The island of Ischia (pronounced "ihs/kih/ah", accent on the first "i"), located in the Bay of Naples, was recently voted by the Travel + Leisure magazine as Europe's most beautiful island and the third most beautiful island in the world. We wouldn't go as far as saying that Ischia is Europe's most beautiful island - we haven't visited all the islands of Europe however we have visited islands in Europe which are as beautiful as Ischia - however it's a wonderful acknowledgement by Travel + Leisure magazine because, despite the maddening August crowds and the exasperating public transport system, Ischia truly is an enchanting place.
It's not only the natural beauty, and the history, and the cuisine of the island which make it such a special place, but also the numerous religious festivals which take place throughout the year. Of these, la Festa di Sant'Anna, also known as La Festa a mare agli scogli di Sant'Anna (Sea Festival at the Rocks of St Anne) which is held on the 26th of July, is the most spectacular. It dates back to a centuries-old custom whereby, on the 26th of July, the feast of Saint Anne, the women of Ischia and their families would travel, after sunset, in fishing boats lit with fishing-lamps and festooned with flowers to the tiny church of Saint Anne, opposite the Castle of Ischia (il Castello aragonese), in the bay of Cartaromana - which is studded by volcanic rocks jutting out of the sea, thus the scogli - to invoke the protection of Saint Anne, patron saint of mothers and women in labor. Saint Anne was deeply venerated of course: the rate of of women dying from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth was very high. At the same time, bonfires would be lit all over the island to mark the festivity. In pre-Christian times, this particular part of the island with its bubbling water resulting from the island's vulcanic activity, was linked to fertility rites and the cult of Diana, virgin goddess of childbirth and women. Below is how a wonderful local artist, Antonella Buono, portrayed Saint Anne holding Mary for the 2016 poster of the festival:
The festival, in its current format, dates back to 1932 yet is still wonderfully evocative of the much older tradition of the fishing boats making their way to the church of Saint Anne at dusk. Here is how Ischia Review, Ischia.Campania.It, La Repubblica Napoli.It and Ischia.It describe today's Festa di Sant'Anna:
Towards the end of July every year, Ischia Ponte and the area around Castello Aragonese becomes the focal point for one of the biggest parties on the island's annual calendar.
La Festa di Sant'Anna takes place every 26th of July when the huge crowds of visitors and residents alike turn out to witness the spectacular scenes. The main event is the judging of specially built floats created by each of Ischia's six main towns, Ischia (Porto & Ponte), Casamicciola Terme, Lacco Ameno, Forio, Serrara Fontana and Barano. The floats depict different themes that in some way represent the island or something in that particular community's history. This year there was a nod to Ischia's movie history as one of the floats played out a scene from the movie "Appuntamento ad Ischia", while the entry from Lacco Ameno was a recreation of their own Festa di Santa Restituta. The floats make their way around the bay in front of the castle and pass in front of a panel of judges while there is live commentary from the specially-erected PA system. The mayor gives a speech thanking each entrant for their efforts and there is also live music and pop songs over the tannoy. The people gather along the stone bridge that links the castle to the island or even on the large rocks below the bridge to get the best vantage point. Once all of the floats have had their 15 minutes or so on centre stage there follows a fantastic display of fireworks that can be seen from miles around. The hundreds of ships that gather in the harbour blare out the horns in approval as the night sky becomes an explosion of colour which is co-ordinated to include the small village of Campagnano which looks down on the harbour. The climax of the event is a simulation of Castello Aragonese in flames with smoke and special effects making for a hugely impressive scene. Entrance to the event is completely free of charge but it's advisable to turn up early and find yourself the best place to sit and perhaps a bag filled with picnic food and drinks is the best way to enjoy the whole evening.
Ischia, Festa di Sant’Anna: barche, luci e fuochi pirotecnici
Un antico rito devozionale trasformato in un evento ludico-agonistico. È questa, in estrema sintesi, la genesi della “Festa a Mare agli Scogli di Sant’Anna”. Tutto nasce dall’antica consuetudine dei pescatori di Ischia Ponte di recarsi, via mare, in processione presso una piccola cappella votiva poco distante dalla Torre Guevara a Cartaromana. Lo scopo era chiedere a Sant’Anna, cui la chiesetta è intitolata, protezione per le partorienti, e più in generale per le famiglie. Per l'occasione, le imbarcazioni venivano addobbate a festa e sulla via del ritorno si consumava a bordo un pasto frugale, quasi sempre il “mitico” coniglio all’ischitana. Questa circostanza, il fatto cioè che delle famiglie di pescatori consumassero il coniglio anziché una qualche pietanza della tradizione marinara, la dice lunga sulla doppia anima dell’isola d’Ischia; ed è pure questa – tra l’altro - una consuetudine ancora in voga tra quanti il 26 luglio raggiungono Ischia Ponte con la propria imbarcazione per assistere alla competizione a mare. Da un ventennio, inoltre, è stata introdotta la formula del Palio dei Comuni. I sei comuni dell’isola d’Ischia e quello di Procida allestiscono ciascuno la propria imbarcazione che poi sfilerà nello specchio di mare compreso tra il Castello Aragonese e, appunto, gli scogli di Sant’Anna. Alla giuria designata dal comitato organizzatore dell’evento il compito di scegliere la barca vincitrice del palio e di assegnare alle altre i premi speciali previsti per l’occasione. Da non perdere, a chiusura della festa, l’incendio simulato del Castello Aragonese, seguito dagli immancabili fuochi pirotecnici. L’incendio del castello di Ischia Ponte è un’altra evoluzione dell’originaria trama festiva: sostituisce la vecchia, e non più ammessa, pratica dei falò di segnalazione sulle collinette prospicienti la baia. Lo spettacolo dei fuochi d’artificio, invece, è una costante delle feste religiose dell’isola d’Ischia caratterizzate per la maggior parte da elementi folcloristici invero molto apprezzati dai turisti.
Ischia, barche allegoriche e incendio del castello: lo spettacolo della Festa di Sant'Anna
La baia di Cartaromana trasformata in un palcoscenico, un caleidoscopio di colori e suggestioni per una Festa senza tempo: era il 1932 quando la tradizionale processione di barche verso la graziosa chiesetta di Sant’Anna, a Ischia, si trasformò in un vero e proprio evento, destinato a richiamare qui – il 26 luglio di ogni anno – migliaia di spettatori. Barche addobbate e lampade sulle colline, una sfida a colpi di estro che resiste ai tempi della globalizzazione, custodendo intatta la sua natura più intima. Un canovaccio che si è rinnovato ieri sera per l’ottantaquattresima edizione della Festa a mare agli scogli di Sant’Anna: quattro le barche allegoriche in gara in una lunga serata di spettacolo, giuria tecnica e giuria popolare concordi nell’assegnare lo scettro a quella che rappresentava Procida, realizzata dall’associazione “Isola dei Misteri” e ispirata ad alcuni passi dell’Odissea, in particolare all’incontro di Ulisse con le Sirene. Davanti a un allegro “tappeto” di barche, sistemate in cerchio attorno all’originale palco sul mare, hanno sfilato anche le barche di Lacco Ameno (seconda classificata), Ischia (terza) e Casamicciola (quarta). La Festa, che per il secondo anno consecutivo ha avuto la direzione artistica di Mariagrazia Nicotra, si è conclusa con l’emozionante incendio simulato del Castello aragonese, già immaginifico schermo di proiezioni nel corso della serata, sulle notte di “Blue Dolphin” di Stephen Schlaks, prima dello spettacolo piromusicale che ha illuminato a giorno l’intera baia.
