Category Archives: Archaeology

A Saucepan and A Sandwich

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Ours is a throw-away age. The time for built-in obsolescence seems ever quickening , whether it be objects or people. Certainly if one thing this pandemic has taught us it is to treasure human relationships, or at least the memory of them, for so many of us have already disappeared.

It is easier to discard objects than people and for some time I was wondering what to do with a humble small saucepan which had one of its handles sheared off. This saucepan had been quite useful for making my spaghetti ragù sauce and it seemed a pity to take it to the ‘collezione indifferenziata’ of our local ‘isola ecologica’ (refuse centre).

The rushing streams, the presence of metal ores in the mountains and the continued tradition of smithies in several parts (although sadly much depleted nowadays) means that I could find without too much difficulty a ‘fabbro’ (smith) that was able to re-join the orphaned handle to its saucepan. Indeed, several villages in our parts have the prefix ‘Fabbriche’ meaning that they are centres of smithies.

I remembered Stefano Palmieri who has his workshop at Via Campiglia 21, behind the Bagni di Lucca Villa post office.

I turned up yesterday morning and entered Stefano’s workshop where I was greeted by a lovely ginger cat. (In Italian these cats are called ‘arancione’, orange..).

I asked Mr Palmieri if he could do the job and when I should return. He said he could do it on the spot and, pulling out his equipment, let fly a mini-fireworks display of sparks. Soon the handle was refitted and the little saucepan was brought back to its original state. I asked him how much it cost. ‘Don’t mention it’, he answered. (I should add that I had a few jobs done by him before at a very reasonable rate).

I somehow recalled a traditional Welsh folk song called ‘Sosban Fach’ (little saucepan). Here it is sung by Will Huw:

Fortunately the fabbro’s cat didn’t scratch me like in the song!

There is a web site for Palmieri at https://www.coobiz.it/azienda/bagni-di-lucca-officina-fabbro/co7683417

His phone number is 0583 86124 – it’s important to phone up to make an appointment especially in these pandemic times.

Did the sosban fach come in useful? Sure it did! It boiled an egg

which, combined, with my kitchen garden lettuce

tomatoes, mozzarella cheese

and all wrapped up in that delicious Neapolitan unleavened bread called ‘Saltimbocca’ which is the nearest thing one can get locally to the Italian equivalent of Arabian pitta bread

    produced an excellent sandwich lunch

    washed down, naturally, with a glass of my favourite Polish beer (yes, sometimes even the excellent Italian wines have to give way!).

    The Magic of Equi Terme

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    I have translated the following article by our friend Giovanni Ranieri Fascetti, an authority on the area.

    The article first appeared in ‘Toscana Today’ magazine, a very interesting publication dealing with Tuscan events, history and places. Here is the link:

    Il segreto di Equi Terme

    We love this area and have done many fine walks there. In addition, we have taken part in the living Christmas crib, described in the article, on several occasions. All photographs in the translation are mine.

    ***

    Equi Terme’s Secret

    One can easily fall in love with Equi Terme. What is its secret? Is it the scenery with an abundance of rivers and streams or is it perhaps its inhabitants? Maybe it is the legends attached to EquI dating back into the mists of time. What is certain is that Equi is a special place and offers magical moments for everyone.

    How many of you reading this have been to Equi? Many, certainly, have visited the living nativity crib, one of the most beautiful in Italy. It almost seems that the landscape has been specially chosen to create a town so that it would one day become the setting for a nativity scene. At a certain point the villagers chose St. Francis, who invented the Christmas crib representation at Greccio, as their patron.

    When in 1986 some villagers decided to create a living nativity crib, they could never have imagined the success that  it would have. The influx of visitors during the four evenings of the Nativity scene reaches up to fifteen thousand persons. In the upper Lunigiana area, in Versilia and beyond, many places began to participate in this tradition. However, despite the competition, the beauty of the Equi living crib remains unsurpassed.

    This village of stone houses clings to a steep rock face. Opposite is another very high almost vertical rock face. Eons ago the two were joined together to form a basin filled by a lake fed by a stream descending from the Pizzo d’Uccello mountain peak and by a source flowing from a cave.

    This lake has produced a huge waterfall with a powerful beauty when the snows of the mountain melt or when it rains a lot in the Garfagnana. The water flow has caused the collapse of the rock wall revealing a cavity, the source of so much water known as “la Buca”. This crevasse in the rocks with its inspiring beauty releases a gentle flow of clear streams. Thunderstorms and heavy rains swell the underground rivers and the water from the Buca bursts out powerfully with a continuous roar.

