Apostle to the Franconians having sojourned from his native Ireland, and company to the market square of the city of Wรผrzburg (see previously here, here, here and here) in 689. Three years prior, Kilian travelled from County Kerry to Rome to receive missionary instructions from Pope Conon, who dispatched his troupe to East Francia to convert Duke Gozbert and his subjects, whom still practised pagan rituals.
Coincidentally thanks to a post from a fellow blogger, I was able to indirectly identify the butterflies that I encountered in the meadow yesterday gathered around a thistle bloom through his meeting of a Tawny Emperor. These are their European cousins called Apatura metis—that is Freyer’s Purple Emperor (Donau-Schillerfalter), taxonomically classified by entomologist Christian Friedrich Freyer of Ansbach in 1829, and so called as the open wings of the males display blue and purple, if viewed from the right angle but normally appear to have more subdued harvest colours.
Feasted on this day in parts of northern Italy, Austria and Bavaria, Saint Corona (or sometimes going by her Greek equivalent, Stephanie, ฯฯฮญฯแพฐฮฝฮฟฯ—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.
During the pre-dawn hours of this morning in 1561, there was a mass sighting of an unexplained celestial phenomenon involving what was perceived to be the aerial battle of hundreds of unidentified flying objects in the skies above Nรผrnberg.
Though widely dismissed as hysteria reinforced by the contemporaneous publication, documentation of the event in the city’s broadsheet for circulation by printer Hans Wolff Glaรer and explained away as the convergence of otherwise mundane atmospheric phenomena, aspects of the reported skirmish by witnesses of darting bright spheres, tubes globes, crescents and cylinders followed by the appearance of a large black triangular object that occulted the rising sun before crashing in the countryside is pretty tantalising and is a textbook close-encounter of the second kind. A similar sighting occurred five years later in the skies over Basel on three occasions in late July and early August.
Though perhaps best known for his iconic portraits of contemporary celebrities, like this one of Martin Luther that’s become synonymous and defining, the imagination, which takes a rather lurid turn at times, of the painter and printmaker Lucas Cranach the Elder (*1472 – †1553, confusingly from the village of Cronach) also has a legacy worth contemplating—especially after the accusations and misapprehensions that the shock of the naked body in classical and Renaissance art wasn’t some soft smut for the elite with the intrinsic value, patronage and support system not accorded to the prole material made by machine and put out by Pornosec for the masses.
We are confronted with this question by a new exhibit in the Compton Verney Gallery in Warwickshire—encapsulated by the some twenty known versions of Cupid complaining to Venus (1526, Venus mit Amor als Honigdieb)—all of which portray the two classical love deities gossiping, nude but Venus naked in a wide-rimmed hat with ostrich plumes and Cupid assailed by bees for having snatched a bit of honeycomb from the apple tree that they’re standing under. The subject was popular enough, based off a bucolic poem by Theocritus called ฮฮทฯฮนฮฟฮบฮปฮญฯฯฮทฯ (Keriokleptes, same meaning) for Cranach to sell basically two dozen copies with slight variation with Venus laughing off Cupid’s lament and comparing the stings of the provoked bees to his own smitten arrows. One has to wonder what was informed by carnal experience and what was moralising and emendating in his portfolio. Visit the entire collection online at the link above.
Though we’ve already both been trying to avoid going out in public as much as possible, Bavaria joins Italy, California, Paris and many other places in a near total lockdown and restriction on movement—modelled after early and successful interventions in Asia that virtually stopped the spread of COVID-19.
It is not to much to ask that other municipalities, neighbourhoods, households absent leadership to do the same and look out for the vulnerable in your communities and offer to pool shopping trips to limit unnecessary exposure and to make sure everyone’s needs are met—especially worrying considering that the first cases were detected in the United States and South Korea on the same day, 20 January 2020, and while the latter has managed to contain the spread, the former has been grossly inept. A long-distance commuter, before being dismissed permanently to tele-work, I slowly realised my rather abrupt descent into full blown Lady Macbeth madness, real business stopped anyway and little to do except agonise over the news, wash my hands and disinfect. Wash my hands, disinfect. Wash my hands.
