castagno dei cento cavalli

In one of the first official acts recognising and treasuring the environment, the Royal Court of Sicilian Heritage (Tribunale dell’Ordine del Real Patrimonio di Sicilia) inscribed the Hundred Horse Chestnut into rolls of protected property on this day in 1745.
The four-thousand-year old tree on the eastern slopes of Mount Etna (perhaps owing its longevity to rich volcanic soil—all the more so because of its precarious location) is believed to be the oldest in existence. Recorded as having the greatest girth—having split into a grove multiple trunks above ground, the tree received its name after local lore relating that when Queen Juana I of Castilla (called La Loca) passed through with her large entourage of knights, the entire company was able to shelter under its boughs during a thunderstorm. This venerable tree is a sweet chestnut (Castanea sativa), whereas a horse chestnut is a close-cousin.

congregation de cultu divino et disciplina sacramentorum

Giving affected religious orders, nations, provinces cities and villages six years to decide whom they would choose, the Roman Curia’s Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, whose responsibilities include regulating relics and the confirmation of heavenly patrons and researching cases of non-consummation as grounds for annulment, issued an edict on this day in 1970 that any of the above listed groups were to henceforth claim only one saint’s patronage. At the time the decree was announced, Italy, as was the case with many other polities, had both Saint Francis of Assisi and Saint Catherine of Siena.

umarèl

Via the always engrossing Futility Closet—which has, in addition to its regular podcast, returned to blogging with a fervour after a hiatus, we learn a Bolognese term that refers to retired gentlemen who pass time at roadworks and other construction sites supervising and disbursing advise to the crew.
The word meaning “little man,” it has picked up use around Italy since a 2005 book employed the term and not just in the one region and often with the female equivalent żdåura, an umarell’s wife. While the subject of gentle derision, developers and municipalities often are willing to pay a small stipend in exchange for their scrutiny and quality-control.

ai claudius

Via Kottke—we are directed to the Roman Emperor Project of Daniel Voshart—Star Trek set designer—who has taken a dataset of over eight hundred sculptures and busts to seed a neural-network to create photo-realistic images of the fifty-four caesars of the Principate, the first period of the Roman Empire that began with the reign of Augustus and ended with the Crisis of the Third Century, which nearly led to its collapse buffeted by civil wars, invasions, economic depression, plague and political instability.
These early days of the Empire were no salad days to be sure but this period prior to the crisis is in contrast to the following one referred to as the Dominate or the despotic phase, beginning with the reign of Diocletian and the downfall of the West. The algorithm was guided and informed by written descriptions in the histories to take into account other physical characteristics in efforts not to flatter or romanticise but show diversity as well as the ravages of rule, age and indulgence. Here is our old friend Claudius, who was rather unexpectedly elevated to the role after his nephew Caligula was assassinated by a conspiracy between senators and the Praetorian Guard. Much more to explore at the links above.

acta et vita

Another champion of our canine friends albeit with a wider patronage portfolio, Saint Roch (Rocco, Rochus, Rock, (*1295 – †1397) is venerated on this day with a truly global cult of devotees with namesake churches all over the world, canonised by popular demand fervour. His iconography tells his story: son of the mayor of Montpellier, he divested himself of worldly possession for the life of a mendicant pilgrim and undertook the journey to Rome on foot, and arriving in Italy during an outbreak of the plague, Roch carried for the sick and aided in the miraculous recuperation of many, encouraging the establishment of hospitals for the poor.
Finally catching the disease himself, Roch went into self-isolation and built himself hut in the woods. Apparently not very skilled at roughing it, Roch would have died from starvation had not a dog delivered him a loaf of bread and charitably licked his sores until they healed. The dog was subsequently reunited with his human, one Count Gothard, who became Roch’s first follower. Upon his return to his hometown, not revealing his identity or kinship, Roch’s uncle—now governor of the Savoy outpost—treated him with suspicion and had him arrested on charges of espionage. Roch still remained silent and was executed—though afterwards, the towns people recognised him by his birthmark (or plague pock) on his thigh, appearing as an apparition and performing miracles thereafter. Roch’s extensive benefaction includes bachelors, tile-makers, apothecaries, second-hand dealers and the falsely accused and is invoked against knee problems as well as the plague.

