Category Archives: Art

Lucca’s Living Music

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Music for me and for so many others is not just the Shakespearean food of love but the food of life itself. Music richly accompanies our memories, colours our passions, soothes our sorrows and heightens our joys. How sad it is then that the on-going pandemic is cruellest with this art. Writers and readers may pursue their activities in solitude and artists paint their canvases without spectators. Music, however, pines for shared interaction more than most arts: indeed, the playing of members in a symphony orchestra is one of the sublimest social collaborations known to mankind.

It was, therefore, with the greatest penchant that I attended a concert given as part of the ‘Settecento Musicale a Lucca’ (‘Eighteenth century at Lucca’) festival in the city’s superbly huge barn of a church, San Francesco, whose re-opening to the public after a three-year restoration we witnessed in 2014.

(See my posts on that momentous event at:

https://longoio.wordpress.com/2013/07/07/magisterial-monastery/

And at:

https://longoio.wordpress.com/2013/04/16/new-life-to-an-old-quarter/)

This was the programme:

Music yearns for an audience, even if socially-distanced on appropriately marked seats music, even if husband and wife are asked, as we were, to be seated with a couple of vacant places between us!

Music also requires just one player to entrance that audience whether it be on a piano or, in the case of the late afternoon’s opening item, a solo violin. Da Won Chang’s interpretation of J. S. Bach’s violin partita in D minor was beautifully played and its last movement, the famous chaconne, utterly riveting.

It also demonstrated how good so many musicians are coming out of specialist courses at Lucca’s ‘Boccherini’ conservatoire.

The ‘Animando’ chamber orchestra, conducted by Stefano Teani, followed with a group of four pieces by Mozart, Tartini, Vivaldi and Durante which displayed the astonishing variety of eighteenth century Italian music. The Neapolitan school was represented by Durante and Venice (naturally) by Vivaldi. Austrian Mozart spent two of his most formative youthful years in Italy where he assimilated the exceptional melodic qualities of that country’s music. His divertimento K136 remains one of my favourite pieces and it was very agreeably played by the orchestra. Vivaldi is best known for his concerti composed for a variety of solo instruments but those for orchestra are equally good. This one was played with particular verve and ‘authenticity’ despite its not being performed on period instruments and with no harpsicord continuo present. But then the new fashion is now steering towards a question of style rather than mere ‘authentic instruments’.

Throughout this performance Animando’s instrumental balance was excellent, defeating any confrontation with the somewhat cavernous interior in which it performed. For particular praise was the double-bass playing by Valentina Ciardelli, one of Lucca conservatoire’s most distinguished graduates and one who has laudably established herself as a player and teacher of that neglected emperor of instruments in our London borough of Greenwich.

The concert’s second half was played by the ‘Luigi Boccherini’ chamber orchestra under the multifaceted musician Luca Bacci who is also the director of Lucca cathedral’s Santa Cecilia choir.

To demonstrate how Johann Sebastian Bach’s development was strongly influenced by Italian music Vivaldi’s concerto for four violins RV580 was played: the prototype for Bach’s recreation in his own four harpsichord concerto. Of particular interest to me was a very dashing symphony by Puccini – not the ‘La Bohème’ fellow, of course, but his grandfather Antonio. Music does run in so many families: just think of Bach and Mozart, for instance.

The acoustics of San Francesco are surprisingly good as befits a mammoth shoebox of a church without any side aisles. Baroque music demands a moderate resonance and I felt the building was well suited to the eighteenth century repertoire.

It was wonderful to return to the ‘concert hall’ in this lovely building after such a long deprivation; I realised that this was the first concert I’d been to since February. It was also an especial frisson to realise that we were hearing the music of Boccherini in the same church where he lies buried.

Perhaps the concert might have added a work by another of Lucca’ great musical geniuses, Geminiani, who as this inscription states taught the brits how to play the violin properly!

(Incidentally the dedication was written by the noted violinist and quartet leader Adolfo Betti, grandfather of Massimo Betti, Bagni di Lucca’s well-known chemist.)

There are a few more concerts in this series which has been brought to fruition in perhaps one of the most difficult years for music ever since the bombings of Milan’s la Scala and Dresden’s Semper opera houses during the last war.

Indeed, I had a vague intimation that this was how Myra Hess’s famous concerts in London’s National Gallery must have felt like during the Second World War when instead of being bombarded by a virus the populace had to confront incendiaries and mortars.

