sliding into a depression. The Supreme Leader says the settlement was reached out of desperation and panic in Washington.

corti (13. 477)

 

Traveling on inland to Haute Corsica, we drove through the dramatic and picturesque Restonica valley with the reservoir of Calacuccia to the island’s centre and explored the city of Corte (Corti), which under the leadership of statesman and resistance fighter Pasquale Paoli led the independence movement first from the Genoese and later the French, was the capital of the free republic from 1755 to 1769. The desire for self-determination has not fade in the ensuing centuries, evinced by the defaced, blacking out the French spelling of place names, and bullet-ridden roadsigns not a protest to over-tourism (though I suspect that might be a factor, with some of the traffic snarls encountered) and nationalist symbols and regular demonstrations at Paoli’s namesake university, and after the French takeover, the Corsican patriot was exiled to Britain, becoming rather a cause célèbre.

After the French Revolution, which Paoli initially supported until realising that the Bonapartes and their compatriots were devising a restoration and more of the same, and helped establish the short lived client state of the Anglo-Corsican Kingdom (Riame anglu-corsu) under George III but was unable to prevent French reoccupation. A young Napoleon, member of the national guard and supporter of Corsican autonomy, idolised Paoli, but the affection was not mutual, seeing them, Napoleon’s father, Carlo Maria, an attorney from Ajaccio, had briefly served with Paoli in the resistance but changed sides to become a collaborator, as opportunists and untrustworthy. During the father’s time in Corti, Napoleon’s eldest brother, Ghjuseppe Bonaparte, was born—who trained also as a lawyer used his position within the revolutionary government of the First Republic to incite the Coup d’Ètat of 18 Brumaire, Year VIII, and install his sibling as chief consul—eventually leading to his coronation as Emperor of the French. As a consolation prize for being as over as the first born, Joseph was elevated to the rank of King of Naples and Sicily—much to the irritation of the dethroned incumbents—and later King of Spain and the Indies. Whereas Giuseppe I was able to court the elites in Italy, Jose I was deeply despised by his Spanish subjects who called him Pepe Botella (Joe Bottle) for his reputation for being a bad drunk, eventually revolting.

 

After the Battle of Leipzig and Waterloo, Joseph styled himself as Comte de Survilliers (the count of a small town northeast of Paris) and moved to Bordentown New Jersey, commissioning the estate Point Breeze in 1816, at the time, the largest residence in North America. The city was a beautiful jumble of ancient houses, ramparts and a belvedere overlooking the Renaissance era citadel—again built by Genovese occupiers—and the inhabitants, the Curtinesi, were friendly and welcoming. 

 

According to legend, the city was founded by a Trojan knight, choosing a spot in the middle of the island to maintain his authority over local tenant lords. Corsica came under the vassalage of the Roman Empire during the Punic Wars, the imperial forces routing the armies of the natives and Carthage during a territorial dispute. In the seventh century, it was taken by the Saracens. Genoa intervenes in the fourteenth century to drive out the Moors (remind me, we need to talk about Maurice) and with brief but multiple periods of ecclesiastical rule by local bishops the entire island comes under control of governors appointed by the Doge in 1511.

date::italy (13. 467)

Via Quantum of Sollazo, we enjoyed this addendum (see previously) to close gaps in historical records between New Style and Old Style and calibrate, synchronise dates matched to when different regions adopted the Gregorian calendar, a switch very unevenly distributed. Whilst most retroactive record keeping has a certain degree of tolerance for approximation, the advent of Julian days, a cyclical count whose current epoch started at noon, New Year’s Day 4713 BCE, a event unrecorded by any contemporary chroniclers we assume, with the alignment of the twenty eight year solar cycle, the nineteen year lunar cycle and the fifteen year indication cycle of Roman tax re-assessments, imposting, used until the Renaissance to date documents. The title function adjusts the day count to reflect when Catholic Europe had taken up the new standard, with England and its colonies changing over later, to convert from the civil calendar, the non-Julian Day date to a universal, effectively linear one—like the latter secular innovation of a star date, though the useful fiction has no consistent reckoning. Just one year after the adoption of the Gregorian calendar, in order to synchronise events not only with the Protestant world but also to bring Persian and Egyptian history into the fold, chronologically underrepresented, Franco-Italian Calvinist polymath Josephus Justus Scaliger (confusingly known as Giuseppe Giusto de la Scala outside of Anglophone circles) advocated for the date count, divorced from reign or religion and predating any written historic records, now some six thousand years hence, also confusingly not named for the just deposed calendar calendar nor its namesake but rather in honour of his father, fellow scholar Julius Caesar Scaliger, whom was christened after the first Roman emperor.