ars amatoria

From BBC Culture, we learn that classic art is not always just academic soft-core pornography, it can also be high-brow, heuristic potty humour, as exemplified in Titian’s masterpiece Bacchus and Ariadne (see previously)—capturing the moment of love-at-first-site when the god of revelry and his entourage chances on a freshly heartbroken maiden abandoned on the island of Naxos by her beloved Theseus rendered in a transfixing image that nonetheless has an underlying allegory that includes all the corporeal awkwardness that we’d otherwise choose to suspend.
In the foreground directly beneath Bacchus dismounting his chariot born by a pair of regal cheetahs, there is a child satyr and a caper flower, the twain representing the curse of excessive flatulence and the carminative remedy for it. Given that contemporaries also had truck with this patois, one needs to take this symbolism into account when appreciating the diorama and wonder what other mortal perils that even the body of a god might be prone to—especially one of perpetual drunkenness. Looking less relieved for being rescued the longer that one studies her, John Keats cites Ariadne in his poem “Ode to a Nightingale” written when the work was first acquired by the National Gallery—“Away! away! For I will fly to thee [the ship of Theseus still visible in the harbour], Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards!”

saint cassian of imola, pray for us

Fourth century tutor and teacher, Cassian—whose martyrdom is venerated on this day (†303), refused to make sacrifices to the gods of the Romans—as was ordered by Emperor Julian the Apostate (the epithet a gift of the church he distrusted)—and so was turned over to his pupils, judging that their education and emendation should be an effective prescriptive. Cassian was bound to a stake and the students tortured him to death, stabbing him with their pointed styluses—eager to get revenge for the punishments and trials that their teacher had inflicted on them. This act is recounted in several contemporary cultural sources including the Annie Dillard novel The Living, John Kennedy Toole’s Confederacy of Dunces and the namesake of a teachers’ lounge at the Bethel College of Liberal Arts in Kansas and the parable open to interpretation. Cassian is the patron of the commune of Bologna, México City, Las Galletas in Tenerife as well as educators, stenographers and parish clerks.

vertumnalia

Most famously portrayed in Milanese Mannerist painter Giuseppe Arcimboldo’s 1590 portrait of Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II with a fruit and vegetable filter—Arcimboldo’s signature work as well, signifying the age of prosperity under his reign, Vertumnus is the shape-shifting deity of the seasons and metamorphosis and is celebrated with festivities (fasti) on this day on the Roman calendar.
Suitor of Pomona, the goddess of gardening and fruitful abundance—a hamadryad, that is a kind of nymph that lives in trees, Vertumnus seduced her in her orchard, having earned her confidence in the guise of an old woman, whom procedures to lecture her on the dangers of rebuffing advances, and this myth is considered to be the first Latin one, not derivative of earlier Greek traditions—the domesticated nature of landscaping and tending fruit trees perceived as too tame for the woodland spirits yet neither something as intensive—or fickle and dependent on the favour of the gods as agricultural activities. The god’s statue in a temple near the Forum Romanum was hewn from maple trunk and decorated according to the changing seasons typified by vestments made of the turning of leaves.

buchette del vino

In response to this new pestilence, some wineries and restaurants in the Tuscan region have unplugged extant architectural features called wine windows (see previously) installed during times of the plague to dispense their fare in a safer manner. Also used for the sake of convenience, the small, anonymous portals were a way for kitchens to be charitable with surplus food and drink without the individual seeking alms necessarily needing to reveal themselves to their benefactor.

fotografia di strada

From the always excellent Everlasting Blört, we are given a preview of what looks to be the incredible portfolio of Udinese hobbyist photographer Alberto di Lenardo, discovered posthumously by his granddaughter. Critics privy to the full cache of over eight thousand candid snapshots are comparing him to Vivian Maier—another prolific and accomplished street photographer from Chicago also found and appreciated after her death.

monobloc

Thanks to Pasa Bon! for enlightening us about the name and design history of the ubiquitous plastic chair—so called as it’s forged as a single piece from polypropylene.
Based originally on the drafts of Canadian designer D.C. Simpson and informed by the success of industrial artist Joe Colombo’s Chair Universal 4867 in 1965, production of the stool began in the 1970s with close to a billion in existence. Their affordableness and easy deployability somewhat discounts their endurance to the elements as a consequence of our disposable society but there are creative ways to mend broken seats—which seems like a quite worthwhile endeavour since we’ll have to live with them forever. Much more to explore at the link above, including repairs and intervention ideas plus a short documentary on the Monobloc.

