Category Archives: Architecture

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?’

Bagni di Lucca’s Previous Pandemic

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BAGNI DI LUCCA’S PREVIOUS PANDEMIC.

Premise: I have translated and made a few additions to Bruno Micheletti’s fascinating recent article on Bagni di Lucca’s 1629-31 pandemic. Bruno Micheletti, as many of you will know is a leading member of our local historical association and some of you may have met him during Bagni di Lucca’s organised visit to Casabasciana. Bruno’s knowledge on these matters is, therefore, second to none.

***

Wear a face mask? No thanks. I prefer wearing a noose round my neck…

Every age has its own remedies and ways of facing and resolving emergency situations that arise. Obviously in the days when no-one knew how infections were transmitted, how they could be cured and, above all, when there were no vaccines, people turned to supernatural measures. Thus, during the great Italian plague of 1629-31 which claimed perhaps one million lives, or about 25% of the population, [the inhabitants of Bagni di Lucca, implemented the following measures. In September 1630 news of the plague pandemic arrived in the Lima valley. At that time, the entire territory of Lucca was still free from infection, so Bagni di Lucca’s local company of Suffrage (a charitable body dedicated to good works, and prayers for the dead) decided to make a pilgrimage to the sanctuary of Foce Colonia which is on the road that leads from the Monti di Villa to Montefegatesi and is better known today as the oratorio di Sant’Anna.

From there the procession decided to return via the Pieve di Controne and passed by another image considered miraculous: the Madonna Del Poggio at Guzzano.

(This is the church on the hill just outside Guzzano which suffered earthquake damage in 2012 but was well-restored thanks to the efforts of Claudio Gemignani. See my post on this church resurrection at https://longoio2.wordpress.com/2014/08/07/guzzano-church-resurrection/)

The same company also decided to undertake another penitential procession, this time from the church of San Martino (the as yet under restoration building just above the Terme Alte) to the Bagni Caldi down the hill to the church at Ponte al Serraglio. From here they proceeded to the church of San Marco. The brothers were all with their hoods pulled down over their faces and wearing a rope noose around their necks.

During the height of the plague (October 1630 – April 1631) every Saturday evening the Company of the Rosary would depart from Bagni di Lucca’s parish  church of Corsena and head for the Madonna del Colle. They too wore a hood over their faces and a rope noose around their neck. The Commissioner of Val di Lima also participated in these processions, wearing his more elaborate noose. In addition guards were posted at the two bridges at Seraglio and at Palmaia, and a large gate installed across the road leading to the Controneria. Nobody was allowed to come in and nobody was allowed to leave…complete lock-down!

The plague fortunately ceased with the first summer heat of 1631. The town of Bagni di Lucca had only five deaths. The victims were all buried near the baths and not in the church. So the processions, the gates and the nooses worn around the neck had apparently worked successfully.

This valuable information by Bruno Micheletti prompted me to note that our own little church or Chiesina ‘della Margine’ at Longoio bears the date 1631 and is dedicated to the Madonna of the Seven Dolours.

This date cannot be coincidental. It is quite clear Longoio was saved from the pandemic by the prompt action of Bagni di Lucca’s company of suffrage. Having stated this I just wonder how long it will be for us inhabitants of the Controneria to be able to enter the town of Bagni di Lucca without fear of contagion or the necessity of wearing a face mask or of sanitizing one’s hands or practising social distancing. I, for one, almost feel that, subject to the arrival of the miracle vaccine, a suitably social distanced religious procession might even be in order. If it was successful in 1631 why not today?

I, at least would feel inclined that in order to give thanks to the Almighty for eventually delivering us from the pandemic we could have the former church of San Rocco outside nearby Vetteglia and now in a ruinous condition restored as a refreshment and information point for modern day pilgrims to the extraordinarily beautiful area of the Controneria.