(Saint Francis and the Wolf of Gubbio – a stained glass window in the concert’s church)

As in all cases prior booking is required since numbers are limited and masks must be worn at all times and temperatures must be taken, as is written on the admission ticket…

Of Libraries

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If a house without a cat is soulless so a house without a library is equally barren. Looking at photographs of some recently erected book shelves in the house of a family who donated our male Tom, Archie, last December turned me to consider my own library here at our little place in Longoio, Italy.

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One of the first things upon settling into our new dwelling was to get our local carpenter to make some rustic chestnut shelves to house those volumes we considered worth the effort to transplant from our former abode in the UK.

My own set of shelves

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was subsequently mirrored by Sandra’s set.

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But what is on these shelves and how have they been built up over the years we have been here? Amazingly we found that the house’s previous owner had been quite a book collector himself and we found some antique volumes dating back to the seventeenth century, mainly of an ecclesiastical nature which formed the kernel of our new ‘biblioteca’.

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There were some more recent acquisitions showing that the owner, a Second World War hero who had lost an arm in combat, had a particular interest in military memoirs. I was particularly taken by accounts of the Italian alpine campaigns on the Russian front – surely one of the most futile and heroic actions ever. But then all war is futile: ‘the pity of war’ as that great war poet, Wilfred Owen, declared.

Added to this original nucleus discovered in our house’s attic are the majority of books: those of my own collection. At school our English literature master, who still happily remains active, severely told us what was worth reading and what wasn’t. As a Leavis acolyte he stressed the great tradition of novel writing – George Eliot, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Henry James, Joseph Conrad among them. This was fine with me as I grew to love much of their work. Dickens’ ‘Little Dorrit’ with its unremitting analysis of the Englishman abroad and Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’ remain two of the few novels I dare to re-read.

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Of course, poetry takes up an essential part of my library. I doubt whether I shall ever be remembered as a poet but I love reading and writing it. Keats, Crashaw, Shelley and T. S. Eliot are key people in my canon.

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There is a fair selection of non-fiction of which travel writing takes up the major part. Naturally, Italy occupies most of the focus. In this respect I remember writing as a teenager articles on ‘un turista in Italia ‘ for a schoolfriend’s magazine aptly called ‘Novelty’. For me that word novelty has never quite deserted me (although some detractors may disagree!).

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Apart from other books on such disparate subjects as rearing Muscovy ducks and restoring Fiat Five Hundreds (Cinquine) perhaps my most treasured books are those which have been donated to me by friends, a few of whom have sadly departed. Some of these books may just have been incisive presents. Others will be even more precious, having been written by their donors.

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In this age where we are reading so much on digital media, whether it be on Kindle, the BBC news or Facebook’s tittle-tattle, there is nothing so satisfying and so rewarding as holding a book in one’s hands and turning its pages in wonder at what awaits. The beauty of the written page, the seductive smell of print, the utter assuredness of the book’s presence itself can never be superceeded. Whether in the depths of winter coziness before a log fire or under the shade of a parasol in the laziness of a summer’s Mediterranean heat there is nothing that will communicate the supreme devotion that a good book can offer.

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My library, therefore, is not just a favourite collection of books; it is the whole universe of my intellectual and sensual being: the entire world that I have grown up in and will love until my dying day.

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How Pardini Beautified Ponte a Serraglio

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The spread of summer events in Bagni di Lucca has been somewhat curtailed this year because of the world health crisis. However, there are still some very pleasant activities including a series of walks in and around the town and the surrounding villages organized by the De Montaigne foundation. This is the programme for the events which must all be booked. The walks themselves are free with a voluntary donation towards the upkeep of Bagni’s protestant cemetery.

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We joined one last week-end which took in some historic buildings by the Lucchese architect Giuseppe Pardini (1799-1884) who, in 1834, was appointed chief architect for the city of Lucca.

We started the walk from the gardens of villa Fiori, a formerly magnificent nineteenth century mansion, now virtually abandoned to the elements. Some work had recently been done on its roof. Unfortunately, during the recent storm, described in my previous post, a tall pine tree fell upon the building gravely damaging a part of the structure.

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Although now having a classical appearance, villa Fiori was originally designed in the neo-gothic style. Only the garden turrets now reflect the original architecture of the villa which is desperately seeking a white knight to rescue it from further neglect.

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At the price normally paid for a tiny bedsit in London’s Knightsbridge the villa’s fifty rooms are a real bargain!