As a certified misanthrope, I was not enjoying my splendid isolation as much as I should have and grew highly but silently suspect of those I thought were being too careless about personal space and touching their faces. One should not beat oneself up over missteps but I did not really pack properly for this occasion and though taking the largest suitcase I had, I didn’t seem to have brought nearly what I ought to have—I think that was the moment I realised I had gone a bit addled by the stress. It is good to have a list and advance plan. I did have the wherewithal at least to provide for my house plants and moved them to the balcony and at the office to a common area where someone can attend to them in my possibly, likely extended absense.
There’s the ghostly smudge above of where a poor pigeon crashed into the window spreadeagle—years ago but the mark is still there. The other images: the school lessons left on the stoop, the abandoned Corona display shelf and the removed outdoors seating were other signs of shifting changes. As good as a disinfectant as sunshine can be, the first inviting signs of spring after a gloomy middling winter brought people out in throngs and in close proximity, flounting the advice of health authorities and prompting the state government to intervene with an imposed restriction on movement and assembly. Stay safe, stay healthy, stay calm and look out for one another and please stay inside—like an indoor cat, you can do it.
One month to the day after the Berlin Wall fell and the borders opened, a small village north of Hof on the frontier of Bavaria and Thรผringen called Mรถdlareuth am Tannbach, a thirty centimeter wide brook that first demarcated the boundaries of the preceding polities of the Kingdom of Bayern and the Principality (Fรผrstentum) of Reuร-Gera after the Napoleonic Wars, prized a passageway through the wall dividing their town—absent gates or checkpoints—so neighbours could finally be reunited. A hundred meter span of wall has been retained as part of an open-air museum. Echoing Kennedy’s speech, during a visit in 1983, then vice-president George HW Bush proclaimed, “Ich bin ein Mรถdlareuther.”
From Public Domain Review, we are introduced to the strikingly modern and abstract art work of illustrator and scholar in the traditions established by Albrecht Dรผrer in his only known, extant publication, Lorentz Stรถer (*1530 - †1621).
The 1567 volume is thin on words, the full title being Hier Jnn Etliche Zerbrochnen Gebeแบ
, den Schreiner in eingelegter Arbait dienstlich, auch vil andern Liebhabern zu sonder gefallen geordnet vnd gestalt, Durch Lorentz Stรถer Maller Burger Jnn Augspurg—that is, Geometry and Perspective: containing various ruined buildings useful for parquetry as well as for the enjoyment of other aficionados, so arranged and presented by the painter and Augsburger himself, and the colophon that labels the polygons and with the oddly challenging motto “Who would do right by everyone? No one would dare try!” and no other text, just a series of brilliantly coloured architectural studies, the geometric solids ideal subjects to demonstrate multi-point perspective, shadowing and foreshortening. Explore the entire book at the link above and learn how to order these images as prints.
Founded on this day in 1969 in a lodge on a popular hiking trail through the Swabian Jura (Schwรคbische Alb), the Europรคishce Wandervereinigung, the European Ramblers’ Association, la Fรฉdรฉration europรฉenne de la randonnรฉe pรฉdestre was formed by founding members representing walkers’ clubs from West Germany, Switzerland, France, Luxembourg and Belgian. Now headquartered in Kassel and with offices in Prague, more than fifty-eight area- and regional-organisations from thirty European states sponsor regular outings and maintain, marking and signposting a vast network of long distance hiking trails (some seventy thousand kilometres worth across an active membership of some three million individuals, see previously). The so called E-Paths are not for virtual exploration, but rather are trails that cross a minimum of three countries.
Since the inception of the holiday, the date of formal reunification rather than events leading up to it chosen in 1990, the chief celebrations have cycled through several host cities, usually state capitals.
