bona dea

A tradition imported from Magna Græcia during the middle Republic period, the good goddess was honoured with a bi-annual celebration, once in May at her temple on the Aventine Hill and then a more exclusive wintertime feast for the real housewives of Rome on this day, hosted by the spouse of the city’s magistrate—or Pontifex Maximus—for invited patrician matrons and their attendants. Both parties were the preserve of women alone and were the two occasions that women were allowed strong wine and blood sacrifices—no boys allowed, and therefore not much is divulged of the mysteries other than the iconography of a snake and cornucopia though the cult itself included men and women of all backgrounds and ranks in society. The most controversial Bona Dea occurred 62 BCE, hosted by Pompeia, third wife of Julius Cæsar, when the party was crashed and scandalised by the figure of Publius Clodius Pulcher dressed as a woman with the intent to seduce the hostess. Clodius was a populist politician, street agitator and ally of Cæsar and could raise gangs of thugs to riot against any opposition, which is ostensibly why Clodius was ultimately acquitted during his trial for desecrating the holiday proceedings, a serious crime, and for Cæsar’s subsequent divorce of Pompeia, insisting his spouse must be above rebuke, though she had no control over Clodius’ antics. Though of the eldest gens of Rome, the aristocratic pater familius of the Claudians, Clodius arranged his adoption by someone with obscure roots so he could run and be elected the tribune of the plebians. Pompeia went on to remarry another politician but one of less notoriety and Clodius was ultimately killed during a feud by the bodyguard of a political rival. Clodius’ window, Fulvia, also remarried—taking Mark Antony for a husband after Clodius’ death.

aurora borealis shining down in dallas

Via Nag on the Lake, we are directed towards the musical stylings of Italo-Hiberno Pop performers Adriano Celentano and Raffaella Carrà (previously) with their 1974 club hit Prisencolinensinainciusol (see also), whose lyrics are nonsense words meant to sound like English meant to prove that audience would embrace anything catchy and with a good beat. The accompanying video (updated with a fortieth anniversary retrospective) is pretty epic as well.

felicitas of rome

Also anglicised as Felicity, interred on this day in 165 AD in the Maximus Cæmeterium parallel to the Via Salaria, running from the self-named gates to the Adriatic, the so-called salt road, as indicated by all Roman catacomb itineraries (find-a-grave) guides contemporary to her life and death, this patron saint of healing and resilience is venerated as the long-suffering mother of seven martyred sons in turn celebrated on 10 July, listed among the earliest Christians executed for their faith—as enumerated in a calendar called the Despositio Martyrum. Asking to be put to death with her children so she could urge them to keep their faith, Felicity is said to have died eight times.

cecilia, you’re breaking my heart

Venerated as an early Roman martyr by the Catholic, Orthodox and Anglican confessions, Sancta Caecilia (previously) is considered the patron of music and musicians from the account that as the hired band played for her coerced wedding to a pagan noble called Valarian, she sat apart and sang to the true God in her heart. In turn, for her piety, Cecilia was promised a guardian angel who would punish her husband if he failed to respect her sexual autonomy and would love him otherwise.  Intrigued, Valarian asked to see this angel, to which Cecilia replied he could on the condition of being baptised a Christian by Pope Urban. Valarian humoured his bride but saw the angel of God and professed his conversion, earning them all a torturous death sentence. Pope Sixtus V declared Cecilia—along with Gregory the Great (the chant one, not the calendar one)—co-patrons of sacred music in 1585 with the first recorded music festival held in her honour taking place at Évreux in the Eure in 1570.

8x8

ginger-reveal party: photographer Kieran Dodds has spent years capturing images from red heads all over the world  

nacelle: a handy camper turned a surplus jet engine into a deluxe caravan trailer 

thursday afternoon: the video paintings of Brian Eno—see previously 

lawn and order: perhaps Spain ought to get out of the art restoration business and other items of note from Hyperallergic’s weekly digest 

we’ll let the supreme courtyard marriot decide the outcome of the vote: apropos the entry above, more roundups and rundowns from the week from Super Punch  

julia’s name is going to be julia gulia: a team of volunteer correspondents answer missives left to Shakespeare’s star-crossed lovers  

matita: a treasury of vintage Italian pencils 

macroscopic: a pairing of recent posts from the always excellent Nag on the Lake celebrate capturing images of the tiny at extremely close range

catholicon

First printed in Tréguier on this day in 1499 with editions and updates continuing until 2001, the trilingual dictionary—in the sense of universal—was the sum of the complied entries by Bretagne priest Jehan Lagadeuc over the course of some three decades and was the first published Breton and French dictionary, referent to Latin. Sometimes referred to as the Catholicon Armoricum (from the Roman name for Brittany) to distinguish it from the Catholicon Anglicum—an English-Latin grammar—that emerged around the same time.