We crossed the foot bridge, built in 2009, with our escort, Giulia, a very well informed twenty-three year old member of Bagni’s De Montaigne cultural association, and walked to the old hospital built by Russian count Demidoff as a thank you to the citizens of Bagni for having cured him of gout by drinking its waters.

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The villa Demidoff has been leased for some years to the Global Village which hosts various alternative well-being therapies. The former family mausoleum is now used for yoga sessions.

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Of course, we know these places well having first come to the area in 2005. However, the nice thing about visiting in a small group is that we can see familiar sights with fresh eyes. I get the same sensation when I show some of the beautiful locations this valley offers to friends from abroad.

A steep path led us up to one of the oldest of Bagni’s thermal establishments. The Terme di Bernabo’ date back to at least the fifteenth century although the present building is nineteenth century. Its foyer has exquisite ceiling decorations.

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We viewed the elegant marble baths with their rather less elegant modern taps.

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One bath particularly stood out for its elegance.

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The unfortunate thing about the Bagni Bernabo’, however, is that after their restoration ten years ago there was no-one to maintain and encourage visitors to use them. Hence they are, once again, showing signs of dilapidation. Our escort, nevertheless, did state that there was a possibility that they would once again be open for use by the public.

The views from the Bagni Bernabo’ are especially charming, even more so in the golden late afternoon summer sun; our walk had begun at 5pm to avoid the hottest part of the day.

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We stepped down to the valley floor and entered perhaps Bagni di Lucca’s most magnificent building and Europe’s first public casino, again designed by Pardini. The various rooms, including the sumptuous hall of the lilies (decorated by the same painter who did the ceiling frescoes for the Bagni Bernabo’), are familiar to us through the events they have hosted over the years. May these events return soon!

We crossed the river Lima via a bridge designed, again, by Pardini and reached one of the architect’s most ingenious buildings, the hotel de Russie.

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On an awkward triangular site the architect managed to produce one of the most sumptuous of the forty-odd hotels Bagni di Lucca once had. Giulia informed us that an American architect was inspired by Pardini’s effort to design the flatiron building in New York. Judge for yourselves…

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With this last building, which has both a famous (as writer Ouida’s favourite residence when she would come to Bagni) and an infamous (as a fascist interrogation and torture centre in the last war) association we concluded our Ponte a Serraglio walk. We shall certainly book more as they are such fun and very informative.

My Final Home

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During my recent walk along part of London’s Green Chain walk, linking open spaces and parks in South East London, on one of the hottest days this year I entered the cooling shades of Bostal Woods whose name derives from the same root as the Italian for woodland: ‘bosco’.

Exiting from the verdurous gloom I found myself before the impressive gateway leading into Plumstead cemetery.

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Opened in 1890 the cemetery contains memorials to those who lost their lives while working at the Woolwich Arsenal and a section devoted to the War Dead.

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There is also a memorial to Gunner Alfred Smith who received the Victoria cross for saving a fellow soldier.

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(Headstone donated by the Cooperative society in 1986)

This took place when the Camel Corps was on its way to relieve General Gordon who was besieged in Khartoum.

(Memorial to the Camel Corps in London’s Victoria Embankment Gardens)

The British forces encountered the Mad Mahdi’s rebel dervishes in January 1885 and, despite being outnumbered by 1,600 to 15,000 men, defeated them. Unfortunately, when the Camel corps reached Khartoum to rescue General Gordon they were two days too late: Khartoum had fallen and Gordon and his garrison had all been slaughtered.

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The cemetery is beautifully laid out in former parkland with a gently hilly contour bordered by dense woodland.

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In its centre is a chapel built in flamboyant Gothic style.

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A scattering of sycamore, beech and oak trees punctuate Plumstead cemetery’s extensive area.

It is in this cemetery that, some time ago, my wife Alexandra purchased a grave plot for the two of us.

I cannot think of any place more lovely in this part of London where we have lived and worked for many years. On the day of my visit I was completely alone, the searing heat was made more bearably by soft breezes from the woods, the views over London were superb and the wild grass growing between the mossy tombstones waved and glistened in the setting sun.

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SOWERS OF THE SYSTEM

I can face you here and kiss your red lips

pouting with death’s sensual desire. I touch

your golden waterfall of hair, the tips

of your nipples – I now love you so much!

I’ve had enough of our modern image

with its isms and lack of indulgence.

