Into the Depths of Maltese Prehistory

Posted on February 3, 2021 by Francis

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.

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Musing on Valletta’s Museums

Posted on January 28, 2021 by Francis

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…)

Valletta’s Giant Treasure Casket

Posted on January 25, 2021 by Francis

The centre piece of La Valletta is St John’s co-cathedral, the conventual church, dating from 1577, of the order of the Knights of Saint John. It’s called a co-cathedral since Malta has another cathedral in its former capital of Mdina.

The exterior, flanked by two bell towers, is rather sober:

It certainly doesn’t prepare for the enveloping sumptuousness on stepping inside. One gets the feeling of entering a huge golden treasure casket:

The barrel vault is magnificently decorated in baroque style with much work completed in 1666 by the Calabrian painter Mattia Preti. One of Italy’s major seventeenth century artists Preti is also responsible for works in many other Maltese churches and is buried in the cathedral to which he devoted so much of his art.

Yet one does not visit St John’s to principally see Preti’s paintings but instead to admire a masterpiece from the hand of one of the most controversial baroque artists, Michelangelo Merisi known as ‘Il Caravaggio’. Fleeing to Malta from a murder he was involved with in Naples (his violent temper often got him into scrapes and he later had to flee from Malta itself) Caravaggio painted the altar-piece in the oratory depicting the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist. It’s the largest painting he produced and the only one he signed. The tough realism and his virtuoso ‘chiaroscuro’ (’light ‘dark’) technique are absolutely stunning.

The cathedral’s side chapels are dedicated to the eight langues or divisions of the order of Saint John and contain funerary monuments of the Grand Masters. The splendid inlaid marble floor is made up of tombstones, decorated with heraldic devices of the knights.

We also visited the cathedral museum which holds a collection of rich ecclesiastical vestments and a magnificent collection of Flemish tapestries.

The richness of the furnishing of La Valletta’s St John’s cathedral gave us an indication of how much wealth the Knights of Saint John must have possessed in their heyday. It was a wealth to which every major European power contributed for La Valletta stood (and still symbolically stands, as the Pope’s visits demonstrate) as a bastion of Christianity against the onslaught of Mohammedanism.

Today a different kind of onslaught is occurring. Rather than military it is a desperate one: the arrival of refuges across the sea from Africa landing on the shores of this tiny nation. Indeed, relations between Italy and Malta have often been somewhat strained because of this situation and it continues to remain a very difficult matter.

La Valletta’s Galleriji

Posted on January 24, 2021 by Francis

La Valletta, Malta’s capital, may lay claim to be one of the first planned cities of modern Europe. After the Great Siege of 1565 and the defeat of the Ottoman forces the Knights of Saint John felt the need to build a new fortified centre on the island as a defence against possible further incursions from the Turk. La Valletta was, therefore, founded in 1566 by the Knights who gave it the name of their Grand Master, Jean de la Valette.

Laid out in a grid pattern and surrounded by massive fortifications Valletta enchants one as soon the main gate is crossed. The grid pattern itself is not just designed to be neat, for its straight streets lined by tall buildings enable the capital to be well-ventilated and shaded thus attenuating the ferocious summer heat.

(1723 Plan of La Valletta)

What is less enchanting, however, is the innovative development at the gate. This consists of new parliament buildings designed by Enzo Piano which have given rise to much controversy, largely because they contrast so much with the sixteenth-century architecture of the city. During our visit the buildings were being constructed and under wraps so we could not fairly judge for ourselves.

Certainly, the adaption of Fort Saint Elmo, for example, might have given the Maltese parliament a more respectful building.

Next to the parliament building are the ruins of the grand nineteenth century opera house bombed by those supreme opera-lovers, the Italian air force, when they entered the war in 1940. Again, we did not yet see what ‘Shard’ Piano was going to do with this building. He has, nonetheless, preserved the opera house’s ruined status but converted it into an open-air theatre.

This conversion seems less controversial. In any case La Valletta has one of the most beautiful original eighteenth century theatres in the world which still retains its supreme importance in Maltese cultural life. The Teatru Manoel could not allow something else to steal its fire. But I anticipate….