La festa di Sant'Anna, un appuntamento unico che colora le sere di fine luglio dell'isola d'Ischia.
Una baia meravigliosa sovrastata dall'antico e vigile Castello Aragonese, simbolo indiscusso dell'intera isola d'Ischia, che si anima per una notte, divenendo un palcoscenico a tutti gli effetti, con tanto di scena, proscenio, quinte e parterre. Sì, proprio così: un immenso palcoscenico che prende vita e da vita alle scene ideate e realizzate da veri propri artisti che di generazione in generazione creano dei "quadri viventi", rappresentazioni reali, storiche o fantasiose/mitologiche di scene di vita isolana. Grazie alla maestria di tali personaggi, è possibile scoprire delle curiosità che rendono l'intera isola d'Ischia unica nell'universo, particolari che catturano l'attenzione dei residenti e dei turisti che di anno in anno scelgono i nostri lidi come meta delle proprie vacanze. Antiche tradizioni e nuove tendenze si fondono e si amalgamano in una commistione unica che incanta al solo pensarci. Una festa nata dalla tradizione e che nella tradizione trova la sua forza e il suo vigore. Tutto ha inizio con l'usanza di recarsi presso la chiesetta di Sant'Anna, a bordo delle proprie imbarcazioni addobbate a festa con, ad esempio, lampioncini e "frasche". A bordo non potevano mancare i piatti della gastronomia isolana, come il coniglio e l'ottima parmigiana di melanzane. Un appuntamento fisso e da non perdere, specialmente per chi, il 26 luglio era in stato interessante e voleva rendere grazie alla protettrice delle partorienti, Sant'Anna appunto. Negli anni iniziarono delle piccole competizioni tra le varie famiglie, per la barca più bella e più appariscente, competizioni che si sono via via trasformate in manifestazioni più grandi, in grado di coinvolgere non solo tutti i comuni dell'isola d'Ischia, ma anche le vicine isole di Procida e di Capri., culminando nella formula del Palio delle isole del Golfo. Ma andiamo con ordine. Nelle edizioni, a partire da quella del 1932 (convenzionalmente considerata prima edizione della Festa) e fino a quella che quest'anno sarà la numero 80, si sono alternate e si alternano tuttora personalità di spicco del panorama artistico dell'intera isola, artisti patrimonio della nostra "ischitanità". E negli anni, per celebrare chi ha reso indimenticabile ogni sua partecipazione alle varie edizioni della Festa sono stati istituiti vari premi e trofei, aggiudicati da giurie speciali, dagli eredi di tali gradi personaggi e dal pubblico che affolla la baia di Cartaromana, quel romantico spicchio di mare racchiuso tra la storia e la tradizione dell'isola d'Ischia (il Castello Aragonese da un lato e la chiesetta di Sant'Anna, con gli annessi scogli, dall'altro). Una giuria composta ad hoc da personalità di spicco del mondo della spettacolo e della cultura internazionale eleggono il vincitore del Palio di Sant'Anna, uno stendardo che di anno in anno viene ideato e confezionato da artisti internazionali, ma, come abbiamo detto, ci sono anche tanti altri riconoscimenti che vengono assegnati nelle modalità più diverse e che mantengono vivo il ricordo di chi da isolano ha dato tanto per la Festa in sé e per l'isola nel suo complesso. La Festa di Sant'Anna non si riduce al solo 26 luglio con la sfilata delle imbarcazioni allegoriche nella baia di Cartaromana (spettacolo visibile dal mare a bordo di barche di qualsiasi dimensione o da terra dalla litoranea di Ischia Ponte), ma si articola in un'intera settimana di festeggiamenti e eventi imperdibili. Tradizionale è l'esposizione dei bozzetti raffiguranti le imbarcazioni partecipanti e il più artistico e di maggior pregio vede l'aggiudicazione, da parte di una giuria speciale, del "Premio Comm. Vincenzo Funiciello", l'artista che negli anni attraverso i suoi meravigliosi collages ha raccontato al mondo le bellezze della nostra isola e le cui opere ancora oggi danno lustro all'immagine di Ischia e che è stato tra i fondatori della Festa, vincendone varie edizioni e partecipando fuori gara in altre. In ricordo di un personaggio verace e sanguigno è stato istituito il "Trofeo Nerone", dato dalla famiglia Sorrentino all'imbarcazione con la scena più movimentata e più pirotecnica, sì perchè Nerone (GiovanGiuseppe Sorrentino) era solito, dopo la sfilata, incendiare l'imbarcazione stessa. Le giurie popolari hanno negli anni, poi, assegnato il "Premio Andrea di Massa", eclettico e poliedrico artista figlio di Ischia che ha introdotto il gigantismo nella Festa (la realizzazione di imbarcazioni dalle dimensioni enormi); Domenico di Meglio, direttore del quotidiano di Ischia e Procida "Il Golfo"; Domenico Buono, Ciccio Boccanfuso e molti altri ancora. La conclusione della Festa, dopo la proclamazione dell'imbarcazione vincitrice, culmina con l'incendio del Castello Aragonese, simulato, ma di effetto unico e indimenticabile e i fuochi pirotecnici, fiore all'occhiello della manifestazione. La Festa a Mare agli Scogli di Sant'Anna è una delle manifestazioni isolane che non deve essere solo vista, ma anche (e soprattutto) vissuta perchè è nelle piccole cose che dimostra tutto il suo splendore e pian pianino arriva anche a rubarti il cuore. di Maria Funiciello
Here are some videos of la Festa di Sant'Anna. The first is a time-lapse view of this year's event by Giuseppe Mattera, author of another marvellous time-lapse video dedicated to Ischia which we've also included below. The third video is an old and fascinating episode of the Italian programme Geo&Geo dedicated to the festival, and finally a segment of Anh Does Italy in which the simpaticissimo Anh Do visits Ischia and takes part in the Festa di Sant'Anna:
Prendendo spunto dall'articolo di blog dedicato a Firenze di Sarah White di Art Escape Italy, in cui Sarah giustamente suggerisce di visitare il Museo del Bargello, ecco un'altro museo assolutamente da visitare a Firenze, il Museo del Monastero di San Marco, famoso per la serie straordinaria di affreschi delle Storie di Cristo del Beato Angelico dipinte tra il 1442 e il 1445. Ecco come la guida Time Out Florence e il bel libro di Judith Testa, An Art Lover's Guide to Florence, descrivono il museo:
Museo di San Marco
Piazza San Marco 1 (055 2388608, www.polomuseale.firenze.it). Open 8.15am-1.50pm Tue-Fri, 1st. 3rd & 5th Mon of mth; 8.15am-4.50pm Sat, 2nd & 4th Sun of mth. Admission €4. No credit cards. The Museo di San Marco is not only a fascinating coming-together of religion and history, but a wonderful place to rest and take in the general splendour. Housed in the monastery where he lived with his fellow monks, the museum is largely dedicated to the ethereal paintings of Fra Angelico (aka Beat Angelico), one of the most important spiritual artists of the 15th century. a man who would never lift a brush without a prayer and who wept whenever he painted a crucifixion. You're greeted on the first floor by one of the most famous images in Christendom, an other-wordly Annunciation, but the images Fra Angelico and his assistants frescoed on the walls of the monks' white vaulted cells are almost as impressive. Particularly outstanding are the lyrical Noli Me Tangere, which depicts Christ appearing to Mary Magdalene in a field of flowers, and the surreal Mocking of Christ, in which Christ's torturers are represented simply by relevant fragments of their anatomy (a hand holding a whip, a face spitting). The cell that was later occupied by Fra Girolamo Savanarola is adorned with portraits of the rabid reformer by Fra Bartolomeo. You can also see his black wool cloak and his cilith, which was tied around the thigh to cause constant pain in reminder of the suffering of Christ. Near the cells reserved specially for Cosimo de' Medici is the beautiful library designed by his favourite architect, Michelozzo, in 1441. On the ground floor, in the Ospizio dei Pellegrini (pilgrims' hospice), are more works by Fra Angelico. The Tabernacle of the Madonna dei Linuaiuoli, his first commission from 1433 for the guild of linen makers, is here - painted on wood carved by Ghiberti, it contains some of his best-known images: the multi-coloured musical angels. You can also see a superb Deposition and a Last Judgement. The small refectory is dominated by a Ghirlandaio Last Supper (1479-80) in which the disciples pick at a repast of bread, wine and cherries against a symbolic background of orange trees, a peacock, a Burmese cat and flying ducks. Time Out Florence (pp. 80-81; 2011)
The Monastery of San Marco