Wiesbaden was the setting of 1999’s festivities and created the Compass Confederation, settlements that represent the geographical extremes (see also) of Germany:
the cardinal points being List on the Island of Sylt in the North, Selfkant in the West, Gรถrlitz in the East and Oberstdorf in the South, the towns honoured annually as co-celebrants. Though it took decades longer for the German map to have these extremes and present borders, the most westerly municipality of Nordrhein-Westfalen, Selfkant, was annexed by the Netherlands as war reparations in 1949. The allocation of this single district was the much diminished outcome of an original demand for Aachen, Kรถln, Mรผnster and Osnabrรผck, pared down significantly when the Dutch failed to garner support from the US for it. After three years of negotiations at the Hague, the territory was returned to West Germany (see also the Kleine Wiedervereinigung) in August 1963—with the exception of a hill and surrounding glade called Duivelsberg/Teufelsberg which the Netherlands retains and maintains as a nature reserve.
There’s a really intuitive and simple feature in the mobile version of Wikipedia that I think makes it a quite indispensable feature for its capacity to generate serendipity (a rather scarce commodity these days) that allows one to find articles about features nearby. Without this exploratory function, I would have dismissed the Poor Souls Chapel, a wayside sanctuary that is very abundant in this region along with Bildstock and other roadside monuments, as something fairly unremarkable. I found however that this tiny chapel along the country road that we pass regularly to have a very well maintained and well connected page associated with it, which chronicles the history of the area through one act of remembrance and penance.
During the August 1078 battle between Oberstreu and Mellrichstadt, Count Poppo of House Henneberg was severely wounded and later died, being delivered his fatal blow here, expiring in transit, or according to local lore, imploring his sons to honour his memory with a pilgrimage site in view of his beloved Lichtenberg that watched over Ostheim. The conflict itself was a direct result of the Road to Canossa, around a year prior, which dashed Henry IV to be restored as to the throne after his excommunication, and strengthened the position of his challenger Prince Rudolf of Swabia and his supporters, precipitating the fight between neighbours, who happened to be opposite factions. The medieval wooden pietร was stolen sometime in 1995 and later replaced, as was the earlier cross taken down and replaced with a sturdy one to better weather the elements. Be sure to check out the Wikipedia app and share what historical connections you find just under foot.
Temporarily cut off from the rest of Bavaria for several weeks now due to construction on the only road leading into our village from that direction and unable to travel west or south without taking a significant detour through Thüringen, I realise and appreciate that this is hardly a hardship—especially compared to what going west via routes eastward might have meant three decades ago in a partitioned Germany.
A few kilometres further on, I took the chance to stop at a patrol tower from an earlier age but nonetheless was a more venerable and indelible mark on the countryside, the so-called Galgenturm, a watch station meant to provide early warning via a system of stations to the local ducal rulers in the case of the advance of marauding forces. Reinforced from an earlier wooden structure in the fifteenth century, it was named in reference to the former gallows, last used for executions in the mid-seventeenth century, the twelve metre high tower provides a commanding view of the countryside and one could imagine the network of stations, turrets aflame, transmitting a distress-call.
Though maybe I am just doing a better job paying attention—which certainly counts for something too—and being engaged with the consequences of our behaviour for the environment or maybe it’s the recently adopted legislation and agricultural reforms made to be more sustainable and friendlier for pollinators, while I’ve noticed that crop-rotation and allowing fields to be fallow for a season, recharging the soil by sewing clover or grasses and letting it rest, I don’t think I’ve seen before sections of land, vast swaths of it, wholly given over to wildflowers like I am seeing now.
It isn’t just the margins and shoulders along tractor trails that are teeming with blooms but also deep into the interior of grain crops, thick with cornflowers (Cyanus segetum, Kornblume—considered endangered due to over-use of pesticides), poppies (Papaver rhoeas, Mohnblume), baby’s breath (Gypsophila paniculata, Schleier-Gipskraut—that is, chalk-loving), thistles (Silybum marianum, Disteln) and daisies (Bellis perennis—pretty everlasting, Gänseblümchen), the fields are droning with the buzz of bees.