    The town has always remained tenaciously clinging to the rock face with some houses reaching to the edge of the stream near the Buca. These dwellings used to be mills grinding chestnuts and cereals and those crushing olives.

    Equi crowns the valley of the shiny river whose waters, passing through the Aulella and the Aulla, reach the Magra river and from thence to the sea. From the sea, almost as if Neptune wanted to thank them for the gift of water, a temperate air climbs up the corridor of valleys reaching Equi softening the climate during winter. Here, around the Lucido valley, extensive terraces of olive trees are to be found and there is no shortage of vineyards producing distinctive wines like that of Monte dei Bianchi. In winter while the mountains that surround it are all white Equi is rarely covered with snow.

    Arriving in Equi in autumn and winter – I recommend that visitors coming from Pisa, Lucca and Bagni di Lucca go by train on the Lucca-Aulla line – one has a vision of the town surrounded by a steamy mist arising from another torrent descending from Mount Ugliancaldo. This evocative steam comes from Equi’s thermal springs and is the origin of its name which derives from Latin ‘Aquae’ indicating the presence of a thermal source. The Roman structure came to light in the early twentieth century; Mrs Vinicia, the grand Lady of Equi now sadly departed, said that one could see the walls and floors of the rooms decorated with black and white mosaic tiles.

    (Vinicia and Giovanni)

    Equi is truly the Queen ruling the waters that in the Nativity setting with their sound, the waterfall’s noise at its foot and the steamy vapours play a decisive role in enhancing the area’s fascination. These streams give rise to the river called Lucido “because it never gets murky”. Where there is water there is life and in prehistoric times the area was rich in animals: bears would hibernate in the Tecchia, a cave next to the Buca.

    A museum near the Equi caves tells us about these ancient events and also about the hunting of these animals by the first men.

    Those who leave the town eastwards towards Ugliancaldo, can walk along the Via del Solco which winds through a ravine with vertical walls eroded over millions of years by the force of the waters. The path, of a unique picturesqueness, slips into long tunnels, dug by pickaxes when extraction of marble was first started at the foot of the Pizzo d’Uccello. At one point the path crosses a deep gorge on a bold single-arched stone bridge. After the last tunnel, one faces an amphitheatre made entirely of sparkling white marble which, although a wound inflicted by man in the mountain’s bowels, has all the drama that mining landscapes can sometimes inspire.

    In the caves scattered at various heights along the Via del Solco, men from a tribe, well-defined culturally by the objects they used, laid the bodies of their dead. This neolithic human group is called “facies of Vecchiano”. But what does Vecchiano have to do with it?

    Vecchiano is a town close to Pisa on the banks of the Serchio. In the caves of Vecchiano hill remains of individuals from the same tribe populating the mountains of Equi have been found. And here is visible the thousand-year-old, unwritten history of transhumance when shepherds followed the flocks that in the cold months left the Apuan area to come and graze in the Serchio, Arno and Era valleys. In the warm season the shepherds returned from the Maremma to the mountains.

    Equi holds many stories, both ancient and more recent, and all always surprising. At the spa there is a small monument commemorating the engineer Carlo Tonelli (1855 – 1929). A native of Equi, after completing his studies at the Polytechnic of Turin, Carlo collaborated in Rome with the Mayor Ernesto Nathan in the planning of residential areas and parks that were to give the city the appearance of a modern European capital without distorting the complex and evocative context of historic districts. However, Carlo’s generous heart had not forgotten his native village and he dedicated his resources and skills to Equi’s economic development: the start of marble extraction, the creation of the thermal baths and the construction of the Hotel Radium with its very elegant art nouveau architecture. Tonelli finally conceived the project of getting the Lucca-Aulla railway line pass through Equi, contributing to the design of monumental architectural structures that recalled the grandeur of Roman imperial buildings. In a short time, Equi became an exclusive resort for the thermal holidays of the Roman nobility. Development smiled on the village and Carlo watched over and provided for all Equi’s needs, as when he took over its reconstruction after the 1920 earthquake that affected the area causing considerable damage to Casola, Ugliancaldo and Codiponte.

    It was in Codiponte that Tonelli took care of the restoration of the Romanesque church, one of the most beautiful in the Apuan area.