Only your weald of symbols will assuage

my thirst for the meaning of when? and whence?

The vast words: despair, destiny and hope,

time and judgement, the sea of lost mankind –

witnesses to your omnipresent scope –

are dyed with the last sun’s hues in my mind.

They mantle me in the casts of the night

and point to the celestial city’s light.

FLP

Praying for Protection Against the Plague

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This Sunday, 22 March, in the church of Saint Michael the Archangel at Castiglione di Garfagnana, Mass will be celebrated behind closed doors, without a congregation, according to the recent edicts of the Italian state, and broadcast on television. At the conclusion of the service there will be a plea for the intercession of the Madonna of the Rosary who in 1631 saved Castiglione from the plague. This occurrence is remembered annually at the so-called “Festa del Regalo” (Feast of the Gift) which takes place on the first Sunday of the year.

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Yesterday, on our visit to Kandy’s world heritage site of the Temple of Buddha’s Tooth we heard the chanting of monks praying for the deliverance of the nation of Sri Lanka from Covid-19 and broadcast loudly on speakers throughout the sacred enclosure.

In both cases I am aware of a similar return of prayers to a supernatural force for deliverance from the plague. At school we were taught that people no longer needed to pray to Gods to save themselves from the plague: the progress of medical science and the resources of modern hospitals obviated the need for such observances now considered quasi-superstitious. Even the catastrophic ‘Spanish flu’ pandemic of 1918-9, which killed an estimated 500 million (a third of the world population at that time), was considered unrepeatable. Yet since that time we have had further pandemics:HIV, H1N1 (2009 flu) and now the rapidly spreading coronavirus. The contageous horrors of the plague are, apparently, ever with us.

I recollect a visit to the church of Saint Mary the Virgin in Ashwell, Hertfordshire. The majestic west tower has poignant mediaeval graffiti carved on its walls by victims of the Black Death in the fourteenth century. One of them, in translation from the Latin, reads:
“1350. Miserable, wild, distracted. The dregs of the mob alone survive to witness.”

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I hate to think what lack of medical facilities existed at that time. However, today at our local hospital of Northwick Park, Harrow, (appearing as the introduction to the Fawlty Towers episode where Sybil Fawlty is admitted for ingrown toenail surgery) a critical incident was declared when it ran out of intensive care beds because of a surge in corona virus cases.

Near to our village of Longoio in Italy at the junction that leads to Vetteglia are the ruins of the church of San Rocco (Saint Roch).

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The saint 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.

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I am not sure whether, as a practising agnostic, I would go as far as praying to San Rocco in the present somewhat distressing situation. However, everything is possible and I am quite sure that religious fervour is increasing in the wake of a disturbingly uncertain phenomenon. One thing is sure: like the aftermaths of the Black Death and Spanish Flu our lives will never be quite the same again and we may truly revalue the simple things in life like hugging a loved one or friend, having a cappuccino in a bar, shopping in a supermarket or taking a turn without any reason, apart from the sheer pleasure of it, in the country amid wondrous nature which is now awakening with the song of Spring at its solstice.

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The Wonders of Polonnaruwa

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The history of Sri Lanka is complex but can be simplified into an often violent dialectic between the Buddhist Sinhalese majority of the island’s centre and south and the Hindu Tamil minority of its northern and eastern areas. Added to these two major ethnic groups were the western traders: first Portuguese, then Dutch and lastly the British. Each one of these people have left their distinctive mark in the culture and architecture of the country.

My previous post describes the ancient city of Anuradhapura. We subsequently visited a further ancient city and world heritage site: Polonnaruwa. This city was founded by the South Indian Chola dynasty after their successful invasion of Anuradhapura in the tenth century.

Two things struck me as odd about these cities when compared with those in the western world. First was the utter obliteration of a conquered city and the construction of a new centre in a new site. This was rather different from what usually happened in Europe. For example, Lucca was conquered by the French under Napoleon; he did not destroy it but merely added to its beauty. In the East the total elimination of a city was commonplace in an attempt to deny that previous powers had ever been in existence. This trend has continued in modified form to this day: for example the former capital cities of Pakistan and Myanmar have both been replaced by new centres. The British, too, followed this trend when they founded a new capital of India at Delhi.

Second was the astonishing syncretism between Buddhist and Hindu religion. Statues of Buddha and Vishnu, for example, are to be found in the same temple. In India hinduism won hands down and Buddha was relegated as an avatar of Vishnu while in Sri Lanka the Theravada school of Buddhism continues to flourish.