Debuting at the 1970 Geneva Motor Show (Genfer Autosalon), this transalpine-influenced concept vehicle, the 2200 TI Garmisch, designed by the legendary automotive free-lancer Marcello Gandini (the Lamborghini Miura, the Countach and the Lancia Stratos as well as the original 5-series) was seemingly shelved in favour of other projects by BMW—until, that is, its recent revival with a limited-production run at a car show in Villa d’Este, Tivoli.
The minimalistic dashboard and instrumentation panel belies the cutting edge of technology, sleek aluminium frame and namesake of town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, part of the Bavaria Motor Works home state but exotic and a part of that spirit of Alpine exchange evokes adventure. See more at Design Boom at the link above.
Nearly a year after sweeping privacy and data-retention legislation went into effect in the European Union, one dominant force in shaping the architecture of the on-line world is committing to open a privacy and safety engineering hub in Mรผnchen, to demonstrate the company’s pledge to take security, integrity and demography seriously.
It’s one thing to be exposed to the same commercials ad nauseum but quite a different matter to be denied a job interview or insurance coverage or detoured away from a given destination by dint of the same inscrutable predilections. Failure to comply with current regulations could result in fees upwards of four percent of the internet giant’s global revenue. Let’s hope that this venture helps promote German and EU expectations for privacy and foster a better corporate culture that’s not enabled and entitled to monetise our consent.
Our village held what was billed as a Ramadama—a new term to me, from the Bairishe dialect (see also) for “Räumen tun wir!”—that is an organized tidying up effort, I suppose like #Trashtag challenge.
A tractor took a group of people out past the main road and they collected litter from the field and side of the road, a noble effort certainly though this area pretty clean to begin with. The first such call for volunteers goes back to 1949 when the lord mayor of München rallied over seven thousand to clean up rubble from the war by his side and has been a civic exercise organised by communities, schools and clubs ever since.
Only lasting through early May to be occupied by the German Army and paramilitary Freikorps, the Bavarian Socialist Republic (Soviet meaning advisory council or committee, Rat oder Berater, in Russian) was established on this day a century ago, emerging from the failed breakaway state of journalist, theatre critic and revolutionary Kurt Eisner’s (*1867 - †1919) People’s Republic of Bavaria—which similarly expressed the former Wittelsbacher kingdom’s unwillingness to align itself with the newly minted Weimar Republic (previously here and here).
In the power vacuum that followed Eisner’s assassination by unionist and royalist Anton von Padua Alfred Emil Hubert George Graf von Arco auf Valley (*1897 - †1945) and encouraged by news of a left-wing uprising in Hungary, communists took power, exiling the successor socialist executive who set up an opposition government in Bamberg, while Expressionist playwright Ernst Toller (*1893 - †1939) was installed as president of the republic in Munich. Extolling a revolution of love and promoting many utopian ideas—though failing with effective cabinet and commissarial selections that could enact or at least not be antithetical to the principles, the new regime was labelled as a bunch of coffeehouse anarchists.
After six days, Toller’s rule was toppled and replaced by Eugen Levinรฉ, whose reforms were highly effective but whose methods were also highly draconian. With the support of Vladimir Lenin, Levinรฉ’s government expropriated private property, rededicated churches to the Goddess of Reason and took members of the upper-class hostage. Factional fighting between those loyal to the administration based in Bamberg and the government in Munich grew increasingly violent and eventually drew in the national army. The communists were defeated with much bloodshed on 6 May and the Free State of Bavaria (Freistaat Bayern) was declared within the Weimar Republic under its new constitution on 14 August.
Breaking developments on a story we’ve been watch for a few weeks now from TYWKIWDBI, the state legislature of Bavaria (previously) has announced that it will enact a petition to save vital pollinators and insect populations in general by reforming agricultural practises, boosting organic farming, reducing run-off and providing more oases for bees and butterflies, fully adopting the demands without setting it before a plebiscite—as its popularity and political will have already been sufficiently demonstrated. Protests begun in February have resulted in a rather landmark shift in attitude translated to real change in the course of a couple of months, passing unanimously through parliament.