calvi (13. 464)

Though realising soon after arriving that the winding roads with their hairpin turns, shared by caravans, lorries, local traffic, cyclists, sheep, cows and goats alike, it took some acclimation to truly appreciate that we were not able to easily hop from location to location on the island as the safe maximum speed for most stretches of roadway along the coast was a careful and deferential thirty kilometres an hour—the speed limit was eighty but we witnessed no such attempts and were not about to try ourselves. What looked like a short excursion on the map was an all day affair, but no matter as their were plenty of sites near the campsite that required little travel and enjoyed the trip and destination of Calvi very much. The twelfth century stronghold was established with it citadel by the Genoese and successfully repelled incursions by the French and Turks before falling to Barbary pirates in the mid-sixteenth century by continued to be stronghold of support for the Republic.

During the French Revolutionary wars with Britain, Horatio Nelson captured the city with the help of Corsican nationalists—the battle which cost the admiral an eye. Calvi’s most famous son, supposedly at least since like Charlemagne he is claimed by several modern countries though nowadays it might be preferable to disown him, is Christopher Columbus—scholars are uncertain however and the bulk of the argument seems to lie in the fact that the explorer would have masked his birthplace because of the town’s subversive reputation.

We returned to the campsite late in the day, having travelled through the wine-growing region of the island.

 

storia di un burattio (13. 415)

Originally a satirist poking fun at the Italian state of disunity and fractured governance, that is until his newspaper, Il Lampione, was censored at shutdown by the Grand Duke of Tuscany after the Italian Wars of Independence, Carlo Collodi turned to authoring children’s stories as the newly unified Italian state was subsidising school readers and the commissions, now serialised in another publication he founded in 1853, Lo Scaramuccia, provided a steady source of income whilst also being a vehicle for continued lampooning under cover of allegory. Pinocchio, originally published in fifteen instalments ending in 1881 with the puppet dead, strung up in the branches of an oak tree, by Fox and Cat—far weirder than the Disney version and akin to a more classical fairy tale with his cricket conscious killed with a hammer by his own hand but returning as a Force ghost, the puppet’s feet burned away, the transformed protagonist in asinine form, injured and rendered useless to his owner, drowned, devoured by a shark, disgorged and skinned so his hide can be used to fashion a drum, the corpse Blue Fairy, etc, etc—and fine. Due to overwhelming demand by his readership, Collodi is compelled to continue the story with more volumes. Whilst united, only a small vanishingly small percentage of the population spoke standard Italian, the diglossia of dialects mutually unintelligible, Pinocchio written in the language of the central region of Toscana and championed as the standard, with simple sentence structure and vocabulary, widely popular and accessible, the motivation behind commissioning children’s reading material, helped to a large and under-appreciated extent to create a common tongue.

day sixty-two (13. 395)

As Trump argues that the war powers resolution up for debate in congress as the conflict enters its second month and sixty day deadline for re-authorisation from the legislature is an unconstitutional check on his powers, the US president elaborates and expounds on his call for removal and redeployment of US troops from bases in Germany, citing five thousand. NATO is seeking an explanation as warnings come for Spain and Italy for their reluctance.

Someone should remind him—or not—that it was Obama who closed the bases in Heidelberg, Würzburg, Bamberg and Schweinfurt. Trump also adds it is treasonous to suggest that America is not winning. US marine corps personnel associates complain of threatening text messages from the supposedly eliminated Iranian navy Meanwhile with tacit confirmation that the new Ayatollah was injured and disfigured in the attack at the beginning of the fighting that killed his extended family, the supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei reasserts his control, calling Iran a military power to be reckoned with in a Labour Day (also defiantly, Teachers’ Day) message. Despite the ceasefire, more die in Lebanon as collateral from Israeli strikes on Hezbollah targets.

synchronoptica

one year ago: a return to the Tauber river valley (with synchronopticæ)

twelve years ago: more calendric conventions 

thirteen years ago: axis mundi plus a paperback library

fourteen years ago: US-German relations plus May Day vs Americanization Day 

sixteen years ago: returning from Istanbul 

9x9 (13. 350)

reference desk: harness Google’s secret card catalog—via Kottke  

nitrate divas: a remarkable 1928 amateur film adaptation of Edgar Allen Poe short story “The Fall of the House of Usher” 