    One evening in 1926 Carlo Tonelli was returning with his gig from the town of Gragnola when he found the road blocked by blackshirts. The engineer understood that they were waiting for him and, raising his whip, exclaimed: “Get out of the way, you who have souls darker than your shirts!” Hit with batons he was left in agony on the roadway. Taken to Fivizzano hospital he died some hours later. Why was such ferocity towards such a generous man? I had guessed why and mentioned it in town. I was told it was not what I thought; in an Italy often gripped by taboos it is difficult to speak of Freemasonry but Ms. Vinicia, the dean of the town, who discreetly kept the secrets of the entire community of yesteryear said that the day after the engineer’s death Masonic insignia was found in his safe. After the approval of the law of 25 May 1925, with which the Prime Minister Benito Mussolini had banned Freemasonry in Italy, the engineer had kept alive the “Fiume Lucido” Lodge in Gragnola, thus challenging the Regime. Unfortunately, in the world there are those who build and those who destroy.

    Those gentlemen wearing black shirts also provoked war and the war brought the occupation troops of the Third Reich who in the nearby village of Vinca made an unprecedented massacre of the people and then turned to Equi. They blew up every other house, even the house from which a paralytic could not get away. The inhabitants of Equi were shaking, hidden in the basement of the station. They trembled until the Germans hurried off after a comrade’s abdomen had been ripped apart by his own grenade.

    Finally peace came and returned to the village, now made safe and sound. Vinicia’s husband, Giovanni, a handsome Sardinian financier, and she, as he had promised, made the path from Equi to the sanctuary of the wood, on top of the rocky ridges where the Madonna appeared to a shepherdess in 1600, who was on her bare knees on the stones of the mule track. Trade resumed, the Lupacino tunnel was inaugurated and trains finally began to run on the newly completed track from Lucca to Aulla and vice versa. Tourism developed. The living Nativity crib was born and the future seemed even brighter. However, more recently there has been an economic crisis, the abandonment of the mountains, an earthquake that caused considerable damage in the area, a lack of initiative by the administrators and finally, today the pandemic emergency. Despite all these difficulties, the inhabitants of Equi are resisting and look towards the futured The difficulty of life during past centuries, the river’s incessant flow, the changing of the seasons has taught them. They know how well the Czech people living along the Vltava River realize that “in this world nothing remains the same, the longest night is not eternal”. We wait with them and light will return, as every year, in January Candlemas occurs when, after months of shadow, sunlight filters again from the crests of the Pizzo d’Uccello  to illuminate the stream and announces the arrival of spring and summer.

     

    Into the Depths of Maltese Prehistory

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    What are the oldest free-standing buildings in the world? Stonehenge? The Pyramids? Skara Brae? Something yet to be discovered?

    So far the oldest buildings found today date from around 10,000 BC and are at Göbekli Tepe, Urfa in Turkey. The Neolithic temples of Malta, however, come a close second as the earliest examples of free-standing architecture that have survived. Of these temples (at seven sites discovered in Malta – including Hafgar Qin, Mnajdra and Tarxien on the main Island and Ggantija on Gozo) we managed to visit Tarxien, perhaps the most elaborate of them. Dating from at least 2800 BC they were discovered in 1914 and excavated in the two following years.

    There are four temples on the site and they are distinguished by the quality of their carvings which consist of spirals and friezes of domestic animals including bulls, goats, pigs and a ram. Clearly these animals were raised by the population but they could also have been used as sacrifices to the gods.

    There is also a part of a giant stone sculpture of the Mother Goddess which is the first known statue of a female deity and which was originally over nine feet high.

    Continue reading →

    Musing on Valletta’s Museums

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    There is so much crammed into the compact area of La Valletta. Having admired its old houses from the outside we wanted to see their interiors and get a glimpse of how the Maltese aristocracy live.  The casa Rocca Piccola, otherwise known as the Messina palace, is owned by the Marquis Nicholas de Piro and dates from 1580. It is now open to the public and is very well presented. I would have loved to have attended a dinner party in its elegant dining room which transported us to a more leisurely century. I especially loved seeing the galleriji or wooden balconies encircling the house from the inside.

    There are several museums in La Valletta and we managed to see the following:

    The Grand Master’s palace, State rooms and armoury. Every Knight of Saint John on his death bed would bequeath his suit of armour to the grand master and once there were 25,000 such suits.  Napoleon pinched a lot of them but what remains is still remarkable!

    Looking at loads of flintlocks can be a bit exhausting after a while, no matter how finely detailed they are. They are paradoxically truly artistic instruments of war in a way that today’s guided missiles hardly are!

    The Fine Arts museum housed in the former admiralty is full of interesting paintings of Maltese scenes and it has a fine collection of Italian baroque painter Mattia Preti’s works. As mentioned in my previous post Preti was adopted by the Maltese and contributed to the decoration of some of their most spectacular buildings like Saint John’s co-cathedral.