vita panteleímon

Sharing his feast day with the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus and counted among the Fourteen Holy Helpers in Western traditions—as one of the Holy Unmercenary Healers in Orthodox contexts, meaning that he did not expect or accept payment for his services, Saint Pantaleon (from the Greek Παντελεήμων for all-compassionate, *275 - †305) was one of the personal physicians to Roman Emperor Galerius who was won over to the church by a local bishop that taught faith was the better medicine.
Finding himself invested with miraculous healing powers, Pantaleon evangelised and eventually drew out the ire of his chief patient, who ordered him put to death, calling his miracles trickery. His executioners employed various means of torture to him, including nailing his hands to his head, which mostly backfired until giving up the ghost himself. He is venerated across Europe—especially in Italy where he is said to furnish lottery numbers in the dreams of winners and as the target of gentle ridicule San Pantaleone is the origin of the word pantaloons and associated slap-stick. After the mutiny was suppressed, the Russian Imperial battleship Potemkin was reflagged as the Panteleimon—Пантелеи́мон.

7x7

you gotta eat them plums: an arcade version of William Carlos Williams’ “This is Just to Say” (see previously)—via Nag on the Lake’s Sunday Links

op art: more on the Hungarian-French artist Victor Vasarely (see previously, born Győző Vásárhelyi, *1906 – †1997) whose work informed the movement

earth for scale: ESA solar probe finds new “campfire” phenomena on the Sun

manhatta: a 1921 short considered America’s first avant-garde experiment set to the verse of Walt Whitman

slob serif: awful typefaces (not this one) for awful protests—via Memo of the Air

primary pigments: more colour stories (see also) from Public Domain Review

hasta la pasta: the history behind linguini, fusilli and every variety in between

saint wilgefortis

Though officially delisted from the martyrology of saints in the late sixteenth century and her veneration suppressed, the iconography of and devotions to the bearded saint—whose English name is thought to have derived from the Latin for courageous virgin but goes by many others (see previously)—are still to be found to the present age and is feted on this day.
Also going by Uncumber, Ontkommer (Dutch), [ohne] Kümmernis (German), Liberata (Italian), Librada (Spain) and Débarras (good riddance in French), Wilgefortis symbolises the liberation or disencumberment from abusive relationships and is invoked for relief to that end. Historians speculate that her origins can be traced to androgynous depictions of Jesus but was embellished with her own story and cult in the 1420s in Galicia, with a noble woman not wanting to be forced into her arranged marriage and praying for a way out—and miraculous sprouted facial hair that made her repulsive to her betrothed. In iconographic depictions, Wilgefortis’ beard ranges from minimal to quite lush and substantial and is shown often crucified—sadly her fate for showing up and looking unpresentable—with a small fiddler at her feet, having given away her wedding dowry, represented by a silver shoe, to the poor.

tempio dei dioscuri

On this day—the ides of July, fulling a tribute pledged for a decisive military victory for the young Republic in rebuffing the forces of the exiled king, Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, and his allied forces in the native Latin tribes during the Battle of Lake Regillius made by then dictator Aulus Postumius Albus Regillensis (his surname a consequence of the conquest), one of the consul’s sons was appointed magistrate (duumvirs) to dedicate the temple to Castor and Pollux, the twin half-brothers—Castor’s dad the mortal, Tyndareus, king of Sparta but Pollux was the son of Zeus who had seduced their mother Leda in the form of a swan (some accounts have him or both born from an egg and is a classic example of what’s called heteropaternal superfecundation, albeit in divine form like the Capitoline Wolf that reared Romulus and Remus) in central Rome in 484 BC.
Reportedly the brothers appeared on horseback in the midst of battle and fought ably for the Republic. They reappeared after the fighting was over to herald victory, watering their horses at a fountain in the forum called the Spring of Juturna (Lacus Juturnæ)—well before the news could be borne by mortal feet, and the temple was built on that spot. Only the distinctive three columns remain though the cult was spread through the empire and other sites are extant. The Dioscuri were transformed into the constellation Gemini so the twins would not be separated in death and were the siblings of twin sisters, Helen of Troy (possibly also ab ovo since the paternity of Helen was also the mighty Zeus) and Clytemnestra.