(In case you didn’t know San Rocco was invoked against the plague and, judging by the number of churches dedicated to him, was particularly venerated. Born in a noble family the saint gave his wealth to the poor and became a mendicant pilgrim. During his travels the town of Acquapendente became badly affected by the Black Death; Saint Roch stopped there and healed its victims by making the sign of the cross over them. He cured the sick from several other plague-ridden towns without catching the disease himself. However, when the saint reached Piacenza in northern Italy he fell a victim and a fetid ulcer developed in his leg. So rank was its smell that people kept well away from him. Luckily a dog befriended Roch and brought him some food on a daily basis and even licked his ulcer clean. Hence St. Roch has also become the patron saint of dogs. So let’s have a refreshment point here for dog walkers and their pets too!)

The beautifully distanced photograph of the oratory of Foce Colonia (Madonna di Sant’Anna) is by courtesy of one of our finest local photographers, David Bonaventuri.

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…

Alchemy, Guttuso and Cart-wheels in Palermo’s Bagheria

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Every Italian city of cultural importance is encircled by superb aristocratic villas. Lucca’s own are spread among the foothills of the Pizzorne and include such wonders as the Villa Reale (see my post on its new owners at https://longoio3.com/2020/08/12/elisas-villa-resurrected/) and the Villa Torrigiani. Vicenza is famous for its Palladian villas along the Brenta. (There’s my post on these at https://longoio3.com/2018/11/04/vicenzas-palladian-splendour/). Florence is distinguished for its UNESCO world-heritage Medicean villas (see my post on them at https://longoio3.com/2020/02/28/a-place-in-the-country/

It is no wonder that, with its magnificent location between mountain and sea, Palermo would have a cornucopia of villas. The town of Bagheria is the focus for these villas. Indeed, the name derives from the Arabic baḥriyya, meaning ‘by the sea’.

The majority of these villas were built in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and are baroque in style. Sadly, many are now abandoned, waiting for a shining knight to rescue them from the dragons devouring their dilapidated splendours.  We wanted to indulge in some urban exploration of them but the risks were too high what with crumbling roof beams and a major mafia centre nearby at Corleone.

Interestingly, there is a theory that alchemical philosophy was at the basis of the construction of some of these villas, in particular Villa Valguarnera and Villa Palagonia with their strange sculptures.

This philosophy probably derived from the desire to create an Arcadian society where acolytes could devote themselves to the liberal arts and alchemical philosophy, far from Palermo’s menacing Court of the Inquisition of Palermo. This theory links up with Florence’s Neo-Platonism associated with villas like Careggi where philosopher Marsilio Ficino was based. (No wonder I felt enlightened when I woke up in that villa’s grounds now incorporated in Florence’s Careggi hospital after my eight-hour operation earlier this year…)

In Bagheria there are some villas available to view and one that I came across by chance houses the Renato Guttuso museum. The villa was built in 1736 by the prince of Cattolica Eraclea, Francesco Bonanno. From 1830 the Bonanno family lost the property and the villa took different uses: lazaretto, barracks, and finally at the end of the 1800’s it was bought by Gioacchino Scaduto who used it as a home and a factory for canned food!

Luckily the villa was saved for more exalted purposes and reopened in 1973 housing works by Renato Guttuso which the maestro donated his hometown before his death in 1987.

In addition to Guttuso’s creations, representing over forty years of activity,  the villa hosts works by twentieth century artists like, among others, Cagli, Mario Schifano, Onofrio Tomaselli, Silvestre Cuffaro, Domenico Quattrociocchi, Pina Calí, Vincenzo Gennaro and Giuseppe Pellitteri, Mimmo Pintacuda andGand Tornatore. Over the years, other works have been donated to the museum.  Here is a small selection of what we saw:

Guttuso’s works range from paintings to sculptures, from drawings to engravings and range from works from the 1930’s to the artist’s last years.

Guttuso, who we had the privilege of meeting in the 1980’s when he opened an exhibition of his works in London, is one of the most significant Italian painters of the modern age.  I particularly admire the socialist imprint of his artistic production. Without indulging in the crasser aspects of soviet realism Guttuso manages to produce works which stand for their moral force together with those such as ‘Guernica’ – Guttuso and Picasso were good friends.