    I was also surprised to find water-colours by Edward Lear (who loved Malta). Absolutely no nonsense here!

    There was also a fabulous picture of the Grand Harbour by Turner (who never actually visited Malta.)

    I was particularly interested in Malta’s archaeological museum which gave us much insight into the fascinating Neolithic temples and burial sites we would visit.

    Some of the earliest known representations of the human figure are here including the famous ‘sleeping lady of Malta’.

    Clearly in those prehistoric times fat and well-endowed women were particularly prized as they represented fertility figures. No slim-fits here!

    It’s good that all these museums are maintained by the ‘Heritage Malta’ government department. There was a time when Malta was  known just as a sun-and-beach holiday destination and, unfortunately, its rich heritage was neglected. Today the islands’ historical monuments are being revalued and, with the help of funds from European Union, there’s a full scale restoration going on in the island.

    The fortifications, for example, are looking more splendid than ever.

    Like many Italian seaside resorts, Rimini for example with its imposing Malatesta temple and Amalfi, once one of Italy’s great maritime republics (recall the other three?) Malta is equally worth visiting because of its fascinating heritage just as much for its sun and sand (though, actually, there isn’t too much of the latter, as we found out…)

    Newtown (Ancient Sicilian Style)

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    The main part of Greek and Roman Syracuse lies north of the islet of Ortygia and extends over a wider area than that occupied even by the modern city. It was divided into four quarters with the following names: Acradina (wild pear), Neapolis (New town), Tiche (after a temple), and Epipolis (outlying town). Here we visited the Greek theatre, one of the finest outside Greece and dating from the third century BC when the city was governed by Hieron I.

    What would I have given to be time-transported to the days when the lost plays of Euripides, Sophocles and Aeschylus were acted on this stage!

    Nearby are the giant quarries called latomie which were later used as prisons. The largest of these, the Latomia Del Paradiso, is also nicknamed Dionysus’ ear not only for its earlobe-like shape but also because of its remarkable echo which can pick up the slightest whisper and, therefore, proved most useful for the guards gathering up any confabulations of escape uttered by the prisoners incarcerated there.

    In 212 BC Syracuse became a Roman province after a battle during which Archimedes was killed while he was engrossed on a mathematical problem completely unaware of what was about to happen to him. That’s what I call utterly, barbaric ignorance…

    In the second century AD the amphitheatre, second in size only to that of Verona, was completed. So gladiatorial combat and animals fights took over in popularity from classical Greek drama….

    Giovanni also took us to visit his namesake’s church, a mystic early Christian building, San Giovanni alle catacombe. The ancient Basilica was built around the 6th century in the place where, according to tradition, the first bishop of Syracuse, Marciano, that died a martyr under Gallienus and Valerian (mid-3rd century), was buried. This church was once Syracuse’s cathedral.

    On the way we passed a modern monstrosity of a church dedicated to the Madonna of the Tears whose image miraculously shed tears here in 1953. Giovanni ironically said that if she saw today what was constructed to honour the memory of this event the Madonna would shed even more tears!

    We paid homage to the German poet August Von Platen who died of Cholera aged thirty nine in Syracuse and whose tomb is in the city’s non-catholic cemetry next to the fine archaeological museum founded by Paolo Orsi.. Giovanni laid a wreath in his memory:

    Here is part of one of my favourite poems by Platen (my translation):

    I wish I could always be as free as my dreams,
    away from the flashy crowd,
    and wander by the banks of placid streams
    cooled by shadow-drifting clouds.

    Free to shake off this weary weight
    of human life, and rest instead
    in nature’s perfect heart :
    all summer singing around me.

    ….

    And nothing would I drink or eat
    save heaven’s clear sunlight and the spring
    of earth’s own sweet welling waters,
    that can never sting the heart.

    My visit to Syracuse was also a trip down memory lane for I had been here before more years than I can to remember when I was guest of my Uncle the French literature professor at Catania University. Here are some photos from that time when I was not yet a teenager. The latomie and the amphitheatre can be recognized.

    New Year’s Eve arrived and I was expecting to join the crowds of revellers in the Syracusan streets. Actually we celebrated at Giovanni’s partner’s parents’ place as we were advised that we could easily be injured by fireworks if we ventured outside at the midnight hour. It was wise advice as the noise from the ‘botte’ or bangers was deafening and they were launched in all directions. The following morning the streets were littered with the remains of this battle of the night.