Piety and Politics in a Cloistered World Few places in Florence seem more distant from the concerns, pressures, and values of the secular world than the Dominican monastery of San Marco. Although its exterior is undistinguished and it faces a busy piazza that swarms with cars, buses, pedestrians, and students from the nearby art academy on bicycles, the interior is one of the city's most serenely beautiful spaces. Constructed on harmonious lines and filled with luminous, deeply spiritual frescoes painted by Fra Angelico and his assistants, San Marco still offers a tranquil retreat from the stresses of urban life. But for all the seeming otherworldliness of its monastic ideals, continued by the present-day Dominicans who still occupy a portion of the complex, both the circumstances surrounding the construction of San Marco and many of the paintings that filI its interior have connections with Florence's political life. This monument to Dominican piety is also a monument to the power of the Medici family. Inside, San Marco looks much as it did in the 1400s. The public entrance leads to the main cloister, a spacious open square, with white stucco walls behind an arcade whose arches spring from columns of the gray-brown local stone known as pietra serena (serene stone). The cloister grounds are carpeted in grass and contain stately cypress trees - a perfect place for visitors to sit for a while in the shade. The interior hasn't changed a great deal, either. The whitewashed walls punctuated here and there with Angelico's exquisite frescoes, the chapter room, the grand staircase, the high-ceilinged corridors leading to three separate dormitories (one for novices, one for professed clerics, one for lay brothers), with each cell containing a devotional image painted or planned by Fra Angelico, are all still there, with the recently restored wall paintings looking as fresh as the day they were completed. But cloistered serenity can be deceiving. San Marco had a complicated and turbulent beginning that involved a good deal of what we'd call "politicking". The site originally held a monastery occupied by an order of Silvestrine monks, and if we can believe the Dominicans who wanted the land and buildings, the Silvestrines had allowed their property to fall into a scandalous state of disrepair, while the monks there were living dissolute, unchaste lives. As early as 1418 the Dominicans petitioned Pope Martin V to expel the Silvestrines and turn the property over to them, but their pleas brought no results. Meanwhile, in the same neighborhood, the Medici familywas accumulating money, prestige, and political power, their road to riches launched in the early 1400s by the transfer of lucrative papal accounts to the Medici bank. By the early 1430s Cosimo de' Medici had become such a powerful figure in Florence that his position aroused the envy of his rivals, who had him exiled in 1433. When he returned triumphant a year later, and the Medici again established their political ascendancy over Florentine life, the Dominicans found their perfect patron in Cosimo. The wealthiest and most powerful man in Florence was ready to embark on a generous program of religious philanthropy. Despite his worldly nature, Cosimo also had a spiritual side, and he was attracted by the austere life of the Observant Dominicans, who followed a more rigorous observance of St. Dominic's Rule than the rest of the order. Having learned that a group of Observants from a Dominican house in nearby Fiesole wanted to take over the Silvestrine convent in Florence, he put his considerable influence behind their efforts. When the new pope Eugenius IV was in Florence in 1435, at the request of Cosimo de' Medici and his brother Lorenzo the pope reopened the debate concerning the Silvestrines and ordered an investigation into that order's behavior at San Marco. To the dismay of the Dominicans and the Medici brothers, the papal commission concluded that the accusations against the Silvestrines were unfounded. This put the pope in a difficult position. He didn't want to disappoint the Medici, who constituted the most important political power in Florence, or the Observant Dominicans, who were strong supporters of his papacy, so he compromised by granting the Observants a small church on the far side of the Arno, a decision that didn't satisfy anybody. The Medici brothers then persuaded the Signoria, the governing body ofFlorence over which they exercised a significant degree of control, to petition Eugenius IV to give the little church on the other side of the Arno to the Silvestrines and the convent of San Marco to the Dominican Observants. The Medici had maneuvered the pope into a position where he had little choice but to do their bidding. If he left the Silvestrines at San Marco, he'd displease both the powerful Medici and the Florentine populace who supported them, and he'd be seen as allowing the convent to fall to ruin. On the other hand, if he granted San Marco to the Dominicans, he not only would satisfy a religious order that supported papal authority, he'd also gain the approval of the Florentines and please the Medici, whose support he needed, and who had declared themselves ready to finance the rebuilding of the convent. The Medici were, furthermore, the generous hosts of the pope who at that time was living in Florence, and in Rome they were bankers to the papal curia and thus to the pope himself. At this point it no longer mattered whether the luckless Silvestrines were as bad as the Dominicans claimed they were: this was an instance where financial and political considerations trumped religious ones. As of January 1436, the Silvestrines were out of San Marco and the Observant Dominicans were in. Work began that same year on the rebuilding of San Marco, under the direction of Michelozzo, a favorite Medici architect, with funds coming directly from Cosimo and Lorenzo de' Medici. According to the official Cronaca, the chronicle of the monastery, construction proceeded with such speed that by 1443 the convent was ready to be occupied. We don't know precisely when Fra Angelico and his assistants began painting the more than fiffty frescoes that cover many of the wall surfaces inside San Marco, but a date of around 1440 seems likely. Fra Angelico remains one of the most beloved of Italian Renaissance painters, an artist known for his gentle, ethereal depictions of angels, saints, and the Holy Family. Perhaps because of his later nickname (he wasnt called Angelico in his lifetime), the tendency persists to see him as literally angelic, rather than as a talented and devout monk, and also a practical man. He was already well into adulthood and a successful, widely known painter before he discovered his religious vocation and entered the Dominican order around 1420. He is first recorded as a friar at the Dominican convent in Fiesole in 1423, where he became known as Fra Giovanni. The initial mention of him residing at San Marco, the convent so closely associated with his name, occurs in 1441, a move probably dictated by his responsibilities as the artist in charge of producing the paintings for the convent's interior. Although modern scholars love to posit the existence of a "theological advisor" to artists involved in creating large programs of religious subjects (a learned individual who dictates to the artist what he should portray), there's no need for any such figure with regard to Fra Angelico. He was a fully professed member of the Dominican order, familiar with theology as well as with the order's Rule, so the prior of the convent must have given him a relatively free hand. The artist may have consulted with the prior, and perhaps also with his fellow monks, in choosing the subjects to be portrayed, but there's no comprehensive program to the frescoes at San Marco, beyond their fidelity to Observant Dominican traditions, and an important subtheme of homage to the convent's benefactors, the Medici. Angelico's frescoes - beautiful as they may be - were not intended as decoration but more as aids to meditation and prayer. In the case of the frescoes in the individual monks' cells, that prayer and meditation would be private, but in all but one of the instances where the frescoes adorn the public spaces of the convent - the hallways, the chapter room where the convent conducted its daily business, and the church -those communal prayers took place before images that brought to mind the Medici. The answer to the question of how Fra Angelico referred to the convent's secular patrons in religious paintings without disturbing the spiritual balance of those works becomes clear when the viewer identifies the saints portrayed in the paintings. On the back wall of the chapter room Angelico painted a large Crucifixion with several unique features that pertain both to the Observant allegiance of the San Marco community and to their debt to their Medici patrons. As we'd expect, St. Dominic has a prominent place, kneeling in prayer at the right of the Cross. Beyond him on the right is a group of monastic figures, most of them not Dominicans - instead, they're the founders of especially rigorous forms of monastic life of the kind led by the Observant Dominicans. On the left Angelico placed St. Cosmas and St. Damian and, to their right, St. Lawrence and St. Mark, none of them often portrayed in Crucifixion scenes. But there's logic to their presence here. St. Mark is the convent's patron saint, and the others are Medici patron saints: Cosmas and Damian were the particular protectors of Cosimo, and St. Lawrence of Cosimo's brother Lorenzo. Since the chapter room was central to the life of the convent, the site where the entire community met every morning, the monks had daily reminders of Medici patronage before their eyes.