(Guttuso’masterpiece: ‘Crucifixion’.)

The museum also includes a lovely collection of the two-wheeled painted Sicilian donkey cart. The panels illustrate stories from the great knightly epics of the past like ‘Orlando Furioso’ and his paladins.

The tradition of painting transport vehicles in this colourful way continues to this day in Sicily: for example with this Fiat 500.

In India we noted a similar tradition with regard to heavy goods vehicles vivaciously decorated with epic stories, this time from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata.

For me these are wonderful examples of how great traditions can survive and continue across technological progress. Ever thought of customizing your car with stories from Malory’s ‘King Arthur’, for example?

I do hope that the time will come when the whole area of Bagheria will be elevated to a world heritage site. Its wonderful villas need this help and they could be used for so many social and cultural purposes. We at least are glad to have visited something of what can be achieved in the Villa Cattolica.

Where to now in Sicilia? Just one day left before our appointment with Giovanni in Syracuse….

A Christian Mosque or a Moslem Church?

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We just spent too little time in Palermo, indeed in Sicily. It’s truly a place one must return to for as the great Goethe wrote “Without Sicily, Italy Creates No Image in the Soul: Here Is the Key to Everything”.

Indeed it is! What little time we had left in Palermo (for we had an New Year’s appointment at Syracuse to keep) we spent visiting one of its most characteristic churches: San Giovanni degli Eremiti.

The Normans, who established their reign in Sicily in 1072, destroyed the monuments, but not the tradition of the preceding Byzantine and Arab architecture.  San Giovanni degli Eremiti in Palermo, which dates from 1132, is Arab in the clear relationship between cubic spaces and hemispherical domes. Is it a Romanesque church with an oriental feel or is it an oriental mosque with a western feel?  The church is, in fact, built according to the canons of Sicilian-Norman architecture; it is a Romanesque church which externally resembles oriental buildings. If in Istanbul the Moslems took the Byzantine Santa Sofia as their model for their Blue Mosque then in Palermo the Normans took Arabic architecture as the model for their church. If only religions could collaborate as closely in their theology as in their architecture! May art always defeat war!

San Giovanni, characterized on the outside by red domes, leaning with one side against a front square body, is in the shape of a cross divided into square spans on each of which rests a hemisphere. The presbytery, ending in a niche, is surmounted by a dome, like that of the two quadrangular bodies that flank it and of which the one on the left raises to a bell tower.

The unroofed cloister, embellished by a luxuriant garden, is the best preserved part of the primitive monastery; the paired columns with acanthus leaf capitals supporting ogival arches stand out for their beauty and lightness.

Where are we I wondered as I walked through this enchanted corner?  The earthly paradise, the faith we hold inwardly, may perhaps be created when two great religions like those of Christianity and Muslim faith unite in celebration of the transcendence of God. They certainly can do this in architecture. May we hope that they do this in the horribly divided world of today?

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.)

Palermo’s Royal Mountain

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The supreme example of that Sicilian artistic style which combines Byzantine, Norman and Arabic influences is the cathedral of Monreale. Even if I’d seen pictures of its wonders before I was utterly and wondrously stunned when I entered into the womb of this majestic building.  Its somewhat unprepossessing exterior does not prepare one for what lies within it for the façade is flanked by two towers, one of which is ruinous and the neo classical portico is nothing special.

But step inside and hold your breath. The interior breathes radiance; it’s literally ablaze with golden light reflected in the thirteenth century mosaics which cover its nave.

The Old Testament is illustrated above the cathedral’s left aisle and the New Testament is exemplified on its right side.

These mosaics lead the eye to what must be one of the most powerful representations of Christ as Pantocrator or Creator of the Universe. It is so noble, so powerful I think that gazing upon it would convert momentarily even the most stubborn atheist…

For this was the aim of the building of Monreale: to demonstrate the great earthly power of the Norman dynasty married to the heavenly power of God: to impress and to inspire at the same time.  Almost a thousand years later it has not ceased to do this.