    It was sad for us to leave such a fascinating city as Syracuse and I have yet to keep a promise to return and visit it in more depth. I hope I can keep this promise next year for ‘if winter comes can spring be far behind?’

    Sicily’s Queenly Quail Island

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    If one were unfortunate enough to be given just one city to visit in Sicily it would have to be Siracusa, ‘Syracuse’. Divided between the mainland of the island of Sicily and the islet of Ortygia, its name deriving from ancient Greek for ‘quail (perhaps because of its shape? Or because it was once the home of quails which are table delectation for many Italians) the city was founded by the Greeks in 743 BC and rapidly grew flourishing especially after one of its tyrants Geione vanquished the Carthaginians at the battle of Himera.  Syracuse became the principal city of Magna Graecia under his successor Gerone and turned into a major cultural centre; for example, poet Pindar and playwright Aeschylus both lived at the tyrant’s court.

    The status of Syracuse diminished under the Romans and the city entered into a long period of decline. Now, although its area is just a fraction of what the ancient city occupied I found the place happy, prosperous and quite fascinating.

    We had booked a hotel in Ortygia and in the morning met up with our friend Giovanni who was to be our guide during our couple of days there. And what a guide! Already well-known for his moonlight trips around the temple of Minerva south of Florence and guardian of the Brunelleschi-designed fortress of Vicopisano Giovanni is equally knowledgeable about the distinguished history of Syracuse. He took us for a walk round Ortygia.

    We strolled through the market:

    We wandered to the end of the island which is defended by the eleventh century castle of Maniace elaborated into its present gothic form by Frederick II.

    We saw the enchanted fountain of Arethusa so evocatively described in music by Szymanowski and also where Giovanni met his partner Andrea whose civil union we attended at Vicopisano fortress in 2018.

    We entered a spacious square and stepped inside what we imagined to be the baroque cathedral of the city only to find that we were, in fact, within the cella of a Greek temple with the peristyle closed in to form a giant nave in the seventh century.  What a sensation it is to enter into a building that has been continuously dedicated to religious rites for close on three thousand years!

    Giovanni also pointed out to us some of the lesser known wonders of Ortygia. One of these was an ancient ritual Jewish bath discovered under the foundations of a present-day hotel.

    We also passed by the fountain of Diana, a monumental cascade dating from 1907 by Giulio Moschetti, with the collaboration of his sculptor son Mario Moschetti and located in Piazza Archimede in Syracuse.

    I remember this fountain when, as a very young boy, I was taken there by my Catania university professor uncle and took this picture then.

    Archimedes was another famous citizen of Syracuse and it is fitting that a square has been named after him.  Considered as one of the greatest scientists and mathematicians in history, Archimedes’ contributions range from geometry to hydrostatics, from optics to mechanics: he was able to calculate the surface and volume of spheres and discovered the laws governing the buoyancy of bodies; in the engineering field, he discovered and exploited the operating principles of levers and his very name is associated with numerous machines and devices, such as the Archimedean screw, demonstrating his amazing inventive ability. Still surrounded by an aura of mystery, however, are the war machines that Archimedes would have prepared to defend Syracuse from the siege by the Romans. Was it all done by mirrors I wonder?

    Today, however, Archimedes’ life is remembered through numerous anecdotes, especially the one about his exclaiming eureka!  when, naked, he ran excitedly through the streets after jumping from his bath having discovered the theory of the displacement of water in the calculation of volumes. Actually, although not quite in such a direct manner, scientists continue to get equally excited about their discoveries especially the recent ones involving vaccines which may finally rid us of this pestilential Covid-19! The spirit of Archimedes thankfully lives on!

    We had, however, yet to discover the wonders of an ancient Greek colony that lay on the mainland half of Syracuse…

    The Valley of the Temples

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    Sicily was once part of Magna Graecia’ – greater Greece – and its Greek remains are as fine as anything one can find in present-day Greece. The temple of Segesta, the acropolis and temples at Selinunte, the theatre at Syracuse are just the tip of the iceberg of what Sicily can offer in terms of classical Greek monuments. And then when one gets on to the Roman period…

    What could we select in this cornucopia of marvels? Agrigento was on the way to our destination of Syracuse for the New Year and it was well-chosen.  Imagine a two-hours walk through a valley of temples each one more fascinating than the other: a stroll through an open-air museum of some of the finest buildings from ancient times.