We loved wandering through the streets of La Valletta. In particular I enjoyed gazing at the traditional Maltese balconies built to shade its inhabitants from the summer heat. Called ‘gallariji’ in Maltese (note the Italian linguistic influence) these charming features are supported on stone corbels called saljaturi (c.f. Italian : sogliature) with the hinged glass flaps known as are purtelli (cf. Italian sportelli) and their blinds are known as tendini (cf. Italian: tendine).

Apart from shading the occupants from the heat the gallariji are used for hanging out the washing and, formerly, as a way for marriageable belles to disport themselves before prospective suitors while safely being tucked away from the perils of the streets.

Galleriji come in all shapes and sizes and have often finely carved ‘saljaturi’. Here is a small selection of them. I love the way some of them curve round the corners of the buildings.

As you can see I just couldn’t get enough of these marvellous architectural features which are so characteristic of traditional Maltese buildings. I sometimes think that with the smaller galleriji affixed onto terraced houses there is a connection with the love of English suburbia for bay windows. Both extend from the main building and both allow extra light to enter their houses.

Later in our visit to Malta we were able to see the elegant interiors of the more aristocratic of these houses and walk down a gallerija. But that must await another post…

All Change at Pisa San Rossore?

Posted on January 18, 2021 by Francis

Railway and Underground stations have not always been known by their current names. Taking London’s Piccadilly line as an example the following stations have changed their names since they were first built:

‘Acton Town’ was originally called ‘Mill Hill Park’ when it opened in 1879. ‘Green Park’ was once named ‘Dover Street’ and Alperton formerly had a double-barrelled name, ‘Perivale-Alperton’.

There seems to have been little protest by Londoners at the name changes since these reflect the need of the underground system to more accurately reflect their geographical situation in the great metropolis.

There have been comparable name changes in Italy’s railway stations. Recently, for example, it has been suggested that stations in and around Turin should be modified to indicate important historical sights near the station so as to add to tourist interest. In this example ‘Collegno’ becomes ‘Collegno Certosa’ reflecting the majestic Royal Charterhouse nearby. ‘Dora’ becomes ‘Dora Parco Dora’, ‘Lingotto’ becomes ‘Lingotto Fiere e Congressi’ indicating its conference and international trade fair facilities, ‘Moncalieri’ becomes ‘Moncalieri Castello di Moncalieri’ alluding to the marvellous castle in that town, ‘Nichelino’ becomes ‘Nichelino palazzina di Stupinigi’ since this where one alights to visit the elegant Royal hunting lodge there and ‘Rosta’ is changed into ‘Rosta Sant’Antonio di Ranverso’ which is the name of the beautiful mediaeval abbey there.

Here are some picture of the abbey taken by me as a teenager:

A similar method could have been used at Pisa for one of its stations, that of San Rossore which might have simply had ‘Torre Pendente’ added to it, alluding to the fact that if one just wants to see the city’s famous Leaning Tower it is possible to alight here rather than proceeding to Pisa’s Central Station. Instead, the municipal authorities have considered changing the name entirely and calling it instead ‘Piazza dei Miracoli’ (Square of the Miracles) a square which, incidentally does not exist on any street map of Pisa but is the popular name given to the complex of Pisa’s cathedral, Leaning Tower, baptistery and Campo Santo.

This blatant renaming proposal has particularly aroused the ire of the ‘Ippolito Rosellini’ cultural association, a conservation and local historical group presided over by my friend Giovanni Fascetti who is also the guardian of the imposing castle of Vicopisano designed by Brunelleschi, the architect of Florence cathedral’s dome, and which is described in my post at https://longoio.wordpress.com/2013/05/17/vicopisano-and-brunelleschis-military-architecture/

I have translated the letter written to the municipal authorities of Pisa and it is worth quoting it here to appreciate the unwarranted name change to San Rossore station.

“The ‘Ippolito Rosellini’ Cultural Group expresses its total opposition regarding the decision taken by the Municipality of Pisa to change the name of the Pisa – San Rossore railway station. Two negative effects are produced by this rash action: first of all the cancellation of the city’s historical memory since the name of the station is linked to the Royal estate of San Rossore which was once frequented by the Savoy monarchy every summer since the reign of King Victor Emmanuel II. The elegant and luxurious royal train stopped at San Rossore Station where the royal family and their entourage, continued in a carriage. The station’s name recalls a precious heritage that is part of the city and its history, including the regional park, proclaimed a MAB (‘Man and Biosphere’) Nature Reserve by UNESCO, one of the few in Italy.