As my old English master at school recently commented to me “Monreale is one of the most impressive places I have ever seen” and this is  coming from a true world traveller…

If the cathedral is probably one of my top five cathedrals (could you choose your top five?  I leave you to guess what my other four are – one of them in England) then Monreale’s cloister has absolutely no paragon. Uniquely extraordinary and intimate in its effloresce of columns with each one crowned by own distinct capital and with that amiable fountain within its own mini cloister in one corner the cloister breathes angelic love of  beauty and truth.

Palermo’s Royal Chapel

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Sicily is not just the crossroads of western world civilization; it is its very roundabout and Palermo is at the centre. Founded by the Phoenicians, it became part of the Carthaginian Empire until Rome’s conquest. After the fall of  Rome Palermo  became part of the Byzantine Empire. It then joined the Arab world until conquered by the Normans who raised the city to its greatest heights of magnificence as capital of Sicily under King Ruggiero II. Spain subsequently ruled the city until it became part of the kingdom of the two Sicilies under the Bourbon dynasty.  Even the British had a hand in the island’s history: Nelson was proclaimed Duke of Bronte, a town on the slopes of Mount Etna. and Woodhouse established Marsala as a centre for fine wine equalling (if not surpassing) port and sherry. Eventually in 1860 Garibaldi appeared on the scene with his ‘thousand’ expedition conquering the island for the Savoy king Victor Emmanuel II who, in 1861, became the first king of the newly unified kingdom of Italy..

Sicily, however, never quite saw itself truly as part of a new Italian nation, a major theme in  that masterpiece of a novel, Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s ‘The Leopard’ . The independence movement was transmuted by government propaganda into brigandage. Unscrupulous groups took advantage of the unrest and by the 1920’s the notorious mafia had established itself as an international criminal organization controlled in large part from the USA.

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The Second World War did not help; operation Husky signalled the onset of the retaking of Italy from Axis forces and Palermo suffered greatly from Allied bombardments.  Unrest followed in the post-war years and the mafia was central in the further demolition of beautiful villas and the cementification of orchards and parks with their replacement by abusive concrete monstrosities right up until the 1980’s in the interests of land speculation. Meanwhile, the historic centre of Palermo was left to rack and ruin and its panoply of supreme examples of ancient architecture neglected.

The assassination of the highly respected judge Falcone in 1992 by the mafia helped to concentrate the mind of the authorities upon endemic corruption and extortion  and I have every hope that Palermo will once again regain its position as one of the most beautiful cities in the world with its equable climate, its stupendous setting and its marvellous churches and villas.

Driving from the airport on our hired car we spotted this monument marking the place where the great judge Falcone and his agents were blown up by the mafia in the ‘strage di Capaci’ of 1992.

Palermo needs more than just the two days we had to enjoy it. However, it’s still possible to get the feel of this amazing city. After we’d booked into our hotel near the centre we decided to take a sortie around the Sicily and walked to Ballarò, Palermo’s historic market.

As in much of Sicily we were constantly stunned by the juxtaposition of magnificence and squalor. I was reminded of a similar feeling when in India. Yet walking in the multi-ethnicity of these quarters by night I was entranced by the friendliness we met and felt rather safer than we have done in, say, London’s New Cross.

The following day we visited the Norman palace, the seat of the Sicilian Regional Assembly. The palace is the oldest royal residence in Europe, home to the kings of the Kingdom of Sicily, the imperial seat with Frederick II and Conrad IV and the historic Sicilian Parliament. We were cordially shown round the assembly chamber and the inner courtyard.

The palace’s highlight, however, is its royal chapel – a stunning piece of Arab-byzantine-Norman architecture, the likes of which I had never quite seen anywhere else before. This breathtakingly beautiful building was started in 1129 at the command of King Roger II of Sicily, and 1140 became the private chapel of the royal family.

