italy week: la superba

The city of Genoa is known as La Superba, the proud one, for its illustrious history punctuated with many treasures and landmarks as testament to its past and current achievements. The name of Genoa, like Geneva, means the knee—but possibly not because the Italian peninsula below looks like a boot.
We toured the old harbor with its ancient and iconic light house and wide berths.  The galleon that was the principle setting of Roman Polanski’s swashbuckling film Pirates is moored there as well.   The Port of Genoa, though with a lot of quays for cruise ships and flashy yachts, is one of the most logistical sophisticated and well-designed cargo marinas in the world, and also features a very fine aquarium that we’ll have to make it a point to visit next time—when we have more time to see it and the wealth of museums here properly.
We also visited Piazza de Ferrari with its large fountain, behind the Duomo and buffered by the Palace of the Doges and the Genovesi Bourse and get our bearings.
The fountain’s water was dyed orange for, as stated, multiple sclerosis awareness.  We strolled in a covered arcade and we walked through the maze of narrow alleyways (caruggi) of the oldest parts of the city to admire the rows of aristocratic palazzi along Via Balbi, constructed as residences for the Republic’s powerful families.  Cristoforo Colombo also hailed from Genoa (though there is some dispute among scholars and various countries and regions try to claim him as their own, like Charlemagne), though voyaged West to reach the East under the patronage of the Castillian crown.
Other powers rejected his requests for financial aid not because they believed the world was flat but rather that the explorer had majorly under-estimated the accepted size of the globe, known since antiquity.
In fact, Columbus never did acknowledge the existence of the intervening continent as anything other than an unknown part of Asia.  Against the advice of council, the Spanish court eventually agreed to fund the exploration, including Columbus’ request to be named admiral of the seas and royalties from any property claimed for the monarchs.  Some scholars believe that Spain conceded to such terms because they did not really expect him to return—and just in case, did not want him to take his plans elsewhere.
Despite Genoa’s decision not to vet its native son, the republic’s independent existence that spanned almost eight hundred years saw many conquests and colonies and outposts a world away, including Galata in Constantinople, the Crimea and other lands on the Black Sea, much of the Greek Isles, Flanders, Tunisia, Algeria, and Gibraltar (though often these colonies were just gated communities, sometimes just a single building, but with extra-territorial rights for merchants and their families—like a consul), with trade connections extending La Superba’s influence even further.

italy week: square of miracles

Even for the Ancient Romans, Pisa was considered an old city and the glory and tumult comes through with its architecture. The chief draw—though there were many other treasures to discover, is of course the so-called Piazza dei Miracoli, which was began in the year 1076 and went through nearly two centuries of refinement before taking its present form but has always been an allegory of the life of man, beginning with a charity hospital in the front adjacent corner (now housing a museum) and across the lawn, a baptism fount, preceded by a cathedral, with its free-standing belfry to herald important events like marriages and funerals, and finally a peaceful and serene cemetery for the symbolic ensemble.
The tower was raised here despite warnings that the foundation was too weak to support such a structure, and I seem to recall that native son Galileo Galilei helped prove that gravity was a compounded constant by dropping and timing canon balls and prop wooden ones off the tower, whose exaggerated angle of pitch helped with the calculations—as well as being mesmerized by the pendulous motion of the incense chandelier in the Duomo so as to describe it mathematically and reverse-engineer periodicity.
This city on the confluence of the Arno and Serchio rivers—though without direct access to the sea—albeit the sea itself might have receded over the millennia, was a mighty maritime power, culling the marble for its showcase square from exploits in the Holy Land and recycling building materials from its conquests.
Pisa also had far-flung colonies in Jaffa and Constantinople among other places. Pisa lost prominence under constant one-upsmanship from the neighbouring sea-going republics of Genoa and Florence but fared better than others during the following economic collapse and unrest that came after the Crusades, by controlling the inland waterways that linked former rivals, spanning all the way from the Genovesi to the Venetians and profiting from trade and tariffs, and retaining its importance through the ages.

italy week: oultrejordain

During our tour of the Mediterranean coast and the Bay of Genoa, we had the chance to explore the stunning and secluded coves of Porto Fino and the fishing villages of Cinque Terre. These sites were absolutely amazing and edifying as well. It was hard to believe that such jewels, essentially untouched but possibly re-touched as there seemed to be an element of keeping up appearances what with the carefully placed boats lolling in the harbour and in the way of cruise ships but nothing phony, existed and we wondered how such refined but remote places came to be and came to be regaled with such treasures. The picturesque quality was certainly endearing but seemed to be a little elevated out of proportion—nothing disappointing and certainly leagues better than a block of luxury hotels, just incongruous, somehow.
Though it is no account of all the incidents and accidents by any means, the elevation of Genoa and other maritime superpowers originated in the power of vacuum created with the fall of the Roman and Byzantine Empires. With new-found sovereignty and a need for a uniting mission among the independent powers, the houses of Europe went crusading. It was then that Genoa secured its place as an expanding empire, and for its missives to the Middle East, these protected coves sheltered their armada and acted as their commissariat.
Porto Fino, for instance, earned this bounty from the Kingdom of Jerusalem, with this church that housed the plundered relics of Saint George (the dragon-slayer), and many other holy treasures were heaped up as tribute from the long list of short-lived Crusader States established.
It certainly sounded like a legitimate and worthy adventure, despite the costs and the potential reward was of course great and enduring.  This hybridized form of colonization created all sorts grasping exclaves that were never quite reconciled and who can say whether forgiven, among the combatants and much less among the sending-forces.

The claims and honours were various with duchies and marches granted often under dubious authority—like everything to the west of the River Jordan. Incidentally, the Crusades were not limited to the Holy Lands but was also a claim-jump in Greece and neighbours as well—referred to as Frankokratia, the period of rule by the French and the Germans.
This incursion cemented the division between the Western and the Eastern Church, with other repercussions down to this day.
Do not believe for a second that we were not dazzled and relaxed, but rather knowing a bit of the history and context of what's resisted time and tide and what's been preserved and dismissed certainly enhanced our experience.

alles wurst

There have been cults of devotion to the figure of Saint Uncumber (Saint Wilgefortis) for centuries—especially in Bavaria and Austria, but also all over Europe—as the champion and patron saint of women battered, abused and otherwise marginalized by either their husbands or society, but The Local's local edition formulates a clever allusion, that connects the bearded lady to Austria's new Eurovision Song Contest winner.
Tradition holds that the maiden was promised to a pagan king—however Wilgefortis would not deny her Christianity. Her betrothed and her father that hoped to gain prestige through this union would have none of this nonsense. Desperate, Wilgefortis prayed to the Virgin Mary to be unencumbered from such an awful arrangement and to be made so repulsive (here is where the compliment becomes a little backhanded) that the pagan king would no longer want her. Intercession came over night in the form of a full beard. The pagan king was disgusted but so was her father, humiliated and wrathful, and he had her crucified for her disobedience. This harsh punishment, however, lead to her veneration and establishment as a symbol for those in abusive relationships or bumping up against societal ceilings.