volta della cappella sistina

Having worked on the monumental commission of Pope Julius II to decorate and adorn the chapel restored by his pontifical predecessor Sixtus IV for the past four years (the hall was originally under a midnight blue roof studded with gold-leaf stars), Michelangelo was able to present his crowning, defining achievement of High Renaissance art (previously) for the first time on this day in 1512 to the public in all its virtuosity and range of figural poses and presentation. The central frescos relate nine allegories from the Book of Genesis and were completed in reverse order, beginning with Noah’s Drunkenness and finishing on All Hallows’ Eve with the Creation of Eve and Adam—barely time for the paint to dry—when the scaffolding was removed and the first guests admitted on the anniversary of his patron’s 1503 election to pontif.

ημέρα του όχι

Though the response of the Greek prime minister to the Italian ambassador regarding Mussolini’s ultimatum to allow the Axis armies to occupy strategic points in the Hellenic lands delivered on this day in 1940 was a bit more bellicose and francophone—“Alors, c’est la guerre!”—than the popular account that the prime minister answered with a simple and laconic No—όχι/ohi, it was the latter that resounded in the streets and shouted first by members of the resistance then by all. The refusal was met by Italian troops stationed at the Albanian border invading Greek territory, beginning the Balkan campaign of World War II. This act of defiance, rejection of fascism is commemorated annually in Greece, Cyprus and the diaspora as the “Anniversary of the No!”

7x7

letterpress: an appreciation for Peter Pauper publishing  

no retiring wall flower: a fascinating look at the hydraulics of star fish  

geologic record: a gallery of some of the stranger amber fossils found  

truly toastmasters: learn effective communication techniques from a Massachusetts Institute of Technology lecture honed over four decades  

jindřich halabala: rediscovering the classic furniture and signature style of a Czechoslovakia designer  

via di propaganda: the history of the street in Rome speaks to design and dogma  

hot off the presses: Distributed Proofreaders celebrates the uploading of its forty-thousandth volume

nuova tendenza

Metropolis Magazine brings us a nice retrospective appreciation of the designs and philosophy of recently departed modernist maestro Enzo Mari (*1932, of COVID-19 with his wife, art historian Lea Vergine *1936, of six decades also dying from the disease the next day)—whom drew much of his inspiration and outlook from the idealism of the Arts and Crafts movement. In addition to creative toys and the picture book “The Apple and the Butterfly” and informing the DIY trend, Mari produced signature furnishings for various studios including Danes, Gavina, Artemide, Castelli and Olivetti and his most iconic pieces include the award-winning Delfina and Tonietta chairs and the Legato table.

parola del giorno

Though the furore over FLOTUS’ wardrobe choices two years back have since been superseded by more consequent expressions of disdain, we thought it noteworthy to learn that what could be translated as having an “I don’t care” attitude has a lot of if not nuance then context underpinning that ought not be glossed over.

Menefrehismo traces its rabid pedigree back to the rise of fascism in Italy over its late entry into World War I. Under the leadership of Il Duce, his volunteer shock troops, known as the arditi—the daring—sang a vulgar song as they marched off to the fight. One line goes “me ne frego” if I die in battle, expressing not only a sense of nihilism but moreover in a wanton and crude fashion—the reflexive verb fregare meaning to rub and thus I won’t rub myself about that or mildly I don’t give a damn, I don’t give a toss. Click here to listen to a better song.  Of course phrases become middle-of-the-road over time and don’t carry the same weight of history, propaganda and ideology but plenty of menefreghista are out there signalling among one another.

ius canonicum

This date, marking the occasion of his death in 1926 (*1841), is the veneration of the Blessed Bartolo “Rosario” Longo, a lapsed Catholic and former satanic priest, who returned to the Church and championed praying the Rosary—for which he was awarded a papal knighting and beatification posthumously. Against the wishes of his family who wanted Longo to pursue a career in teaching, as a young man he went to Naples to study law and came under the influence of the occult and spiritualism trend that was very much en vogue at the time, the Catholic Church seen as less effective in terms of seeking favour or mediumship than witchcraft or other practitioners of the dark arts and universities were the sites of rallying against the pope who was regarded as antithetical to the Italian unification efforts of General Giuseppe Garibaldi.