Similar reminders occur in a fresco in the east corridor, the location of the friars' dormitories. An image of the Madonna and Child with eight saints, the work is surprisingly sumptuous. The figures stand before a wall adorned with classical-style pilasters, and the Virgin and Child are seated on a throne-like bench covered with a richly brocaded cloth. The painting also includes saints flanking the Virgin's throne. There are several expected figures: the convent patron, St. Mark, and the order's founder, St. Dominic, as well as the Dominicans'greatest theologian, St. Thomas Aquinas. But here, as in the fresco in the chapter room, the other saints all have Medici connections. Cosmas, Damian, and Lawrence appear again, this time joined by St. Peter Martyr, probably to honor Cosimo's son Piero, and St. John the Evangelist, the patron saint of Cosimo and Lorenzo's father, Giovanni, and of Cosimo's son of the same name. Through this work, three generations of Medici men would be remembered in the friars' prayers every morning when they grouped around the painting.
We might wonder what Fra Angelico, himself an Observant Dominican, thought of this luxurious image occupying such a highly visible place in the convent. A subtle clue appears in the text readable in a book held open by St. Dominic, who stands on the far left. The inscription begins with a customary command of that saint: "Have charity, preserve humility, possess voluntary poverty." But the text continues with some unexpected words: "I invoke God's curse and mine on the introduction of possessions into this Order." It is difficult to imagine that either the prior, who had accepted Medici money on behalf of the convent, or Cosimo and Lorenzo de' Medici, who provided the money, would have wanted such a statement included in the fresco. Perhaps smuggling it into this painting, whose luxurious setting suggests the "possessions" that St. Dominic warned against, was Angelico's own idea, a small, nearly unnoticeable protest against the Medici largesse that had rescued the convent from ruin, but perhaps at the price of compromising Observant ideals.
The frescoes in the monks' cells are quite different from these public expressions of gratitude to the convent's patrons. All the subjects are drawn from the life of Christ or Mary, the two great objects of Dominican devotion, and all are painted in an austere style, with no references to the Medici. Among the most characteristic is the Annunciation, in Cell 3. The composition is severe and simple - Mary occupies a room as plain as the Dominican cell in which the fresco is painted. A small, paper-thin figure in a pale pink garment, Mary seems to huddle against the wall rather than kneel on the bench in front of her, the very emblem of humility and supreme obedience to the will of God, virtues every Dominican strove to emulate. The Angel Gabriel stands looking down at her, an unusual arrangement, as Mary is almost always shown at a higher level than the angel. Between them is empty space that's not, on closer inspection, empty at all, but full of a radiant light that powerfully suggests the miracle taking place there.
Just outside the loggia where Mary receives the angel stands a Dominican monk in an attitude of prayer - another exemplar for the monk whose cell contained the painting. Many of the paintings in the monks' cells show a similar figure accompanying the biblical scene. These witnesses to the religious narratives may be reflections of the Observant Dominicans' close attention to a widely circulated thirteenth-century Dominican treatise on prayer, De modo orandi, which offered instruction on the proper way for Dominican monks to commune with the divine.
The monks' cells were more than a place to sleep - they were also used for prayer, meditation, study, and preparations for preaching, the latter among the most important duties of Dominican friars. The Dominicans appear to have invented the use of private cells for individual monks, rather than having a single, large dormitory for all the monks, a space used only for sleeping. The prior and members of the San Marco community must have believed that paintings in the monks' cells would play an important role in their devotional lives. Although we have no information about how the subjects were distributed, it would be reasonable to think that those original, fortunate friars who were Angelico's fellow Observant Dominicans each chose a favorite theme for his cell, and Angelico provided it. The decision to decorate each cell in a monastic dormitory with a fresco had never before been considered by any other Dominican convent, or by any other religious order, a fact that makes Angelico's frescoes even more extraordinary.
Although no references to the Medici intrude on the friars in their personal cells, Cosimo de' Medici was nonetheless a presence at the convent. He had his own quarters, reserved for his use whenever he wanted to spend time praying and meditating or merely retreating there to escape the pressures of his life. This was a most unusual privilege, granted only to royalty in places other than Italy, and only one Florentine before Cosimo had enjoyed a private space in a religious institution. Well aware of this, Cosimo made sure his quarters were modest - two interconnected cells (numbers 38 and 39) on the north corridor where the lay brothers lived, so his presence would not interrupt or interfere with the lives of the Dominican clerics. Although there's nothing luxurious about Cosimo's quarters, the paintings in them make clear references to the Medici. The first of Cosimo's cells (number 38) has a Crucifixion painted on its wall, quite similar to others in the convent, but with unique features that associate it with the Medici family. In addition to the customary figures of the Virgin and St. John the Evangelist, St. Cosmas and St. Peter Martyr kneel at the foot of the Cross - the patron saints of Cosimo and his son Piero. John the Evangelist does double duty, both as a traditional figure and as the patron saint of Cosimo's younger son and his father, both named Giovanni.
The second cell (number 39) is somewhat larger and, with a vaulted ceiling, may have been Cosimo's private oratory, a miniature chapel. Against the back of a small, arched niche in the center of the north wall is a painting of Christ as the Man of Sorrows. This niche may have held the Sacrament, which by papal decree Cosimo was allowed to have in his chapel. On the wall above, and rising to the vaulting, is a large, detailed painting of the Adoration of the Magi. This subject was especially popular with the Medici, since the precious gifts given by the Magi to the Infant Jesus legitimized the serving and glorifying of God through liberal giving in the cause of faith. The artist -most probably Angelico's chief assistant, Benozzo Gozzoli - later painted a brilliant and much more elaborate version of the subject on the walls of the chapel in the Medici Palace, which Cosimo began building shortly after the dedication of San Marco in 1443.
Although the Magi themselves are not saints, the Florentines celebrated the Feast of the Epiphany (January 6) with elaborate pageantry, and the Medici regarded the Three Kings as their special patrons. The men of the family took an active part in the Confraternity of the Magi, and the city's annual Magi Procession on ]anuary 6, which began at the cathedral and ended at San Marco, was an occasion when Medici power was much in evidence. The inclusion of Orientals and Africans in the entourage of the Magi in the San Marco fresco may be a reference to the Church Council that took place in 1439 in Florence (thanks to Cosimo's success in having it moved there from Ferrara), and which attempted to reconcile the Eastern and Western branches of Christianity. The presence of the Adoration in Cosimo's cell can therefore be seen as an expression of the seamless blending of politics and religion the Medici were so accomplished at sponsoring.