📍: a Scrabble Map commissioned for the word play game’s (previously) international commemoration, celebrated yesterday  

middle powers: Carney’s Liberal Party secures supermajority in parliamentary special elections  

print gallery of an artist: an MC Escherque exploration of recursive spaces—via Waxy 

infallibilità papale: ally Meloni (previously) breaks with Trump over criticism of Pope, cancels security arrangement with Israel  

dutch cartocubism: an overlooked approach to simplify mapping from the early 1930s from the figures behind ISOTYPE—via Quantum of Sollazzo—see also  

connie converse: rediscovering the forgotten folk-music genius 

огас: the 1960s proto-internet that the Soviet Union passed on—see previously

5x5 (13. 280)

north oaks: mapping the wealthy Minnesota exclave that has remained virtually unmapped due to the way the municipality defines easement and public property

wikicity: the free encyclopaedia visualised as a three-dimensional metropolis of connected apartments to explore its densest articles—via Web Curios  

 

the way of the warrior: legendary action movie star Chuck Norris passes away unexpectedly, aged 86  

centuripe: viewed from above, this Sicilian village looks like a human figure  

border jumper: this cat does not care about your international boundaries

città dei coralli (13. 259)

Via fellow internet caretaker, Messy Nessy Chic (lots more to discover there), we are introduced to the ancient art of coral-working perfected in the north-western Sicilian coastal city of Trepani. Embellished with jewels and precious metals, this craft was very much en vogue during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries following the rediscovery of reefs off the port in the Mediterranean and masters created vignettes as devotional and decorative items and as tribute for the aristocracy. The tradition continues with jewellery and figural tableaux like Nativity scenes by a new generation that have revived the art using the old tools of the trade for working the coral but with more of an eye towards conservation rather than exploitation of the maritime environment.  Much more to explore at the links above.

dem bones (13. 238)

Via Strange Company, we given and chance to revisit one of the most celebrated and revered figures in the Catholic church in St Francis of Assisi, with those in the Umbria region having the chance to see the patron of peace, animals, ecology and needleworkers’ up close and personally with his mortal remains on display for the first time after eight centuries. It was owning to the popularity of Francis and his following that when the saint died in 1226, his body was laid to rest in a simple wooden coffin inside an iron cage, buried deep beneath the foundations of the basilica of Assisi for safekeeping from relic-hunters, its whereabouts unknown for some six hundred years until it was excavated in the early nineteenth century. Though an underground chapel was constructed shortly afterwards for pilgrims to visit the tomb, no relics were present, the bones preserved separately. Now, however, in the year anniversary of his transitus (passing from death to life, something only accorded to the deified and sainted until the rapture) will be on display in the minor papal basilica and friary, the foundation stones laid in the saint’s honour for his canonisation, just two years after his death. Much more at the links above.

11x11 (13. 159)

que rico ser latino: staging Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl half-time celebration  

coed darcy village: a building project on the brownfield site of a former Welsh mine abandoned without explanation—via Things Magazine 

printing films: vintage educational and instructional shorts on typesetting and the publishing industry—via Kottke  

as slow as possible: anticipating the next chord change after almost two years for the organ in a church in Haberstadt playing six-hundred year John Cage (see previously) composition  

wseg-10: with nuclear treaties lapsed and the US retrofitting obsolete silos, an interactive map showing areas of the US most likely to be affected by an atomic exchange 

material worlds: revisiting architecture Bruce Goff and his homespun futurism through a new retrospective exhibit—via Nag on the Lake  

lawful neutral: Jeremy Bentham’s 1817 categorical table of human impulse as an early form of alignment chart 

pitchforks: San Francisco’s pro-billionaire march turns out as a bust  

tangible media: a collection of data one can hold 

hagyomány, identitás, történelemthe: mysterious Rohonc Codex that has resisted decipherment—see also  

viva italiano: Winter Games opening ceremony was a celebration of the host country’s cultural icons—including Bialetti’s Moka Express

model village (13. 126)