Longo grew more and more rebellious and joined a satanic cult and eventually was ordained as the priest of one chapter. Growing despondent and anxious by turns, Longo turned to a boyhood companion who convinced him to leave the city and return home to Pompeii and convinced him to return to the Church finding that the rosary calmed his anxieties. Maintaining his law firm, Longo had had been retained as an estate agent by a wealthy countess who became his patron and together founded a confraternity dedicated to the Rosary and acquired a derelict church to reconsecrate as a shrine. A nun from another convent that championed the rosary (there was already an established network) donated a painting of Saint Dominic and Catherine of Siena communing with Mary in prayer. From a junk store and without artistic merit, Longo secretly disliked the painting but hung it in the church so as not to insult. Reports of miracles were attributed to the painting and brought in pilgrims, eventually enlarging it to a basilica, Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary of Pompeii. On the advice of the pope, Longo and the countess were married—though remained chaste for the rest of their lives together, fostering children and dedicating themselves to charitable causes.What sort of twist ending would you give this couple?  I suspect they, along with that cursed picture, were recusant devil-worshippers all along, in fear of being persecuted for believing in the wrong magic.

brother sun, sister moon

Fabulistically perhaps best-known for his ability to commune with Nature as a reflection of divinity and preaching to the birds—thus appointed patron saint of ecology in 1979 by Pope John Paul II, confessor, scholar and organiser Francis of Assisi (*1181 – †1226) is venerated on this day, the morning after having peacefully expired after receiving the stigmata from a vision of a crucified seraphim. Constituting religious orders for both men and women with significant political clout and endurance, Francis’ attempted a rapprochement with Al-Kamil, the Ayyubid sultan of Egypt, and put an end to the bloodshed of the Crusades and bring about peace. Though received graciously by the court of the sultan, the negotiations ultimately failed, although only the Franciscans were allowed to remain in the Holy Land after the fall of Crusader kingdoms as custodians on behalf of the Church.

john paul i

Though only reigning for a brief thirty-three days, dying on this day in 1978 (*1935)—touching off the first year of three popes since 1605, the pontiff with the birth name Albino Luciani was responsible for quite a number of firsts and lasts. No pope before him had been born in the twentieth century and his passing marked the end of a series of Italian-born popes that extended back to Clement VII’s election in 1523.

Refusing a coronation, John Paul was the first pope to be inaugurated, in an effort to humanise the office, and only accepted the pallium accorded to Rome’s bishop and put to an end the practises of using the sedia gestatoria—the ceremonial throne used for processions and carried on the shoulders of twelve men, replaced later by the popemobile—and referring to himself in the third person, the royal we, though traditionalists in the curia often edited it back into his speeches. The first to take a double-name, in honour of his two immediate predecessors, John Paul was also the first to use the ordinal number Primo. Pope Francis also has a unique papal name but does not use a numeral. Aside from this trivia, the bride-builder also reached out to the Islamic communities of Rome and Venice and helped them secure the right to build mosques. John Paul II of course took the name as success in memory of his short reign and sudden death upon his election by the conclave on 14 October.

art povera

Presented to the public on this day in 1967 with an exhibition—Im Spazio—opening in Genoa and showcasing the works of seven Italian, described by art critic and curator Germano Celant as impoverished art, the movement often deploys found objects, the ephemeral and everyday and imbues them with meaning by revealing the lost intersectionality of nature and industry.
Due to the nature of the media (not cheap or perishable materials necessarily but rather an intentional apposition to the canvas and marble of established art), many of these first works are no longer around and the movement ended in the early 1980s and being no expert I couldn’t say what legacy and successors that the school has but the term does seem useful and fitting for a lot of modern installations.

empire shops

Though the above euphemism for a colonial goods store (ultramarinos, comptoir des colonies, coloniali), a nineteenth century speciality retailer that sold non-perishable items like coffee, tea, spices, tobacco, etc. as opposed to butchers, bakers and green-grocers, has fortunately fallen out of common-parlance, retained through the 1970s when most former colonies were achieving independence, it is still present, fossilised in some unexpected places, like in the name of our local chain supermarket, an affiliate of the large co-op Edeka, founded in 1898 as E.d.K.—that is, Einkaufsgenossenschaft der Kolonialwarenhändler im Halleschen Torbezirk zu Berlin (Purchasing Cooperative for the Traders of Colonial Wares of the Halle Gate District of Berlin), phonetically abbreviated (see also) out of necessity.

zwei kleiner jägermeister

Today marks the veneration of Saint Eustace (Eustachius) on the occasion of his martyrdom in 118 AD, whose life and legend were limned out and elaborated by medieval troubadours—beginning with a Roman General called Placidus separated in a wood from the rest of his hunting party while pursuing a stag. The deer at first gives chase but then charges back and leaves the hunter awestruck by a vision of the Cross in the antlers of the deer, followed by a booming commandment that Placidus and his family are to be baptised by the bishop of Rome. Placidus complies and takes the name of Eustace (from the Greek for “steadfast”). Soon afterwards, Eustace receives a second message that he and his family—much like Job—will be made to suffer a series of ordeals including loss of property and status.