There's one more painting by Fra Angelico at San Marco where the Medici are much in evidence: the panel that once adorned the high altar of the convent church. No longer in the church, the painting is now displayed in the Museo di San Marco, located in what used to be the convent's guest quarters, just to the right of the entrance. Along with many other paintings by Fra Angelico, brought there from churches and convents in and around Florence, we find what once must have been a spectacular work of art now severely damaged by a disastrous nineteenth-century cleaning with caustic soda. Despite its sad state, the altarpiece is worth examining both for its unusual formal qualities and for its connections with the Medici.
The San Marco altarpiece displays a traditional subject, the Virgin and Child enthroned with saints and angels, but that's its only traditional aspect. The more conservative friars at San Marco may have been startled, perhaps even disapproving, of an altarpiece with no gold ground behind the sacred figures to suggest heaven, no disparity of scale to make the Virgin and Child larger than the other figures, and most surprising of all, an entire sacred scene set in a realistic environment with a convincing sense of three-dimensional space. At bottom center there appears to be a small panel of the Crucifixion overlapping the painting, but this is an ingenious illusion - a painting within a painting - that's meant to be understood as vertical, in contrast to the flat floor that extends behind it.
The composition is designed so that the viewer seems to look down on the richly patterned carpet that leads up to the steps of the Virgin's throne. On this carpet the artist has arranged with great care a group of eight saints. Closest to the Virgin and Child are St. Mark (on our left), the patron saint of the church and convent, and on our right, St. Dominic. Once again, the rest of the saints refer to the Medici. St. John the Evangelist, patron of Cosimo's father and son, stands next to St. Mark. Next to St. Dominic is Francis of Assisi, a surprising inclusion in a Dominican altarpiece, but understandable because he and the third monastic saint on the right, Peter Martyr, were the co-patrons of Cosimo's elder son, Piero. St. Lawrence, patron of Cosimo's brother Lorenzo, who had died in 1440, is farthest from the Virgin on the left. Cosimo's own patron saints, Cosmas and Damian (seeming larger than the others because of their placement), kneel in the foreground. Cosmas, on the left, turns and looks out toward the viewer, indicating the Virgin and Child with his right hand, while Damian remains in adoration. Like a pair of pillars, the two Medici saints literally support the scene, just as the Medici brothers supported the Dominican convent and its church. The face of St. Cosmas is so strongly individual that some scholars have claimed it's a portrait of Cosimo de' Medici. This is unlikely, since the features bear no resemblance to portraits of Cosimo, but the sad, haggard visage is unlike any other painted by Fra Angelico. A further unusual feature is the saint's contemporary Florentine clothing, which is distinct from the tunics and toga-like garments worn by the other saints on the left side of the painting. His flat red hat is equally unique. What remains indisputable is that the name saint of Cosimo de' Medici quickly attracts the viewer's attention, and that the saint then directs our attention to the Virgin and Child. By this means, the artist links the patron's benevolence with the hoped-for benevolence of the Mother of God, which would include both the Medici and the monastery. This emphasis on Cosimo's patron saint-and, by extension, the donor family-must have been a deliberate decision by Fra Angelico, the artist's and the community's response to the new political realities of Florence under the indirect but unmistakable rule of Cosimo de' Medici. The support offered by Cosimo to San Marco was unprecedented in both its scope and its duration. For one family and, after the death of Cosimo's brother Lorenzo, one man to sponsor a project as extensive as the rebuilding and decorating of San Marco, was extraordinary enough, but Cosimo also pledged continuing support to the community. Every week until his death in 1464 he ordered generous amounts of food for the convent; he allocated money for things as disparate as wood, salt, footwear, and medicines; from time to time he provided money for the purchase of feathers, linen, and cotton for pillows and beds, and fabric for the making of habits; for festivals he gave money for candle wax; and he was always willing to pay for any books needed by the monks for their studies. Cosimo's motives for such largesse have been much discussed by historians. Vespasiano da Bisticci, Cosimo's contemporary and earliest biographer, suggested that the Medici patriarch financed the rebuilding of San Marco and many other projects to atone for his guilt about usury - lending money at interest - as this was considered a sin by the Church. But there must have been other reasons for Cosimo's patronage, among them both sincere piety and sound political judgment. To sponsor the construction of fine, beautifully decorated buildings intended to honor God was a civic virtue as well as a religious one, an act of generosity and benevolence that brought credit both to himself and to his city. San Marco, so little changed since the 1400s, is a site where this subtle interrelationship of politics, religion, and art remains on full display. An Art Lover's Guide to Florence - Judith Testa (pp.119 - 128; Northern Illinois University Press; 2012)
Ecco come Tim Parks spiega, nel suo bel libro, Medici Money: Banking, Metaphysics and Art in Fifteenth-Century Florence, il ruolo di mecenate di Cosimo de' Medici nella ristrutturazione del Monastero di San Marco:
But contradictions, of course, were there to be overcome. That had always been Cosimo's attitude. And when it came to the conflicting claims of Christian devotion and secular fame, the most effective way to resolve the problem, as Cosimo had learned from the commissioning of Giovanni XXIII's tomb, was through art and architecture. "I know the Florentines," Cosimo told his bookseller and later biographer, vespasiano da Bisticci. "Before fifty years are up we'll be expelled, but my buildings will remain." Most of those buildings were religious. You lavished money on the sacred, to gain earthly fame. And a place in heaven. Apparently you could have your cake and eat it too. Or have your wife drunk and the wine keg full, as the Italians say.