The second reason against this renaming is the imposition of a place name, that of “Piazza dei Miracoli”, which is absolutely bogus. It’s not shown on any road map but is just a nickname. The authentic name appearing on maps is ‘Piazza del Duomo’. As such it is known throughout the world, and has been included in the World Heritage List since 1987. If the intent is to promote the square in the light of a possible boost to tourism, this is certainly a disservice to the city since most tourists travelling by train alight at Pisa Central Station and, on the way to the cathedral square, discover that in addition to the Leaning Tower and its associated buildings there are also other wonderful city sights including monuments, churches, museums and restaurants which remain very poorly publicized .

Finally, let’s keep quiet about the condition of the Pisa-San Rossore railway station which certainly does not offer an adequate welcome to tourists, major sources of income for the city and for whom we should roll out a red carpet if we want our economy to recover and not treat them as flocks of sheep to be sent away once they’ve been fleeced. Citizens and administrators do go and see for yourselves – when there is no lockdown, of course – the real conditions of a station that was once a Royal stop. Gangs of pickpockets gather here from the Piazza del Duomo, purloin bags and purses in green spaces that resemble a wateland. Syringes abound, and one may note down-and-outs defecating and urinating. There is no staff present and in the evening the place presents an utterly sad desolation.

We hope that the New Year will bring everyone a little wisdom!

The President Prof. Giovanni Ranieri Fascetti.”

***

I should add a few more facts about the San Rossore Royal estate and refer you to my post at https://longoio2.wordpress.com/2016/05/14/il-gombo-pisas-ex-presidential-seaside-villa-and-park/ for more details about this magical place which is so near to the centre of Pisa.

San Rossore station itself originally dates 1846 as part of the Lucca-Pisa line. In 1861, Italy’s year of unification, the new section of the Tyrrhenian railway between Pisa and Pietrasanta was completed turning the station into a junction.

The former royal train shed still stands and is now a commercial unit.

In December 1998, during the works for the construction of a building that was to house the headquarters of the new goverment command and control System in Pisa, remains of ancient Roman boats and ships began to be unearthed by the excavations. This amazing discovery gave life to the fascinating Museum of Ancient Ships in Pisa about which I have written a post at https://longoio3.com/2019/12/23/italys-maritime-pompeii/

Finally, San Rossore station also serves as the main stop for students alighting for Pisa’s university whose main buildings are found in this area.

I think you would agree that the station should remain as San Rossore. At the very most an explanatory sign could be placed below the station’s name indicating that this is the main stop to alight for Pisa University and those visitors who only have time to see the Leaning Tower.

Infernal Snows

Posted on January 4, 2021 by Francis

Yesterday it was water, water everywhere and nor any drop to drink! But we were not stuck in the Sargasso Sea surrounded by slimy things that crawled with legs upon the slimy sea. With all the rain and sleet we’ve been having Longoio suffered a burst aqueduct pipe and so we had to fill up our bottles from the local spring. Fortunately Gaia, our water company, proved very efficient and after some drilling the burst pipe was located and duly mended.

In the meanwhile I decided on a morning ride with just a sprinkling of rain to have a look at the snows which have fallen over our local mountains-

The otherwise very green Prato Fiorito, the haunt of Sabbath witches and the graveyard, through its landslides, of at least one village in the past, looked very snowy indeed.

My replacement scooter, this time a Honda after the old Aprilia Scarabeo had finally given up the ghost, managed the watery roads rather well.

The Refubbri river, normally so placid, had turned into a raging torrent with some spectacular waterfalls appearing.

There was a slight hint of sunshine this morning but who wants to go out in this weather now? I’m told that Abetone, our nearest ski centre just under an hour’s drive (or scoot…) away, has received another half metre of snow but regrettably ski centres throughout Italy are still closed as a result of the health emergency.

Which brings me to a very confusing linguistic point. The Italian government is now talking about its ‘recovery plan’, after the pandemic has finally gone away. It uses the term written in English. However, there is a similar sounding word in Italian, ‘ricoveri’, which translates as ‘hospital admissions’ – quite the opposite of the English ‘recovery’. So I never quite know when the news is good i.e. the ‘recovery plan’ is receiving increased funding, or whether the news is bad the ‘ricoveri’ are ever increasing!