Via the Blört Everlasting and Present /&/ Correct, we are directed towards the imaginary town of an “unconscious architect” in the papercraft district made by Peter Fritz, an Austrian insurance clerk reconstructing buildings from his home town from memory, running the range of every typology encountered from the residential to utilitarian as a pastiche of vernacular styles during the 1950s and 1960s. This all but anonymous collection of nearly four hundred structures was found a charity shop and exhibited at the 2013 Venice Biennale by Vienna-based artist Croy Nielsen, fine examples of the venue’s theme of an encyclopaedic palace. Much more at the links above.

synchronoptica

one year ago: deferred resignation programme (with synchronopticæ) plus who goes MAGA?

twelve years ago: crypto and money laundering, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership plus Dr Strangelove 

fourteen years ago: movie posters from a parallel universe plus botanical nomenclature

fifteen years ago: optical effects 

sixteen years ago: smoke-free workplaces 

achivio grafica italiana (13. 123)

 

Via Kottke, we are referred to this remarkable reference source dedicated to the entire rich heritage of Italian typography and graphic design. This growing collection, each specimen and exhibit curated and given context—like the pictured book jacket for Edizioni Politiche covering the fight for equity in pay and labour conditions of African Americans, is the personal project of Nicola-Matteo Munari, partnered with Designculture and has been adding accessions since 2015. There’s a lot of works by Massimo Vignelli and from the Olivetti studio workshop to discover plus countless other artists to adopt and champion, like Italo Lupi with this commission for a chakra calendar, that may have been just under one’s radar. 

 

dateline (13. 090)

On this day in 1609—with some evidence that the periodical was in circulation already for four years—the first newspaper in Germany and among the first worldwide was published, Avisa Relation oder Zeitung, by printer Julius Adolph von Söhne in Wolfenbüttel (also the home of the Jägermeister distillery) in Niedersachsen with the issue carrying developments and happenings from various countries up-to-date (see also), with the presumption it went out then. The French daily of record Le Figaro was first distributed on this day as well in 1826, named for the Beaumarchais character from Le Mariage de Figaro with a line from his closing monologue “Sans la liberté de blâmer, il’nest point d’éloge flatteur”—without freedom to criticise, there is no room for praise. The first issue of of the journal Genootskap van Regte Afrikaners later to become the Paarl gazette was published in as the first periodical in Afrikaans language in 1876. The leading news agency and wire-service of Italy, Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Associata (ANSA) was also founded today in 1945 by a consortium of the resistance to Mussolini’s fascist regime.

troppo paradiso nelle loro menti (13. 026)

Via Laughing Squid, we are introduced to the musical stylings of the talented Italian guitar quartet 40 Fingers with this moody, acoustic rendition of the overture from Jesus Christ Superstar, the Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice rock opera—with an absolutely brilliant arrangement (see previously—Silent Night was originally a guitar piece as well). The band’s biggest viral moment yet was a cover of “Bohemian Rhapsody” and have taken a particular interest in film scores.

sessomatto (13. 015)

Whilst unable to give a full-throated endorsement to the Italian erotic anthology film by Dino Risi—that debuted in cinemas on this day in 1973—eight short chapters on various proclivities (no kink shaming) with Laura Antonelli appearing as a different character in each vignette, we can however—via Dangerous Minds—recommend the soundtrack without reservation. It makes for a nice long-play of ambient sound with funk, Italo-pop flair with no one the wiser for the accompanying action and is by composer and conductor Armando Trovajoli who specialised in the music for Commedia all’italian exploitation films.

*    *    *    *    * 

synchronoptica 

one year ago: a never-melting snowman (with synchronopticæ) plus Adolf Hitler released from prison (1924)

fourteen years ago: America abandoning its leadership role and turmoil in Europe 

8x8 (12. 997)

you think hamilton wrote the federalist papers in trebuchet ms: Times New Roman turns rightwing 

the night that the loving ended and the killing began: Hitchcock knock-off Crescendo! reviewed in depth  

mercatino di natale: Brothers of Italy host a week-long winter wonderland named after the protagonist of The Never Ending Story—see also, see previously 

the glazed pagoda: East meets West through cultural depictions of Nanjing’s Great Bao’en Temple  

running on empty: peak copper’s coincidence with peak oil and what that means for the renewable transition with or without the matinee darlings of Rare Earths—via Web Curios 

castello di sammezzano: the Moorish and Oriental follies of Cesare Mattei and Ferdinando Panciatichi  

asahi illusion: from the Japanese for morning sun, the centre of this optical deception is no brighter than the background 

журнальная рубленаяa: Journal grotesque and typographical options in the Soviet Union—via Kottke