Having "accumulated quite a bit on his conscience," Vespasiano tells us, "as most men do who govern states and want to be ahead of the rest," Cosimo consulted his bank's client, Pope Eugenius, conveniently present in Florence (hence more or less under Cosimo's protection) as to how God might "have mercy on him, and preserve him in the enjoyment of his temporal goods." This was shortly after his return from exile. Spend 10,000 florins restoring the Monastery of San Marco, Eugenius replied. lt was the kind of capital required to set up a bank. The monastery, however - a large, rambling, and crumbling structure within two minutes' walk of both the duomo and, Cosimo's home - was presently run by a bunch of second-rate monks of the Silvestrine order reported as living "without poverty and without chastity". Unforgivable. I'll spend the money if you get rid of the Silvestrines and replace them with the Dominicans, Cosimo said. Those severe Dominicans! Only the prayers of men whose very identity was grounded in poverty and purity could be of use to a banker with an illegitimate child. This was 1436, the year pope Eugenius reconsecrated the duomo upon the completion, after more than fifteen years' work, of Brunelleschi's huge dome. With a diameter of 138 feet, the dome was the most considerable feat of architectural engineering for many hundreds of years. Its red tiles rose even higher than the white marble of Giotto's slender ornamental tower beside the cathedral's main entrance, and the two together completely dominated the skyline of the town in yet another ambiguous combination of local civic pride and devotion to faith. The Florentines, in fact, had for years been anxious that the dome would collapse, thereby inviting the ridicule rather than admiration of their neighbors. On the occasion of the consecration, Cosimo bargained publicly with Eugenius to get an increase in the indulgence that the Church was handing out to all those who attended the ceremony. The pope gave away: ten years off purgatory instead of six. It cost no one anything and brought both banker and religious leader great popularity. On the matter of San Marco, the pope again proved flexible. The Silvestrines were evicted. The rigid Dominicans were moved in from Fiesole. Their leader at the time was Antonino, later Archbishop Antonino, a priest with a streak of fundamentalism about him. What would our Saint Dominic think, he wrote after the expensive renovation was complete, if he saw the houses and cells of his order "enlarged, vaulted, raised to the sky and most frivolously, adorned with superfluous sculptures and paintings"? But this fundamentalism was indeed only a streak - only a would-be severity if you like - otherwise the priest could hardly have worked together with the banker for as long as he did. For the story of Cosimo's relationship with Antonino, who oversaw the lavish San Marco renovation project and then became head of the Florentine church for most of Cosimo's period of power is the story of the Church's uneasy accommodation with patronage of dubious origin. "True charity, should be anonymous," Giovanni Dominici, founder of the Dominicans, had insisted. "Take heed," Jesus says, "that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them; otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven." The position is clear: no earthly honor through Christian patronage. But Antonino and Cosimo were both sufficiently intelligent to preserve those blind spots that allow for some useful exchange between metaphysics and money: in the ambiguous territory of art. In return for his cash, the banker would be allowed to display his piety and power. And superior aesthetic taste. The Church would pretend that all this beauty was exclusively for the glory of God, as it readily pretended that the building of the duomo's cupola had nothing to do with Brunelleschi's megalomania. Without such dishonesty, the world would be a duller place. Mchelozzo, more than ever Cosimo's personal friend after sharing his period of exile, was the architect. The monks' cells would be suitably austere. The library, with its rows of slim columns supporting clean white vaults, was a miracle of grace and light. Cosimo donated the books. Many were copied specifically for the purpose. Many were beautifully illuminated. The main artist in the project was Fra Angelico, otherwise known us Beato Angeiico, a man who wept as he painted the crucifixions in all the novices' cells. Quarrel with that if you will. Antonino insisted on crucifixions, especially for novices. The true purpose of art is to allow the Christian to contemplate Christ's agony in every awful detail. But at the top of the stairs leading to those cold cells, Angelico's Annunciation presents two sublimely feminine figures generously dressed as if by Florence's best tailors. And in the church below, the monastery's main altarpiece , The Coronation of the Virgin, shows just how far Cosimo has come since the tomb of Giovanni XXIII. Holding her unexpected child, the Virgin sits crowned with banker's gold in a strangely artificial space, as if her throne were on a stage, but open to trees behind. It was the kind of scene the city's confraternities liked to set up for their celebrations, funded of course by benefactors such as the Medici. Aside from San Marco and San Domenico (patron saints of the monastery and of its nerwly incumbent order), the figures grouped around the Holy Mother are all Medici name-saints: San Lorenzo, for Cosimo's brother, who had recently died; San Giovanni and San Pietro for Cosimo's sons. Kneeling at the front of the picture, in the finest crimson gowns of the Florentine well-to-do , are San Cosma and San Damiano. Cosma on the left, wearing the same red cap that Cosimo prefers, turns the most doleful and supplicating face to the viewer, the Florentine congregation. Apparently he mediates between the people and the Divine, as Cosimo himself had done the day he got the pope to hand out ten years' worth of indulgences instead of six. Damiano instead has his back to us and seems to hold the Virgin's eyes. In later years, other managers of the Medici bank - Francesco Sassetti, Tommaso Portinari, Giovanni Tornabuoni - would have themselves introduced directly into biblical scenes. Solemn in senatorial Roman robes as they gazed on the holy mysteries, they showed that at least in art there need be no contradiction between classical republic and city of God, between banker and beatitude. Cosimo had more tact. He appeared only by proxy, in his patron saint. Or saints. For he never forgot to include brother Damiano, perhaps half hidden by Cosma's body turned toward the Virgin, or the crucifixion, as if half of the living Cosimo were already beyond this earth, in heaven, with his dead twin brother. No doubt this generated a certain pathos. "Cosimo was always in a hurry to have his commissions finished," said Vespasiano da Bisticci, "because with his gout he feared he would die young." He was in a hurry to finish San Marco, in a hurry to finish the huge renovation of his local church, San Lorenzo, then the beautiful Badia di Fiesole, the Santissima Annunziata, and many others as the years and decades flew by, including the restoration of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Ever in a hurry he grew old fearing he would die young. Perhaps it was this that made him such a master of the ad hoc. When the restoration of San Marco was finally finished in 1443, Pope Eugenius, now with his bags packed ready to return to a pacified Rome, agreed that the church should be reconsecrated under the name San Marco, San Cosma, and San Dami- ano. So Cosimo reminded everyone of his part in the project, but unobtrusively, as with the Good Men of San Martino. Not for him the gesture of the banker Giovanni Rucellai, who advertised his personal patronage by having his name written in yard-high letters right across the façade of Santa Maria Novella. All the same, an attentive observer would have noticed, in that San Marco altarpiece, a line of red balls around the lovely carpet on which the family name-saints knelt before the gorgeous Virgin. Were they really the red balls of the Medici family emblem? There were no Last Judgments in Cosimo's San Marco. Discreetly, head bowed and cap in hand, the profane invaded the sacred space and made it comfortable. Cosimo practiced the banker's art of unobtrusive proximity. It wasn't enough that men dedicated to poverty had accepted his money and its role in their scheme of things, thus giving tacit approval to his business practices; they must also admit him right into their community, accept that he was one of them. So he had a cell built for himself beside the monks' cells. Except that Cosimo's cell had two rooms. It was larger and pleasanter. Over the door, engraved in stone, were the words of the papal bull that granted him absolution from all sins in return for his expenses. Few eyes would see this, but Cosimo wanted it written down, indelibly, like a bank contract that only the interested parties need consult. "Never shall I be able to give God enough to set him down in my books as a debtor" he remarked humbly of his huge outlay for San Marco. Yet clearly that was the kind of relationship he would have preferred. Opposite the door of the first room of Cosimo's cell, or a wall that novices might glimpse as they walked along the corridor, was one of Fra Angelico's crucifixions. How could the monks not approve? But in the larger, private cell behind, with more expensive paints and stronger colors, Cosimo had the younger, more cheerful artist, Benozzo Gozzoli, assist Angelico in painting a procession of the Magi. It was Cosimo's favorite biblical theme. He would be responsible for at least half a dozen such pictures in his lifetime. All in bright colors. Fifteen years after San Marco, around three walls of the tiny chapel in the heart of his great palazzo, he and his son Piero had the same Gozzoli paint a lavish Magi procession in which, for the few who penetrated that sanctum, Cosimo himself at last appeared in person, riding on a mule behind the youngest of the three Magi. Common to many of the Florentine elite, the Magi obsession is easily explained. What other positive images of rich and powerful men did the New Testament offer? Cosimo's extension of his Church patronage beyond his own neighborhood and eventually all over town, the numerous depictions of Saints Cosma and Damiano, the raising of the Medici arms, the red balls on a golden field, in one sacred place after another - all this has been read, rightly no doubt, as the symbolism of political ambition. Certainly it caused resentment among those who felt their territory had been invaded, those exiles who lost their family chapels to members of the Medici clan. Medici Money: Banking, Metaphysics and Art in Fifteenth-Century Florence - Tim Parks (pp. 121 - 130; Profile Books; 2005)
Ed ecco due video in cui Andrew Graham-Dixon e Alberto Angela visitano il Monastero di San Marco a Firenze:
E, per finire, ecco un documentario su Fra Angelico del 1998:
Qualche settimana fa è morto ad Ischia il padre di Giacomo, Rocco. Vorremmo rendergli omaggio dedicando quest'articolo di blog, sotto forma di diario di viaggio, alla splendida isola d'Ischia. Ma, prima di riportare il diario di viaggio di Giacomo, ecco un ritratto delle "Isole partenopee" e, in particolare, dell'isola d'Ischia.