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The ruins of Polonnaruwa are very well presented and very extensive. We only managed to visit a part of the area they occupied but were impressed by the ruins of palaces, stupas, baths and shrines we saw. The city was clearly a flourishing place with particularly advanced irrigation systems which included the man-made Parakrama lake.

We first visited the informative museum and realised that we’d seen similar examples of the bronze statues during our visit to Chennai’s Government museum three years ago and described in my post at

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Of the ruins five were particularly impressive.

First was the temple where Buddha’s tooth, perhaps Buddhism’s most sacred relic, was originally kept.

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Second was the burnt out shell of the King’s palace with massive walls.

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Third was a giant temple with a Buddha statue approaching the scale of the sadly destroyed Bamiyan ones.

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Fourth was a shrine with an almost gothic arch form.

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Fifth was the elegant King’s bath:

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Sixth was a majestic trio of gigantic statues including one of the dying Buddha.

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Polonnaruwa eventually suffered the fate of other ancient cities in Sri Lanka: the Aryacakravarti dynasty abandoned it in the thirteenth century and built yet another centre at Dambadeniya.

Before the evocative ruins of this once prosperous city I could not help picturing an apocalyptic vision of a world currently threatened by an unseen enemy from which there appears to be no respite.

Le Canzoni di Londra

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Benché  Michael Bloomberg, billionario e filantropo, si sia ritirato come candidato anti-trump nella campagna presidenziale americana, rimane sempre molto attivo a Londra dove la sua nuova sede ha vinto il prestigioso premio Stirling per architettura e dove ci può trovare il tempio romano dedicato al Dio Mitra e descritto da me a

Il Dio Mitra a Londra

e da Alexandra Cipriani nel suo resoconto di Trip advisor a:

London’s Mysterious Mithraic Temple

Lo stesso edificio ospita mostre su temi diversi e ieri abbiamo visitato la più recente che consiste semplicemente di una jukebox che suona una svariata collezione di canzoni scritte sul tema della grande metropoli di Londra e dove uno si può sedere e ascoltarle con le cuffie.

 

Quante canzoni vi ricordate dedicate a una città particolare? In Italia basta pensare a ‘Genova per noi ‘di Paolo Conte, ‘Rimini’ di Fabrizio de Andrè, ‘Bologna’ di Guccini, e ‘Lontana è Milano’ di Venditi. Quando si arriva a Firenze c’è non solo ‘Firenze Sogna’, cantata da Claudio Villa, ma ‘La porti un bacione a Firenze’ di Odoardo Spadaro e, più recentemente, ‘Il cielo di Firenze’ di Paolo Gallesi.

Quando si arriva a Londra ci sono canzoni non solo della città in toto, come ‘London Calling’ del Clash o ‘London Pride’ di Noel Coward, ma anche quelle che riferiscono a vie e distretti particolari: Soho, Chelsea, perfino Willesden.

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Tra queste si trova in particolare ‘West End Girls’ dei Pet Shop Boys, ‘Upper Clapton Dance’ di Professor Green e ‘Sunny Goodge Street’ di Donovan.

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La mostra alla sede Londinese di Bloomberg fu ideata da Susan Hiller, tristemente scomparsa l’anno scorso. La Hiller (1940-2019) naque a Tallahassee,  Florida. All’inizio degli anni ’60 si stabilì a Londra, che divenne il suo paese di adozione. Fu innnovatrice nella tecnologia audio-visiva nei primi anni ’80 e le sue opere  hanno ottenuto un riconoscimento internazionale.

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Ci siamo molto divertiti ascoltando brani dalla vasta collezione sul jukebox. Eravamo pressoché gli unici presenti poiché la pioggia e il vento  di una  freddissima giornata Londinese, abbinati con la minaccia del virus hanno ridotto la densità di gente nella capitale.

Avrei una mia canzone su Londra preferita? Potrebbe benissimo essere ‘Waterloo Sunset ‘ dei Kinks, risalente al 1967. Questo brano, così struggente e melanconico, fu scritta da Ray Davies dopo essere stato un paziente all’ospedale di Saint Thomas che si trova sul bordo del Tamigi proprio vicino al ponte di Waterloo.