The Cappella Palatina combines three main strands of architecture. Byzantine in the mosaics:

Norman in the arches:

And Arabic in the ceiling niches known as Muqarnas:

and which I had ever only come across when I visited the ladies’ mosque in Isfahan, Iran.

Palermo’s Royal Chapel is truly one of the most ecstatic places I have ever seen in my life. No wonder it is a UNESCO world heritage site!

The elaborate cosmatesque work of the floor is yet another extraordinary feature:

And we still had to see two other similar sites of equally dazzling magnificence….

After just one morning I was already beginning to suffer from ‘Stendhal Syndrome’ which is defined as “a psychosomatic condition involving rapid heartbeat, fainting, confusion and even hallucinations, allegedly occurring when individuals become exposed to objects, artworks, or phenomena of great beauty”. Would I make it to see the wonder of Monreale?

Saint Rosalia and the Plague

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“He who has not visited Sicily does not know Italy” said the great German, poet, naturalist, novelist, dramatist and general universal man, Goethe.

Following his advice, just after Christmas of 2011 we took a flight from Pisa to Palermo on the three-cornered Island. We’d previously visited Sicily on separate occasions but never together. Sandra had been to Erice as interpreter for a professional visit. I had first seen Sicily in the early sixties when my Uncle was university lecturer in French literature at the University of Catania. It was an invitation from the guardian of Vicopisano fortress, Giovanni Ranieri Fascetti, to visit his friends’ family in Syracuse for the New Year that prompted us to revisit the island .

We hired a car from Palermo airport and had a breakfast by the beautiful seacoast known as the ‘Conca Doro’ (the golden bay) before deciding to follow the road up Monte Pellegrino to the sanctuary of the city’s patroness, Santa Rosalia.

She was a twelfth century woman, born in an aristocratic family who, forsaking marriage and a courtly life, decided to become a hermit and spent the rest of her life as an anchorite in a cave on the hill which dominates Palermo to the west.

In the seventeenth century Rosalia’s remains were rediscovered and paraded through the city’s streets during a pandemic. Miraculously her presence wiped away the plague that was decimating the population. From that moment on Saint Rosalia’s shrine has become a popular place of pilgrimage attracting people from all over the world.

Among these was the great Goethe himself who, on setting eyes on the sweet effigy of the Saint in the grotto over which the sanctuary has been built, wrote in a letter home:

By the light of some dull lamps I caught sight of a lovely female form. She lay seemingly in a state of ecstasy—the eyes half-closed, the head leaning carelessly on her right hand, which was adorned with many rings. I could not sufficiently discern her face, but it seemed to be peculiarly charming. Her robe was made of gilded metal, which imitated excellently a texture wrought with gold. The head and hands were of white marble. I cannot say that the whole was in the lofty style, still it was executed so naturally and so pleasingly that one almost fancied it must breathe and move. A little angel stands near her, and with a bunch of lilies in his hand appears to be fanning her.

I don’t think I could have put this description any better – especially as it came from Goethe!

We left the shrine and began our descent down Monte Pellegrino. The wondrous city of Palermo lay spread out before us, its treasures waiting for our discovery of them.

 

 

 

Villa Vrindavana

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Italy has sometimes been described as a halfway station between northern Europe and the Indian subcontinent. Certainly, geographically both India and Italy have certain broad features in common. They are both peninsulas. They have large mountain ranges defining their northern borders. A long river runs through an extensive alluvial plain below these mountains. A considerable island lies below their feet and both areas have an extensive range of hills going from North to south. Of course, this is a very superficial comparison. Although both the Alps and the Himalayas were formed around the same epoch, the Western ghats and certainly the Deccan plateau are much older rocks geologically than the Apennines.

More constructive is to compare the main religious culture of the two nations. Roman Catholicism with its multiplicity of saints worshipped in their special shrines and, especially, with its religious processions compares favourably with the pantheon of Hindu gods and particularly with the great festivities of Ratha Yatra, or the chariot festival when the temple divinities are taken out of their sacred abode and paraded through the streets on chariots or palanquins. The purpose of the procession is two-fold: to enable excluded persons to view the deity and to bless the area around the religious centre.