    Agrigento was founded as a Greek colony with the name of Akragas in 581 BC. Under its tyrant Terone its power extended to Sicily’s northern coasts. In 480 BC it won a memorable victory over the Carthaginians. It was in the fifth century BC that Akragas obtained its maximum splendour and it was during this time that the temples were built  These included the  temple of Olympian Zeus, one of the major achievements of Grecian architecture, unfortunately now just a mass of stones collapsed as a result  of several earthquakes. In the rubble I noted a Telamone, or stone giant, which had supported the temple roof but was now laying a rest for many centuries after his labours.

    The best preserved temple is that of Concord thanks to its being reused as a Christian church. I wish the Christians had done that to more temples instead of using them as a quarry..

    The temple of Castor and Pollux, the Dioscuri is perhaps the most familiar thanks to its souvenir cork models one of which I had as a child. It’s slightly disappointing to realise that the temple is a mid-nineteenth hypothetical reconstruction and, in fact, mixes up Ionic and Doric elements!

    There’s also the temple of Hera and that of Heracles not to be missed.

    There’s so much more to see. For example, the sanctuary of Ctnoie, the tomb of Terone and the temple of Aesculapius. We could have spent days there but were just happy to soak in the afternoon atmosphere of a late December sunshine just at the time the almond trees were coming into bloom in the valley of the gods.

    Half-way through the vale another wonder, this time natural, captured us. It was the garden of Kolymbethra which has been ranked as one of the most beautiful in Italy.

    We are lucky to have the history of this magical place well-documented since classical times.

    Diodorus Siculus writes about the renovation works of the city promoted by the tyrant Terone immediately after the Battle of Himera (480 BC) and mentions a

    “… A large pool … with a perimeter of seven stages … twenty fathoms deep … where the aqueduct irrigate nursery of refined flora and abundant wildlife …”

    In the same period the Kolymbethra was built, thanks to the help of many slaves captured in battle, it was possible to construct the superlative temples and the hypogea, or artificial tunnels with the function of collecting the waters that oozed from calcarenite porous rock, to convey them, through a system of tunnels, from the hill towards the Kolymbethra basin, constantly feeding the pool. The garden, in addition to being a holiday resort for the aristocracy, was also a meeting place for all the inhabitants of the classical city: here, in fact, women gathered to wash clothes and anyone who wanted to cool off in the clear waters of the swimming pool.

    A century after the Battle of Himera, the basin was buried and transformed into a vegetable garden, thus becoming a rich arable area. The presence of the hypogea, whose original function was adapted to agricultural use, was fundamental; the water conveyed by these aqueducts fed a small basin, located next to the mouth of an underground, which was used to irrigate the garden. This system still works today, keeping the land arable.

    Subsequently, between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when the cultivation of fruit trees spread in Sicily, it became a citrus garden.

    In 1999 the Sicilian Region entrusted Kolymbethra to FAI, the Italian equivalent and associate of the National Trust FAI. And so it was that we showed our National Trust life membership cards and entered perhaps the most ancient continuously cultivated gardens we have ever trod.

    What one sees today is a group of isolated temples. It must be remembered, however, that these temples were integrated into a populous city most of which remains to be excavated. What a wonderful ancient city Agrigento must have been!

    Goethe, in his Italian travel book, bemoans the fact that his visit to ancient Agrigento was delayed by his guide wanting to show him modern Agrigento.  We in retrospect were disappointed that we found that by not visiting mediaeval and modern Agrigento we missed out on a city filled with a lovely cathedral and some fine mediaeval streets. But with our time limit how could we avoid the wonders of ancient Greek temples?  In this we were totally in agreement with the then head of Bagni di Lucca Villa post office who we met quite by chance as were exiting the bewitching valley.

    Mummy, mummy!

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    This December 13th  it will be exactly one hundred years ago that Rosalia Lombardo died of the terrible Spanish flu pandemic that followed the end of the First World War. She was just a few days short of her second birthday yet, at her final resting place in the crypt of Palermo’s Capuchin cemetery, I saw a child as uncorrupted and as lovely as the day she died, thanks to master embalmer Alfredo Salafia who used a mixture of one part glycerine, one part formalin, saturated with zinc sulphate and zinc chloride, and one part of an alcohol solution saturated with salicylic acid.