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Questa incantevole canzone sembra di sposare, in una soave struttura melodica, due aspetti della grande città: l’apparentemente fredda atmosfera di una metropoli, sovente senza amicizie fatte facilmente e di luoghi troppo escludenti, con un cuore nascosto ma devotissimo che unisce la giovane coppia, Terry e Julie che, secondo le parole della canzone,  s’incontrano alla vicina stazione ogni venerdì sera, e attraversano il ponte di Waterloo nella luce di un tramonto aureo.

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“Dirty old river, must you keep rolling
Flowing into the night?
People so busy, make me feel dizzy
Taxi light shines so bright
But I don’t need no friends
As long as I gaze on
Waterloo sunset
I am in paradise
Every day I look at the world from my window
But chilly, chilly is the evening time
Waterloo sunset’s fine (Waterloo sunset’s fine)
Terry meets Julie
Waterloo station
Every Friday night
But I am so lazy, don’t want to wander
I stay at home at night
But I don’t feel afraid
As long as I gaze on
Waterloo sunset
I am in paradise
Every day I look at the world from my window
But chilly, chilly is the evening time
Waterloo sunset’s fine (Waterloo sunset’s fine)
Millions of people swarming like flies ’round
Waterloo underground
But Terry and Julie cross over the river
Where they feel safe and sound
And they don’t need no friends
As long as they gaze on
Waterloo Sunset
They are in paradise
Waterloo sunset’s fine (Waterloo sunset’s fine)
Waterloo sunset’s fine.”
Ogni canzone
un bacio nel passato:
abbraccio forte. 

A Place in the Country

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There are a total of 1121 UNESCO World Heritage sites – places which are essential witnesses to the cultural and natural history of our planet and which are, therefore, deemed of the highest importance. Of these Italy has the most: fifty cultural and five natural sites. More particularly it’s the Lombardy region which has the highest number – over ten – somewhat unfortunate in view of the current pandemic sweeping the world and which this part of Italy holds the highest number of quarantined towns.

Cultural sites include such tourist favourites as the historic centres of Florence, Naples, Rome, Pienza, Urbino, Siena, Verona, Vicenza, Genoa, San Gimignano, Ivrea (a fine example of twentieth century town planning), the baroque towns of Sicily like Noto and Ragusa, Mantua, Sabbioneta, Syracuse, Matera, Alberobello and, of course, Venice.

No Lucca? Our local big town is still on the second, ‘tentative’, list of sites which also includes the historic centres of Parma, Volterra and Orvieto. Of particular interest for those living in our area of Tuscany is part of the Via Francigena, the old pilgrim path from Canterbury to Rome, Bagni di Lucca which makes up one of the great spa centres of Europe, together with the UK’s Bath and the Czech republic’s Carlovy Vary, and the marble basin of Carrara.

I’m not too sure how one gets promoted from a tentative to a permanent world heritage list but I’m sure that it won’t take too long for Lucca to get there.

In 2013 an addition to Italy’s list of world heritage sites were the Medici villas and gardens of Tuscany. These are rural dwellings originally founded by the Medici to serve three purposes: defence outposts to protect their territories, summer retreats, and agricultural centres supplying food and wine for the Medici court.

Twelve villas and two gardens make up the list of villas. Most of them are placed around Florence’s hills but there are four fine examples near Lucca including one that’s regularly opened to the public: Serravezza.

This week we found ourselves in Florence’s environs and were able to visit one of the Medici villas, perhaps together with that of Poggio a Caiano, one of the grandest: Villa la Petraia.

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Dating originally from the fourteenth century the villa was expanded by Cosimo I de Medici and its garden embellished by terraces constructed with stone excavated from the surrounding land (hence its name: ‘pietra’ means stone). These gardens were enhanced by beautiful lawns of anemonies when we visited it.

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Eventually La Petraia became the property of Victor Emmanuel II, the first king of a newly united Italy, who added an elegant iron glasshouse structure over the inner courtyard (elaborately frescoed by Volterrano) turning it into a spacious ballroom for the reception party of his son’s engagement to Blanche de Larderei.

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Around this courtyard are the state rooms which range from the grandeur of the dining room to the intimacy of Rosina’s (the king’s lovely morganatic wife Rosa Vercellana) boudoir.

I was particularly fascinated by the games room which also included an early pinball machine.

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The paintings decorating the walls of this luscious villa comprise the lunettes painted by Giusto Utens at the start of the seventeenth century and showing fourteen of the Medici villas including La Petraia. These valuable insights into the villas’ past also show the Villa of Pratolino which was demolished in the nineteenth century.