I just wish Italians would be prouder of their beautiful language instead of importing foreign terms all the time into news items in the mistaken opinion that these have somehow more ‘authority’. Yes, they use that English word as well instead of saying ‘autorità’. This year it’s the seven hundredth anniversary of Dante Alighieri’s death. The ‘sommo poeta’, who laid down the guiding principles of the Italian language, would surely not have approved. Of course, there’s nothing very funny about the ‘Divine Comedy’ especially when Dante finds himself in the Inferno (now I am using Italian when I should say ‘hell’…but the brits have appropriated themselves in revenge of an Italian word to better describe certain ghastly conditions – like the one the world finds itself in right now). The word ‘comedy’ is used here to mean that Dante is writing in the low ‘vulgar’ or ‘comic’’ language of Italian instead of the high ‘tragic’ classical language of Latin.

The term ‘comedy’ can also mean that this wonderful poem, perhaps the greatest literary work produced in western civilization according to T. S. Eliot (who placed its themes of universality even above those of Shakespeare’s plays) does not, indeed, have a tragic end but rather culminates in that last line expressing the transcendental joy of the love that moves the sun and the other stars:

‘l’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.’

It is this line, and other quotes from Dante, which Lucca has sensibly turned into festive decorations for its city as these photos taken by a friend demonstrate.

Now that leads me to consider that my mum had a Dante exquisitely illustrated by John Flaxman, the neo-classical artist. I wonder where that volume is now.

(Dante meets Beatrice)

My Christmas Carol

Posted on December 23, 2020 by Francis

This will be an introspective Christmas for many. It will certainly be rather different for all. So many, in various states of isolation brought on by the present world health crisis, will muse on their own Christmases past, present and future. Like Dickens’ immortal tale we shall be visited by the ghosts of those three spirits of Christmas.

One will remember that the first spirit, the Ghost of Christmas Past, takes Scrooge to the Christmas scenes of his boyhood, reminding him of a time when he was more innocent but also where he makes his first mistakes including the ending of his engagement to his fiancée Belle.

The ghost of my Christmas past brings on a rather mixed bag of memories. Joyously, I will be reminded of happy Christmases spent with my grandparents in Milan where the tree was decorated with lights in the shape of little houses, cottages and chapels, where there was a lovely animated crib in the parish church of San Camillo, where presents, especially from my aunt were truly special like that clockwork excavator from ‘Western Zone’ Germany

and where lunches were graced with panettone and panforte.

The English Christmases were somewhat less enjoyable. I wonder why? Perhaps it was because my mum really wished she was back in Milan celebrating an Italian-style Christmas and not one with that cheapest of meat for Italy, turkey, and that stodgy pudding. Perhaps that’s why she was more often than not, in an irritable mood, especially on one occasion when my brother secretly opened his presents before the appointed time.

One will remember that the second spirit, the Ghost of Christmas Present, takes Scrooge to a jolly market with people buying food for their Christmas dinner. Everyone is in a happy mood no matter how poor they may be. My second spirit of Christmas first showed himself himself when I married Sandra. Suddenly so many things changed for the better, even though we were so often quite poor, and Christmas became a truly joyous occasion with visits to Sandra’s Italian parents in north London and a lunch supervised to exquisite perfection by her Florentine father. Every Christmas with Sandra has been a joy and our rituals of decorating the house, making the nativity crib, going to Midnight Mass at London’s, Saint Etheldreda’s

or Lucca’s chiesa dell’Angelo,

adorning the Christmas tree with lights and baubles and giving presents to each other with the names of our cats has followed a reassuringly set pattern.

For only four Christmases, including, unfortunately, the one this year, in our forty-three years of marriage years of marriage have we been apart. One of them was when I spent it Greenwich hospital with an embolism and the other this year – well we all know the reason why so many people will not be spending their Christmases this year with their families. (Incidentally it’s a slightly cold comfort to know that at least two of my friends from Lucca are marooned like Sandra in London. And clearly they are missing their lovely city badly).

The third spirit, the Ghost of Christmas Yet to come, shows Scrooge a Christmas Day in the future and reveals scenes involving the death of a disliked man whose funeral is attended by local businessmen only on condition that lunch is provided. That disliked man is, of course, Scrooge himself.

What will the third spirit, the ghost of Christmas future, bring for all of us? Who knows? I suspect, however, that it will not start brilliantly for many unless the world changes its attitudes on many things – in particular on money….. It will start even less well for the UK thanks to the will of a slim majority of persons who voted to cut the continent off from their thoughts in the mistaken belief of regaining their sovereignty.