    Little Rosalia has been thus preserved for all those who descend into the cemetery’s crypt to admire her. She is surrounded by almost two thousand other mummified beings who can never hope to aspire to her charms having had less artful embalmers work upon them.  Some have their skins eaten by insects revealing their naked skull beneath. Others have their formerly fine funeral garments rotting in ghostly tatters on their dessicated flesh.  Those dead who received no remuneration for their upkeep from the family’s descendants have been stacked on shelves, removed from their original positions. Even in the afterlife one can still suffer bankruptcy…

    Some people may say what a horrible sight it is to step through the cold damp corridors of an underground catacomb and gaze upon petrifying and putrefying corpses. Yet a previous age did not see things quite like this. Originally it was only capuchin monks who were privileged to be mummified in this way and placed in the weird crypt.  However, among the Palermitani it became a status symbol to be embalmed and remain in the company of the religious fraternity and so, at the end of the sixteenth century, the practice began. It was only in 1881, after sanitary warnings, that it began to die out and it was little Rosalia Lombardo who was the last embalmed in this fashion. Looking at her sweet self I could hardly envisage Rosalia to be now buried in the damp soil and to see her rosy cheeks eaten by worms and her body to be turned into dust.

    The ’memento mori’ awakened by the Capuchin cemetery is indeed pulsatingly vivid. All too often we fail to remember that, as Prospero says in Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’, “we are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep”. Let us be reminded, however, that the only truly dead are those who have been forgotten. Even those upon whose sunken sockets one may still gaze today in Palermo’s cemetery are now mostly unremembered…

    Stepping from the crepuscular gloom into the bright Palermo morning I visited the more conventional part of the cemetery with its marble tombs packed closely together. Among these I found the memorial of someone who will never be forgotten as long as humanity survives; one who encapsulates the Sicilian ethos better than most:  the enigmatic Conte di Lampedusa. Giuseppe Tomasi, the author of ‘Il Gattopardo’ – the Leopard (or more accurately, the Ocelot). With him lies his beloved wife Alexandra Wolff Stomersee of German Baltic descent, psychoanalyst by profession, whom he married in Riga and who survived the Count by twenty five years.

    As Lampedusa said:

    “Finché c’è morte c’è speranza”.

    (As long as there’s death, there’s hope.)

    Lesnes Abbey Woods

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    London’s Green Chain walk connects over three hundred parks and open spaces in the south-eastern part of the metropolis. It extends from Erith in the east to Crystal Palace in the west with branches to Thamesmead, Nunhead, Beckenham and Charlton  and offers a great chance to stroll in surprisingly rural parts of one of the world’s great cities linking up with other paths such as the Capital Ring.

    (see also my post in Italian at https://longoio3.com/2019/07/10/londra-selvaggia/)

    Originally set up in 1977 to protect open spaces from being built on the Green chain is a walk I know rather well since a branch of it starts near my home in the Royal Borough of Greenwich.

    Though never done completely in one go I’ve covered all the route taking different sections at different times. During the recent UK heat wave I decided I’d head for one of its most idyllic stretches. There is a marvellous compendium of woods stretching from Frank’s Park near Erith to Bostall Woods including Oxleas, well-known for its bluebells and Lesnes Abbey with its spectacular wild daffodils.(For pictures of these see my post at https://longoio3.com/2020/04/06/daffodils/)

    London’s Coronation church, Westminster Abbey, is known throughout the world. However, in pre-reformation times the city had many other abbeys which are now sadly either in ruins or have completely vanished.

    Ruined Lesnes Abbey is on the Green Chain walk and is surrounded by an extensive forest appropriately called Abbey Woods.

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    1178 saw the foundation of the Abbey of Saint Mary and Saint Thomas the Martyr in Lesnes by Richard de Luci, chief executioner of England. It was built as a penance for the murder of Thomas Becket, in which he was involved.

    beckett

    (Murder of St Thomas a Becket)

    In 1179, de Luci resigned from his office and retired to the abbey, where he died three months later and was buried in the chapter house.

    It is interesting to note that the first part of the pilgrim route known in Italy as the Via Francigena passes from London to Canterbury where pilgrims visited Saint Thomas Becket’s tomb, a journey that gave rise to Chaucer’s wonderful book of tales and Pasolini’s film. Lesnes abbey never became a large community and Cardinal Wolsey closed it down in 1525 by a law for the closure of monasteries with fewer than seven monks. It was one of the first to be suppressed after the dissolution of the monasteries in 1534. The abbey is surrounded by parkland and an ornamental garden known as the monks’ nursery.

    pilgrim

    (Pilgrim statue carved from a tree trunk in Lesnes Abbey)

    I especially like the way the Abbot’s symbol, the shepherd’s crook, is weaved into various elements of the monks’ garden:

    Even though Lesnes Abbey is in a state of extreme ruin, its various sections can easily be distinguished.