Ratha Yatra refers especially to the annual festival at the temple of Jagannath in Puri, Orissa (Odisha) state, India. Here a public procession with deities Jagannath (an avatar of Vishnu the preserver), Balabhadra (his brother), Subhadra (his sister) and Sudarshana Chakra (his weapon) carried on giant chariots (ratha) are hauled by hundreds of devotees through the town’s streets. Indeed the chariots are so massive that the name Jagannath has been transmuted by western culture to mean any large HGV!

Jagannath (right), Balabhadra (left), Subhadra (centre)

I have visited Puri but as a non-Hindu was only able to view the temple from the terrace of a nearby public library. I hope, therefore, as an ‘excluded ‘ one to participate one day in the procession.

 

Pulling the chariot is also seen as a metaphor for pulling the God-head into oneself. Indeed there are occasions when worshippers have thrown themselves under the wheels of the chariot and immolated themselves by being crushed. There was a recent incident of this happening reported in the Times of India. It was unfortunately an accident: a chariot-hauler, pulling just behind a wheel slipped, lost his footing, fell down and, in the absence of any brakes on the vehicle, met his maker.

The beach at Puri was fabulous. We rented a house near the sea for a whole month. This was my travel companion on that occasion. I wonder where she is now and what the beach looks like now?

 

Trudi on Puri beach

Today one does not have to venture to India to witness a chariot festival. Thanks to the Indian diaspora and, especially, to Shrila Prabhupada, the founder of ISKON, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness who, with just a few books, a bag of cereals and eight dollars, landed in New York in 1965. Within a decade Shrila achieved a widespread following including the likes of George Harrison and, moreover, gathered a great respect among scholars for his exemplary translations of the Puranas and other ancient Sanskrit texts.

Abhay Charanaravinda Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupad

Krishna, Vishnu’s eighth avatar or earthly manifestation, is at the centre of Viareggio’s summer celebration of the Ratha Yatra.

We have enjoyed participating in it on several occasions and have loved the way the festive oriental procession melds in with the Italian religious culture right down to the fine Maremman oxen which pull the chariot.

The oxen, raised on a farm which is part of the Villa Vrindavana, have won several prizes at agricultural shows and it’s lovely to see these animals, once an essential part of Italian country life, back at work again.

Villa Vrindavana, a few kilometres south of Florence in the locality of San Casciano, is a beautiful sixteenth century villa saved from utter neglect by the Hare Krishna community in 1976.

We have been frequent visitors there in the past, especially in the 1980’s when their spiritual leader came across from America. These were truly large gatherings with talks, spiritual exercises and delicious Prasad all held in a giant tent.

That tent has today become a hay store and such heady counter culture activities have quietened down a bit. Instead, there are on offer several interesting courses and sessions on meditation, yoga, herbal medicine and the study of the great Hindu texts. More details can be had on Villa Vrindavana’s web site.

The name Vrindavana comes, of course, from the great religious centre south of Delhi, associated with the childhood of Lord Krishna. Here ISKON have started building the tallest Hindu temple ever, a veritable skyscraper…I prefer to reach for the skies in more modest ways. In particular, in delving through and restoration of my old photos I have come across these of a village religious gathering in Himachal Pradesh I attended in the 1970’s. Instead of being transported on giant chariots or housed within lofty shikaras the God is carried on a palanquin where he (or she) is consulted on important subjects like when will it rain again.

With regard to important subjects I just wish I could have such firm answers regarding who the next POTUS will be….

One thing is sure: Krishna and Christ have more than their similar sound in common: they are both sons of God as they were divinely conceived. Their coming on Earth were both foretold in the relative scriptures. They were both born in humble places, one in a prison cell, the other in a stable. Christ is seen as a shepherd, Krishna as a cowherd. And….most importantly both emphasised love for one another and peace in the world.

(San Cassiano’s big triennial Holy Cross religious procession in 2017)