In this respect it is pleasantly ironic that the first group of people offering food and help to the beleaguered truck drivers blocked on the roads to Dover were the Sikh community – immigrants to the United Kingdom. All praise to them for showing the true spirit of Christmas. They stand for the changed Scrooge when he is shown a neglected grave, with a tombstone bearing his name. Breaking down and sobbing, Scrooge pledges to change his ways. The first thing he does is to order a goose for his poor exploited employee Bob Cratchit. As the carol says: “They go and collect the goose, with which they soon returned in high procession.”

And, as Tiny Tim observed, “God bless Us, Every One!”

A Modelling Career

Posted on December 12, 2020 by Francis

The combination of seemingly unstoppable rain for almost a fortnight now combined with our drastic cut to social life thanks to covid and the predictably disastrous end to the biggest con executed upon the British people since the dissolution of the monasteries – I refer, of course, to the no-deal – may drive some of the more susceptible of us to drink and despair and the less susceptible to spend more time on personal leisure activities whether these be the exploration of the more abstruse passages of the Kama Sutra or other exotic practises to develop the mind and other parts.

I’ve tended to find that a nice way to get one’s mind off the present calamitous world situation (actually hasn’t any world situation since the end of the last Ice Age been calamitous) is to take to modelling. No, not for Vogue, not even to photograph some alluring siren on the cat walk – I’ve my own felines to do that. Here’s one I did in marquetry some years back:

But, instead, to indulge in a hobby I have enjoyed on and off since my earliest days: that of making miniatures of buildings or modes of transport or animals using a variety of materials.

For wood there’s my vague Sopwith camel imitation.

Sandra may probably manage to come over here on this cardboard version of a monoplane:

Of buildings this will probably be the closest I’ll get to owning a castle.

The nice thing about it is that the keep slides off to reveal the inner sanctum of the lordly habitation complete with treasure chest and minstrels.

Of course, the ancient Romans were more laid back with one of their villas here, complete with triclinium and Arcadian arbour.

As for Lucca’s mediaeval times I’ve managed to piece together this miniaturised version of the Guinigi tower. Making it from a pre-printed postcard was really too small for comfort.

I love my prehistoric and not so prehistoric animals: our planet’s denizens if it goes on any further like this might soon join them

Our bathroom is not exempt from this activity although it tends to concentrate more on fluorescent jigsaws and plastic fish.

Of models that actually work I’ve this variety of gliders. When younger I used to have great fun making them with the more sophisticated Keil Kraft gliders (remember them?).

I love messing about in boats (having obtained a RYA certificate in the Thames waters):

And cutting cute woodland book ends have been my pride and joy.

There’s nothing to beat a typical English nineteen thirties semi. Here are a couple I’ve completed for nostalgia’s sake.

My finest model is not on show. Regrettably it got lost in transit from the UK to Italy many years ago

I’d spent ages on the cardboard version of one of Spain’s most fabulous buildings; the King’s palace of Escorial. I’d even fitted it up with interior lights and with loudspeakers to transmit the motets of that greatest of Hispanic renaissance composers Tomas Luis de Victoria. I also added a bit of Soler who was also resident at the palace, played exquisitely by friend Gilbert Roland who has recorded every one of his amazing sonatas. Who knows where this model is now? Not even the company that supplied me the parts for its construction is in existence any more. ‘Sic transit…

At least my Victorian house remains. It has proved most useful in my English lessons to Italian children. They all now know what upstairs/downstairs means…and as for counterpanes,

This chap is a frenetic jazz drummer I picked up in pieces from a fabulous wood modelling centre in Wales at Timberkits models in the heart of beautiful mid wales. Our drummer will shortly have a double bass player to keep him company. Just turn their Handels and hear the sounds that come out.

There is a pile of Airfix-type models I still have to piece together. If the bloody pandemic carries on like this I, might well have to complete further warships and tanks in order to fight the world’s injustices

Anyway the best modelists are Italians both in the wonderful way the world’s most beautiful girls do the cat walk with the world’s most gorgeous dresses and with the presepi or cribs which every Christmas tide grace Italian churches and streets. Sadly this year there will be so much fewer of them around but I will still attempt to hunt out those that are on display. At least my one poor effort, cobbled from some ready-made ones, and my own additions will grace the mantelpiece on top of our fire this Christmastide.