    The church:

    church

    the principal cloister:

    cloister

    the chapter house:

    chapter

    the refectory:

    the dormitory and the library in which the Lesnes Missal, now in the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, was located.

    missal

    Every time I visit Lesnes Abbey I think of those lines from Shakespeare’s seventy third sonnet:

    ‘Bare ruin’d choirs where late the sweet birds sang’.

    However, I’m glad to say that once a year the parishes and clergy of the Roman Catholic deaneries of Bexley and Greenwich organise a procession of the Blessed Sacrament in the Abbey ruins, bringing them to new life. The procession would have been in June this year but has unfortunately had to be cancelled because of the pandemic.

    lesnes_abbey_04

    I continued my woodland walk passing various interesting features: the chalk pit which once supplied building material but is now securely fenced off because of the danger of its very steep slopes:

    The fossil beds where one can spend a happy time uncovering sand sharks’ teeth dating from the cretaceous era:

    A large pond, with an unfortunate tree collapsed upon it.

    The path is well sign-posted and maintained.

    Eventually I emerged from the cool woodland and found myself entering a broad heath and the heat again.

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    Why certain idiots travel miles to find a crammed place on a beach flouting every health and safety measure imposed during this pandemic crisis when near to their home they can find the most beautiful and unpopulated open spaces I shall never know!

    PS If you read Italian there’s more on Lesnes Abbey with extra pictures in my post at:

    Le Abbazie di Londra e i loro Scandali

     

     

    
					
    
		
		
	
    

				
					
	
    
		
    
						
    Garden Centres Re-Open!
    
			
						
    
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    From May 13th garden centres in the UK have reopened to the public. (“O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”)
    

    Garden centres had been shut down since March 24th.That’s how late the lockdown was inaugurated in the UK: Italy’s began on 8th March over two weeks before! Meanwhile, Wuhan, where it all started, came out of lockdown on April 8th just over two weeks after the UK entered its own lockdown.
    

    Garden centres reopened in Italy on May 2nd; it’s not surprising, therefore, that these essential delights for the green and not so green fingered UK public have followed so soon after.
    

    We decided to visit our nearest garden centre which is Birchen Grove, next to the Welsh Harp reservoir, (described in my post at https://longoio3.com/2019/10/23/i-laghi-di-londra/)
    

    Birchen Grove is one of greater London’s largest garden centres and is placed in idyllic woodland surroundings making it appear that one is in the middle of the countryside although, in fact, Brent Cross shopping centre is just a few minutes away.
    

    The method of entry into Birchen Grove was very civilized with the usual socially distancing queues. We didn’t have to wait more than a quarter of a hour before we were immersed into the panoplies of indoor and outdoor plants, shrubs, trees, garden furniture and tools. The flowers were in particularly good shape after all the hype that they were suffering and would have to be thrown onto the compost heap.
    

     
     
     
      
     
      
     
      
     
      
      
     
     
      
     
      
     
      
     
      
     
      
     
      
     
      
      
     
     
      
     
      
     
      
     
      
     
      
      
    

    For me, however, the highlight was the fish section. Tanks upon tanks of often minute tropical fish were laid out in long rows.
    

     
     
     
      
     
      
     
      
     
      
     
      
      
     
     
      
     
      
      
    

    There were examples of the pig-nosed turtle native to Northern Australia and New Guinea In the larger tanks. These were not, however, for sale for a notice advised the public that they required very specialized conditions and knowledge for their rearing and survival.
    

     
     
     
      
     
      
     
      
     
      
     
      
      
    

    The largest tank was actually an indoor pond teeming with koi carp. Nearby was a food dispenser for one to feed the amazingly large and beautifully coloured fish.
    

     
     
     
      
     
      
     
      
     
      
     
      
      
     
     
      
     
      
     
      
     
      
      
    

    These koi are particularly loved by the Japanese who recognize several distinct types. Indeed, the word ‘koi’ in their language means love and friendship so these fish are symbols of deep affection.
    

    On our way back we came across further examples of the off-beat houses designed by Ernest Trobridge in the first half of the last century and to be found in this area of North West London.
    

     
     
     
      
     
      
     
      
     
      
     
      
      
     
     
      
     
      
     
      
     
      
      
     
     
      
     
      
     
      
     
      
     
      
      
    

    They made an interesting contrast to the standard semis which otherwise line Kingsbury’s residential streets:
    

     
     
     
      
     
      
     
      
     
      
     
      
      
     
     
      
     
      
      
    

    All in all it was a satisfactory enjoyable excursion in a London which, sadly, still remains the centre of the worst pandemic in any European country.