Nella baia o nel golfo di Napoli ci sono tre isole principali: Ischia, la più grande, Capri, e Procida. Eccole rappresentate, in alto, in una bellissima cartina del 1794 del celebre cartografo Giovanni Antonio Rizzi Zannoni. Insieme costituiscono l'arcipelago campano (o anche napoletano) e sono note come le isole del golfo (o della baia) di Napoli o, più raramente, con un nome molto più evocativo dei miti antichi che pervadono questa parte del mondo, le Isole partenopee. L'aggettivo partenopeo è sinonimo di napoletano e deriva dal nome di una delle sirene della mitologia greco-romana: Partenope. Ma chi era Partenope e cosa c'entra con Napoli? Ecco la spiegazione sintetica di Wikipedia, seguita da una spiegazione un po' più ampia tratto dal bel libro di Jordan Lancaster, In the Shadow of Vesuvius: A Cultural History of Naples, seguita a sua volta da una straordinaria meditazione sulla figura di Partenope tratta dal bellissimo libro di Peter Robb, Street Fight in Naples: A Book of Art and Insurrection.
Parthenope (Greek: Παρθενόπη) was one of the Sirens in Greek mythology. Her name means "Maiden-voiced". According to Greek legend, Parthenope was the daughter of the god Achelous and the Muse Terpsichore. She cast herself into the sea and drowned when her songs failed to entice Odysseus. Her body washed ashore at Naples, on the island of Megaride, where the the Castel dell'Ovo is now located. When people from the city of Cumae settled there, they named their city Parthenope in her honor. Roman myth tells a different version of the tale, in which a centaur called Vesuvius was enamored with Parthenope. In jealousy, Zeus turned the centaur into a volcano and Parthenope into the city of Naples. Thwarted in his desire, Vesuvius's anger is manifested in the mountain's frequent eruptions. [Wikipedia] Mythical Naples Siren songs
Per chiudere questa lunga divagazione su Partenope, ecco due filmati che rappresentano la scena dell'Odissea in cui Ulisse ascolta il canto delle Sirene: il primo è tratto dal film Ulisse, di Mario Camerini, girato nel 1954, nel quale Kirk Douglas interpreta Ulisse; il secondo è tratto dalla serie televisiva del 1968 della Rai, Odissea, in cui Ulisse è interpretato da Bekim Fehmiu.
Tornando alle Isole del Golfo di Napoli, ecco come ce le descrive la Guida Vacanze: Golfo di Napoli e Costiera amalfitana, del Touring Club Italiano.
Capri, Ischia, Procida: lusso, benessere, e semplicità in un unico grande mare.
E ora puntiamo i reflettori sull'Isola d'Ischia. Ischia copre una superfice di circa 46kmq; ha una linea costiera di circa 34km; l'isola è dominata dalla mole del monte Epomeo, alto 788m, che sorge al centro dell'isola, e dista circa 33km (in linea d'aria) da Napoli: 50 minuti in aliscafo; 90 minuti in traghetto. La popolazione residente è di circa 62,000 abitanti e l'isola è divisa in sei comuni: Ischia, Casamicciola Terme, Lacco Ameno, Forio, Serrara Fontana e Barano d'Ischia. Ischia è di origine vulcanica ed è famosa in Italia e in Europa per le sue acque termali. Ecco un paio di brevi descrizioni dei sei comuni: il primo tratto dal sito IschiaOnline; il secondo dalla rivista Condé Nast Traveller dell'Aprile, 2001.
Ischia si articola in sei comuni: Ischia ,Casamicciola Terme , Lacco Ameno , Forio , Serrara Fontana e Barano , con una popolazione totale di circa 50.000 abitanti.Ischia è il centro più importante e si divide nella zona del Porto, che oggi rappresenta la parte più commerciale dell'isola e nella zona di Ponte dove domina il Castello Aragonese e il borgo antico e caratteristico dei pescatori. Il suggestivo Porto d'Ischia è in realtà il cratere di un vulcano spento e sprofondato che diede origine ad un lago. Rimase tale fino al 1854 quando Ferdinando II di Borbone fece aprire un varco inaugurando il porto. La zona di Ischia è stata testimone dell'ultimo evento vulcanico verificatosi sull'isola: nel 1301 un cratere si aprì nella zona di Fiaiano e un fiume di lava discese fino al mare ricoprendo case e campi, creando l'attuale punta Molino. Fu un fenomeno tanto lungo e intenso che gli abitanti evacuarono l'isola per due anni. In seguito nel 1853 in quest'area i Borboni realizzarono un'opera di rimboschimento di pini, e ancora oggi possiamo ammirare le folte pinete. Cinquantaseimila abitanti divisi in sei comuni, a loro volta frazionati in località minori. Ecco un giro che parte dal "capoluogo".
Diamo "un'occhiata" ad Ischia attraverso una serie di filmati: il primo breve filmato è tratto da una serie dal titolo Visions of Italy dove si riprende l'isola dall'alto - attenzione, l'isolotto che si vede all'inizio del filmato è il Castello d'Ischia o il Castello Aragonese, che fa parte dell'isola d'Ischia, non è tutta l'isola d'Ischia!; nel secondo filmato, Licia colò, ex-conduttrice del programma di viaggi della Rai 3, Alle falde del Kilimangiaro, ci porta all scoperta dell'isola; vi proponiamo inoltre due documentari, di tipo turistico ma ben fatti (a parte la musica), dal titolo di L'isola d'Ischia e il suo Castello, nella versione italiana ed inglese, e Ischia, l'isola del benessere. E, per finire, un bellissimo filmato d'Ischia di Giuseppe Mattera: Island of Ischia - Timelapse. Eccoli:
Diario di viaggio
Malgrado sia tornato a Ischia di fretta e furia, qualche settimana fa, per un motivo tristissimo, non sono potuto non rimanere abbagliato dalla bellezza dell'isola da cui mancavo da diversi anni. La nostra casa si trova nel comune di Forio, nella parte occidentale dell'isola. Ecco alcune foto della casa e del panorama di cui godiamo e capirete perché non c'è da meravigliarsi se si è assolutamente ammaliati da quest'isola:
Ischia, nei mesi estivi – per fortuna perché il turismo, anche se in calo a causa della crisi che imperversa in Italia da qualche anno, è l'unica grande risorsa economica dell'isola – è presa d'assalto da decine di migliaia di turisti italiani ed europei, soprattutto tedeschi e russi, attratti dal mare, dal paesaggio, dalle spiagge, e dalle acque termali. Nonostante ciò, l'isola non ha perso la sua vocazione contadina anche se ormai sono in pochissimi a fare il contadino, o l'agricoltore, di mestiere. E nonostante l'abusivismo edilizio del dopoguerra, l'isola conserva la sua folta vegetazione che le ha conferito il soprannome di "isola verde". Infatti bastano pochi minuti per uscire dai vari centri abitati dell'isola, tipo il centro di Ischia Porto, quello di Forio, quello di Lacco Ameno, di Casamicciola, ecc, dove, in piena estate, regnano il traffico, la folla, e il rumore dei motorini, per ritrovarsi nella campagna verdeggiante, tra i vigneti e gli orti, i campi di papaveri, gli alberi di frutta, i boschi di pino, quercia, e castagno, dove regna il silenzio – rotto, per fortuna solo occasionalmente, dal rumore di un'Ape, motorino, o clacson – e il cinguettio degli uccelli, e dove di notte svolazzano le lucciole. Quasi tutti gli abitanti coltivano l'orto, di cui vanno fieri, e allevano galline e conigli. Ecco in basso alcune foto dell'orto di mio padre:
A proposito della vocazione contadina di Ischia, ecco un bell'articolo del 2007 apparso nel quotidiano La Stampa, in cui Antonella Carriero, proprietaria del rinomato L'albergo della Regina Isabella di Lacco Ameno, parla della "sua" Ischia:
"Il glamour frugale della mia Ischia"