Eustace contrives a plan to escape this fate and requests to resign his military commission to move out to the provinces—to which his superiors are amenable. Upon arriving at the first ferry crossing, however, they find that they don’t have sufficient fare and the boat’s pilot abducts Eustace’s wife Theopista and abandons Eustace and his four children. They are compelled to continue travelling on foot but have to cross the river at some point. Eustace successfully manages with the two unnamed children and attempts to do so with Agapius and Theopistus but fails and losses them to the swift current. Rather broken and alone, Eustace is employed tending a farmstead and protecting the fields for fifteen years when two envoys of the emperor find Eustace and summon him back to Rome to suppress an uprising, offering him back his former rank and position. The unrest is not started by those upstart Christians as one might suspect and might make for a better narrative but rather a run-of-the-mill skirmish at the frontier. Eustace is dispatched back to the ferry-point and puts down the rebellion and his reunited with his wife—sort of like Penelope and Odysseus, who recognises him after all these years, and with word spreading about the happy coincidence two soldiers come forward who were separated from their father while crossing the river but were rescued and raised respectively by a lion and a wolf and the parents realise it’s their children Agapius and Theopistus. Liking a good reunion story, the whole family is feted once they return to Rome by Emperor Hadrian (presumably the unnamed ones as well—let’s call them Barron and Tiffany) and after their lavish celebratory dinner and asked to make propitation to the pagan gods. Speaking for his whole entire family whom had yet to be consulted on their father’s plan for immortality, Eustace refused and Hadrian had them thrown to the lions, who declined to pounce. Frustrated, Hadian had Eustace and his family put in a brazen bull. They all expired this time but their bodies were uncorrupted by the heat and flames. With several miracles and interventions attributed to him, Eustace is considered the patron saint of firefighters and along with his co-patron Hubertus who had a similar, transformative vision the protector of huntsmen.

ciceroni

Presumably sourced to the agnomen of Marcus Tullius Cicero (previously), which itself means chickpea or garbanzo bean, in reference to the orator and statesman’s loquacity of speech, a cicerone is a mostly antiquated way of identifying (possibly self-appointed) a guide or docent who conducts sightseers in touristed locales and explains items of historic and artistic interest for their benefit and edification.
During the age of Grand Tours, such retained escorts and chaperons were known colloquially as bear-leaders (referencing the cruel and medieval practise of bear-baiting and conducting the poor animal from village to village) and were responsible for keeping their charges out of trouble whilst ensuring that they got the most educational value out of their trips abroad and had due appreciation for the places they visited. In the United States, a cicerone is a by-word and certification programme for a sommelier that specialises in beer who can speak to hobby-brewing, glassware and food-pairings.

san venerio

Venerated on this day as protector of the Gulf of La Spezia and the patron saint of lighthouse keepers (guardiani del faro), hermit and monk Venerius was associated with an isolated religious community in the small island of Tino in the Ligurian Sea for the first three decades of the seventh century.
Little is known about Venerius’ vita et acta other than miraculous accounts of arranging rescue missions for distressed sailors and driving out a sort of dragon fish that was seriously disrupting local commerce. Presently part of an Italian naval station, access to the island is restricted except on Venerius’ feast day, when his statue is carried out to sea with the bishop, blessing all the boats of Cinque Terre and the broader cove beyond.

divinisation or pompatus of love

We enjoyed reading this short, collective hagiography that profiles several saints named Hyacinth, including one from Fara: “A martyr about whom nothing is known,” but we were more intrigued by the footnote for namesake flower (Giancinto, Jacinto, Hyakithos) and its mythological origins in a handsome Spartan prince and his fatal love-triangle.
Hyacinth was the lover of Apollo, but he had the attention and advances of a host of other suitors including the famous Thracian singer Thamyris, Zephyrus and Boreas—respectively the West and North Winds. Hyacinth preferred the company of Apollo and together in a chariot drawn by swans, they had adventures. While playing a round of frisbee (discus), Hyacinth was struck in the head and perished, the eponymous blossom rising up where his blood was spilled—a trope appropriated by Christianity as a symbol of renewal. Devastated Apollo blamed himself but there is strong suspicion that the winds conspired to punish the prince out of jealousy, and the god wanted himself to become mortal to join him after his healing powers failed him. The Spartan month that coincided with early summer when the flowers bloom was named in his honour and included three days of festivities. Hyacinth was eventually resurrected and joined the pantheon of the gods. This attainment of godhood is apotheosis and usually in Antiquity heroes were accorded local status alone, whereas in Imperial Rome, a deceased ruler was generally recognised by his success, decree of the senate and popular consent—though some ridiculed this practise as it also included the corrupt and inept—satirised by referring to the tradition with another Greek borrowing apocolocyntosis—that is, pumpkinification with accompanying lampoon that features Claudius and Caligula in the underworld.