And, by the way, with all the snow that’s happened and the extra we are promised we cannot do without this little multi-coloured snowman I also recently put together.

Tiepolo in Milan (and lots more)

Posted on December 10, 2020 by Francis

Milan has for me always been the Italian city with the greatest significance. My mother’s parents lived there and for some of my early life I was brought up by them in their top-most flat situated on the Piazza Duca D’Aosta fronting that grandiloquent display of neo- Assyrian architecture which is Milan’s central station.

This is a bird’s eye view of the flat showing that it is the only one with a terrace in that block. I note that on the north side of the terrace some greenery has been added.

It was on this terrace that I would enjoy my ‘tinned’ baths:

My grandparents, however, were not originally Milanese. My grandmother was born in Turin and my grandfather spent his early days at the naval port of La Spezia where his father was a carabiniere. My mother, however, was born in Milan and lived in Via San Marco where, in the local church, Verdi’s Requiem received its first performance on May 22^nd 1874, exactly one year after the death of its dedicatee, Alessandro Manzoni, author of ‘I Promessi Sposi’, better known in English as ‘The Betrothed’ and Italy’s seminal novel, not only because it is so engrossingly written but because it set the pattern for modern Italian prose writing.

Although Milan was a city I lived a considerable part of my early life it was only later that I began to appreciate its artistic wonders, some of which are the most extraordinary in the whole of Italy.

Yet Milan is not a city to immediately attract the visitor’s eye unlike places like Venice, Perugia, Naples, Florence and Genoa, for, in the midst of its modern architecture, Milan does not present a characteristic Italian mediaeval historical centre, although it does have many mediaeval buildings, including one of Europe’s finest gothic cathedrals and one of the most imposing castles in the peninsula.

This lack of immediate beauty in Milan is because of three main reasons.

First, there was considerable nineteenth century redevelopment in an ambitious attempt to bring the rapidly growing industrial and commercial centre up to date with other European cities. Milan remains Italy’s and one of Europe’s financial hubs. Indeed, the city of London’s Lombard Street is evidence of how much Milanese finance became a component of England’s capital city. Part of this rebuilding included, as in Florence, the demolition of the old city walls, the ‘bastioni’, leaving just the gates which give their names to Milan’s main areas.

(The ‘bastioni’ of Porta Venezia)

Here is one of the gates remaining. It’s Porta Nuova, one of the earliest photos I took with my then new Bencini Comet II camera.

(My early picture of Porta Nuova)

Second, Milan was very heavily bombed during World War II (especially during 1943-4) and lost several characteristic streets and many noble palazzi. Although some famous buildings were restored – among the first was the city’s world-famous opera house, ‘Teatro alla Scala’: its reconstruction pleaded for by the great conductor Arturo Toscanini who knew how its restoration would contribute to raising Milanese morale. – others unfortunately disappeared for ever; for example the wonderful palazzo Archinto behind the Duomo, the cathedral, with its ceilings frescoed by Tiepolo.

This sad fact I discovered by exploring Milan with a pre-war guide to the city published by the Italian Automobile Club. I had thought the palazzo was still standing but, instead a new office building had risen in its place. One of the employees kindly showed me black-and-white photographs of the magnificent frescoes Milan had lost thanks to the sorties of the liberating US flying fortresses.

Happily, however, several other palazzi with gorgeous Tiepolo frescoes still stand in Milan.

Palazzo Isimbardi, Milan’s Town Hall:

Tapestry room: Palazzo Clerici:

Ballroom: Palazzo Dugnani

Luckily, as I later discovered, Milan remains a world centre of Art Nouveau architecture, or ‘Stile Liberty’ as it is known in Italy. My tour of these remarkable and newly revalued buildings with David Hill who worked for the British council but who is now, alas, departed from this world, will always rest in my memory. One of the most spectacular buildings of Milanese Art Deco, David pointed out, is the Casa Galimberti near Porta Venezia.