itineris mosellæ or pilgrims in an unholy land

With trade and occupation lasting the duration of the late Empire, Roman culture left its imprint on the region including excavations of ancient wineries, the foundations of workshops and the remnants of defensive and civil engineering, a network of roads still trod to this day and the occasional tomb, like this pair of Römergräber perched above the vineyards of the village of Nehren (Villa Nogeria, a stylised version of the reconstructed graves are community’s coat of arms).
Prior to know- ing what the struc- tures were, the “heathen mounds” (see also here and here) were used as shelter from the elements for growers tending the grapes and memorials such as were often erected along trafficked areas so the departed would be remembered and carried with the living.
Afterwards, we returned to the city of Mayen and took in the spectacle of Schloss Bürresheim—another one of the few intact structures of this area and if it seems familiar, due to its well-preserved status it has made several cameo appearances in film, including the exterior, establishing shots of the fictional Schloss Brunwald where Doctor Jones and son are held captive in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Also a house divided and on the border between different land holdings, Bürresheim, taking its present appearance in the fifteenth century, was probably again preserved by dint of its joint ownership

pienone

As a prelude to the opera house’s 2020/2021season, earlier this week the quartet on stage of Barcelona’s El Gran Teatre del Liceu played to a full house (pienone, casa llena), ever seat filled symbolically with over two thousand house plants as the kingdom ravaged by the coronavirus enacts its measured plans for reopening. Non-vegetal fans were able to tune in remotely via live-stream and the plants donated by local florists and garden centres will be presented as gifts to front-line workers. This is lovely.
The players’s selection of song was a fitting elegy, a threnody called Crisantemi that renowned composer Puccini created for his friend Amadeo (*1845 – †1890) upon his sudden and premature death. Duke of Aosta, Amadeo was elected as king of Spain during that land’s interregnum, but frustrated by politics and intrigues two years into his reign, He declared the people of Spain to be ungovernable, abdicated and returned to Italy for a quieter life. Spain was a republic for a brief period afterwards. His son via his second marriage, Umberto, Count of Salemi, died during the 1918 Influenza Pandemic.

studio ghibli

Realising that I’m guilty of usually lazily punting away the pronunciation of something until compelled to say it out loud and was surprised to hear that the above entertainment company properly said with a j-sound as /dʒɪbli/ rather than with a hard g-sound as /gɪbli/—see also, and found its origin and etymon, that is—the true and literal sense—and sound of a word according to its derivation.
Suggesting that they would take the industry by storm—in homage to the success of its founding animated production Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind in 1984, the executives chose the Italian word Ghibli, the name for the desert sirocco that blows in from North Africa—itself rooted in the Arabic qibliyy, قِبْلِيّ, with a hard g. Incidentally the Germanic equivalent term is Föhn—from the Latin Favõnius (favoured), the Roman god of the West Wind, used to describe an arid, katabatic wind, and colloquially also the word for a blow-drier (Haartrockner).

vittore e corona

Feasted on this day in parts of northern Italy, Austria and Bavaria, Saint Corona (or sometimes going by her Greek equivalent, Stephanie, στέφᾰνος—both denoting one who is crowned) is forever twain with Victor of Damascus, an early Christian martyr serving as a soldier in the province of Syria.
Before being ultimately beheaded for refusing to renounce his faith in 170 A.D. during the reign of Marcus Aurelius, the imprisoned Victor was brought provisions and encouraged to preserve despite the bodily tortures he was made to endure by a woman called Corona, identified according to different sources as either the sister of one his fellow enlisted men or Victor’s wife. The authorities decided to apprehend her as well—and according to her hagiography, and as depicted rather bizarrely on this turn of the century fruit sticker—the crest of the greengrocers’ guild of Vienna, was put to a rather gruesome death for comforting the imprisoned by being bound to opposing palms trunks and being torn asunder once released. Rather than being invoked in times of plague, Corona is the patron of gambling and the lottery and called upon for circumstances involving money or treasure.

erbario farmaceutico

Building on a history of reference, anecdote and experimentation already established for millennia at the time of publication of this fifteenth century volume from the Veneto, we appreciated the prompt to learning more behind this category of guidebook known as the herbal (Herbarius, Erbario).
Pairing images that aid in identification with others that represented supposed pharmacological merit—as well as toxic, tonic, culinary and magical properties, extensive accompanying texts and captions inform modern ideas (but certainly do not supplant them—a feature of such collections is that they advance and improve tempered by science and scholarship but are always good to peruse for perspective and perhaps insight) of taxonomy, chemistry and medicine. Much more from Public Domain Review at the link above.