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The remaining service buildings were subsequently refurbished by the Demidoff family, famous in Bagni di Lucca for the hospital they built. I was amazed to find the lunettes at this villa for formerly they had been exhibited in the ‘Firenze com’era’ museum which is now closed.

La Petraia is open free of charge most days and visitable only in accompanied groups. More details are available on its web site at http://polomusealetoscana.beniculturali.it/index.php?it/185/firenze-villa-medicea-della-petraia

Italy’s Futurist Architecture

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In Peter and Linda Murray’s ‘Dictionary of Art and Artists’ (first published by Penguin books in the 1960s) futurism gets a rough ride, being described by them as one of the dullest and most mediocre of all artistic movements.

Opinions have changed a little bit since then. Yet futurism poses considerable problems even today, particularly with regard to its prevailing ideology of violence, speed, destruction of tradition, espousal of war as a method of social hygene and extreme right wing views such as fascism.

Futurism did champion the latest technology including aeroplanes, power stations and motor cars.  However, its repudiation of previous artistic movements as largely worthless remains quite unacceptable today particularly since concepts such as conservation and preservation have assumed critical importance.

Possibly the most original notion of the futurists was to publicise their movement through manifestos laying down their axioms. No other artistic association had ever done this before, not even the impressionists.

Futurists were keen for Italy to enter the Great War and regain homelands. Sadly, two of their most gifted exponents, Boccioni and Sant’Elia, lost their lives in the bloody conflict. I was especially keen to see Sant’Elia’s original drawing of his ‘ideal city’ at the recent, superbly organized, Palazzo Blu exhibition devoted to futurism at Pisa, since this prophetic architect has very few completed buildings to his credit, although his images inspired a new generation of Italian architects including Michelucci, chief designer of Florence’s fabulous Santa Maria Novella railway station, perhaps the finest example of futurist architecture.
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Antonio Sant’Elia was born in 1888 in Como.

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In 1903 he completed his technical studies and in 1906 graduated as master builder. Becoming friends with the sculptor Girolamo Fontana and Carlo Care Sant’Elia attended cultural environments such as the Caffè Cova where he met Umberto Boccioni. His first major commission was the Villa Elisi in San Maurizio near Como in 1911.

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In 1913, Sant’Elia opened an architectural studio in Milan and designed the tomb for Gerardo Caprotti in Monza’s Urban Cemetery.

In 1914 he presented his drawings for an ‘Ideal City’. Among these were designs for an airport, a train station, and a power plant. In the same year Sant’Elia contributed to a “Manifesto of Futurist Architecture”.

In 1915, sharing the ideas of the other futurist exponents, he joined the army together with Boccioni and Marinetti.

In 1916, after receiving a combat medal, Sant’Elia was commissioned to design the cemetery of the Arezzo Brigade, in Monfalcone. On October 10, while the cemetery was still under construction, he was killed in action.

The general theory of the ‘Ideal City’ is encapsulated in this sentence from the 1914 manifesto:

“We must invent and rebuild the futurist city similar to an immense tumultuous, agile, mobile, dynamic construction site in every part, and the futurist house similar to a gigantic machine”.

In France Le Corbusier conducted a parallel development with the concept of the ideal city in his ‘Cité Radieuse’ which postulated the demolition of the traditional urban layout of Paris and its replacement by vast areas of tower blocks and highways. We all know what this dystopic vision has led to in those cities where a degenerated version has created severe social problems. However, it’s odd that the drug-infested, knife-crimed UK tower blocks are now pointing to similarly-silhouetted exclusively-luxurious tower blocks; just witness the abhorrent developments along the south Thames waterfront at Battersea. Perhaps the fugacious ‘ideal city’ concept lives on still?

However, Sant’Elia deserves credit for having sensed the close dependence between architectural and urban problems on which the planning and reflection of all modern architectural movements has been set.

 

 

 

 

 

Three Unmissable Exhibitions

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Three major exhibitions within easy reach of Lucca are ending soon and if you have any interest in the development of modern art they can on no account be missed.

The exhibitions are.
Amedeo Modigliani. Livorno Museo Della Citta’. Ending 16 February.


Futurism. Pisa Palazzo Blue. Ending 9 February.


Natalia Goncharova. Firenze. Palazzo Strozzi. Ending 12 January.

It’s a pity that I’m going to miss at least one of these but I have heard that they are all three stunning and if you can get to them do so!