Third, much like what happened with London when, thanks to bureaucratic vandalism, it lost, among other treasures, the Euston Arch and the Coal Exchange, the sixties and seventies were decades with scant appreciation of nineteenth century buildings. True, some fine modern architecture was erected during this period. As a child I excitedly witnessed the progress of Pier Luigi Nervi’s ‘Pirellone’, for a long time Europe’s tallest building, rising up to seemingly stratospheric heights on the opposite side of the square we lived in. Now the headquarters of Milan’s civic administration, the skyscraper was once the headquarters of Pirelli – a company which my wife was to work for as official translator and with her own secretary.

Sadly, however, it was during this somewhat iconoclastic period of the city’s history that many of its characteristic ‘palazzini’ apartment blocks, dating from pre-unification days and now considered too unhygienic, came under the pick-axe to be replaced by concrete monstrosities.

Among the greatest losses I list the covering up and disappearance of most of the characteristic Milanese ‘navigli’ or canals which connected the city to the rivers Adda and the Po and which were main arteries of transport even after the railways had reached the city. In particular, I remember the Naviglio della Martesana running behind the Salesian institute where my grandmother used to take me for catechism lessons.

What would I give for these wonderful canals to be restored to the open air again?

(Via Melchiorre Gioia, Milan, as it was until the 60’s with the Martesana canal skirting it. The church is the basilica of Sant’Agostino of the Salesian Institute Don Bosco where I learned my catechism.

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The Year 1631

Posted on December 4, 2020 by Francis

A few years ago I wrote a prose poem in Italian chronicling the main events of 1631. This poem was read to inaugurate an evening of poetry readings at our little church. I thought, for reasons that will become obvious towards the end of the poem, of translating it into English and editing it for this post.

SHORT CHRONICLE FOR THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 1631

The first day of the year 1631 was a Wednesday.

At the beginning of that year, could be heard the desperate screams of more than twenty thousand inhabitants, men, women and children, who were massacred by the sword in the German city of Magdeburg, which had already been sacked by an imperial army.

It was the year when, in Massachusetts in the New World, John Winthrop was elected the first governor, when “La Gazzette”, the first French newspaper, was founded, when the Treaty of Cherasco ended the war of the Mantuan succession, and when Algerian pirates sacked the port of Cork in Ireland.

It was the year when the city of Wurzburg was captured by the king of Sweden, Gustavus Adolphus, but not before about nine hundred people were burned at the stake for the crime of witchcraft.

Woe to those who play with the forces of darkness! The witches meet each night on the Prato Fiorito, where they reside in a deep ditch near the ruins of an ancient monastery. Hear their gloomy moans during stormy twilights, do not enter the fantastic castles they build on mountain tops, be afraid and keep away from the forces of necromancy and the flattery of the Devil!

It was another year in the most merciless war of all time – the Thirty Years’ War. The elector of Saxony – until now neutral – sided with the king of Sweden to drive the imperial army out of Saxony. The Spanish fleet was intercepted and almost entirely destroyed by a Dutch fleet in the Battle of the Slaak. Blood dripped endlessly, and in the autumn of the same year, at the battle of Breitenfeld, the imperial army was defeated by the king of Sweden, marking the first victory for the Protestants in the infamous war.

It was the year when, in the orient, in the city of Agra, part of the Mughal Empire, the architects Ustad Ahmad Lahauri, Indian, and Geronimo Veroneo, Italian, began to build the Taj Mahal, supreme sign of a man’s love for a woman, and one of the new Seven Wonders of the World.

(My photo of the Taj, taken a long time ago)

In this year, among many others who are either remembered or forgotten, were born:

The Welsh poet, Katherine Philips
The English poet, John Dryden
Salem Witchcraft Judge William Stoughton
The English philosopher, Lady Anne Finch Conway.

Those who died this year included:

Michelagnolo Galilei, composer and luthier, Galileo Galilei’s younger brother
The English poet and prelate, John Donne.
Mumtaz Mahal, the exquisite wife of Shah Jahan, creator of the Taj Mahal
Cesare Cremonini, Italian philosopher.
Guillén de Castro y Bellvis, the Spanish playwright
The Queen of Denmark, Sophie of Mecklenburg-Güstrow,
Michael Drayton, the English poet, friend of Shakespeare

In the year 1631, as we read on the cornerstone, unknown architects and forgotten masons built, between the forest and the mule track that leads to the fortress tower, in the Controneria of the Lima valley, by the village of Longoio, our own little church or Chiesina ‘della Margine’ dedicated to the Madonna dei Sette Dolori (Madonna of the Seven Dolours*)