Un esempio ecclatante della vocazione contadina degli ischitani è rappresentato dal nostro vicino di casa, Gaetano: una persona simpaticissima, magnifica, e dal cuore d'oro. Gaetano di mestiere fa il muratore. Ha un orto bellissimo e un forno a legna stupendo e si diletta a preparare la pizza e il pane per la famiglia, per gli amici, per i parenti, e, fortuna nostra, per i vicini di casa! Eccolo:
Ed ecco un filmato di Gaetano in azione:
A Ischia tutte le strade principali (eccetto una!) sono solo a due corsie, una per senso di marcia. Quindi, viaggiare in auto a Ischia, è una continuo sorpassare ed essere sorpassati. A volte si assiste al doppio sorpasso, cioè mentre si sorpassa, si è sorpassati a propria volta. E poi ci sono macchine e motorini che s'infilano e schizzano dappertutto. Roba da brividi per chi non è abituato eppure gli incidenti gravi sono pochi e i casi di «rabbia al volante» («road rage») sono rarissimi. Tutte le altre strade e stradine sono a una corsia solo, e alcune strade sono strettissime. Ecco perché è sciocco avere una macchina grande ed ecco perché molte delle macchine che percorrono l'isola non solo sono piccole ma molte sono anche ammaccate. Inoltre, essendo montagnosa, e siccome i centri storici sono antichi, le stradine sono strette e piene di curve e prima di affrontare una curva c'è l'abitudine di suonare il clacson per avvertire pedoni ed altre macchine. Inoltre, c'è una regola non scritta ma generalmente rispettata da tutti secondo la quale, se la strada è stretta e ripida e due veicoli, che vanno in senso di marcia contrario, s'incontrano, chi sta salendo ha l'obbligo di fare marcia indietro per infilarsi in un vicolo o in un viale, in modo da far passare l'altro veicolo che sta scendendo. Il motivo è chiaro: fare marcia indietro in salita è molto difficile. Per quanto riguarda gli autobus, è inutile munirsi di orario stampato, ma il servizio è abbastanza regolare ed è molto molto raro che si debba aspettare più di mezz'ora per un bus. Alcune fermate sono fornite di paline informative per indicare i tempi di attesa dell'autobus ma non funzionano. I bus, eccetto nelle ultime due settimane di luglio e nel mese di agosto, non sono eccessivamente affollati. Per chi fosse curioso di sapere quanto costa un viaggio in autobus a Ischia, il biglietto di corsa singola (Single journey ticket), acquistato in anticipo in edicola o in biglietteria, costa €1.20; se si acquista in autobus, pagando l'autista, costa €1.70. Il biglietto valido per 100 minuti (utile per chi deve prendere due bus) costa: €1.70. Il biglietto va assolutamnete convalidato perché ci sono per davvero i controllori. In basso, ecco alcune foto della stradina che porta, dalla strada principale, a casa nostra. Per farvi capire quanto sia stretta, c'è la foto di una macchina che sta salendo la stradina.
Per darvi un'idea del traffico ischitano e del tipi di veicoli che circolano sulle strade di Ischia, ecco un breve filmato del traffico in piazza degli Eroi ad Ischia Porto:
Un veicolo che si vede molto spesso a Ischia è l'Ape [ah-peh] della Piaggio, che non ha niente a che fare con l'inglese: "ape". In basso, ecco le foto di un paio di Ape della Piaggio viste nelle strade di Ischia, seguite dalla descrizione dell'Ape fornita da Wikipedia, e una interessante descrizione tratta da una tesi di laurea dedicata appunto all'Ape di Lina Di Silverio:
The Piaggio Ape (Italian for bee), sometimes referred to as Ape Piaggio, Apecar, Ape Car or just Ape, is a three-wheeled light commercial vehicle produced since 1948 by Piaggio. At the end of World War II, most Italians, badly affected by the war, lacked means of transport and, more importantly, the financial means to acquire and maintain full-sized four-wheeled vehicles. In 1947, the inventor of the Vespa, aircraft designer Corradino D'Ascanio, came up with the idea of building a light three-wheeled commercial vehicle to power Italy's economical reconstruction, an idea which found favour with Enrico Piaggio, the son of the firm's founder, Rinaldo. The very first Ape model and the mark immediately following it were mechanically a Vespa with two wheels added to the rear, with a flat-bed structure on top of the rear axle. The early sales brochures and adverts referred to the vehicle as the VespaCar or TriVespa. The first Apes featured 50 cc, 125 cc or 150 cc and more recently 175 cc engines. By the time of the 1964 Ape D, a cab was added to protect the driver from the elements. The Ape has been in continuous production since its inception and has been produced in a variety of different body styles in Italy and India. The name refers to the work ethic of this vehicle - "ape" in Italian means "bee". Controlled with scooter style handlebars (current TM version could be bought also with steering wheel), the original Ape was designed to seat one, but can accommodate a passenger (with a tight fit) in its cab. A door is provided on each side, making it quicker to get out of the vehicle when making deliveries to different sides of the road. Performance is suited to the job of light delivery, with good torque for hills but a low top speed, which is irrelevant in the urban settings for which it was designed. Outside of towns, Apes are customarily driven as close as possible to the kerb to allow traffic to pass. The Ape is still not an uncommon sight in Italy where its compact size allows it to negotiate narrow city streets and park virtually anywhere. In small southern villages, it is also often seen at the roadside where the load area is used as an impromptu market stall by farmers. The Ape is also commonly used as a promotion tool. Advertising hoardings are mounted in the load bay. The Ape's unusual looks can help draw attention to a brand or business. [Wikipedia] L'Ape: la nascita del primo veicolo commerciale
Ad Ischia, l'Ape viene usato anche come taxi, e sono noti come "Micro-Taxi", anche se non sono più numerosi come una volta perché sostituiti da macchine più lussuose, ovviamente "climatizzate". C'è anche chi organizza il giro dell'isola in Micro-Taxi a rischio di fare intontire i clienti dato il frastuono che fa!
Sempre a proposito dell'Ape della Piaggio, è uscito proprio in questi giorni una nuova pubblicità della Vodafone Italia che ha come protagonista l'Ape Piaggio 500MP. Eccolo:
Continuando sul tema di spot pubblicitari, eccone uno molto simpatico per la Fiat 500 Cabrio, del 2010, girato ad Ischia, in cui la voce fuori campo imita quella dei cinegiornali degli anni '40, '50 e '60. Eccolo:
A proposito di cinegiornali, ecconi alcuni dell'Istituto Luce degli anni '50 dedicati all'Isola verde:
Parlando degli anni '50, ecco un bell'articolo apparso nell'inserto Life & Leisure del Financial Review del 2008, in cui Rachel Donadio si reca a Ischia sperando di ritrovarvi echi degli anni '50. Stupenda la descrizione delle famiglie napoletane in spiaggia: «Today my fellow sun worshippers are Neapolitan families, chatting on mobile phones, smoking, eating rice salad from Tupperware and smearing sunblock on their children, little Caravaggios in Speedos.»
Ah, Ischia!" a Neapolitan friend said wistfully when I told him I was headed to the "green island", as it is known. "I spent every summer there as a kid. You know, those summers where three months last for years and years?"
Io, in questo articolo di blog, sto tessendo le lodi alla vocazione contadina dell'isola d'Ischia che perdura nonostante gli enormi cambiamenti che sono avvenuti negli ultimi decenni, ma è doveroso ricordare quanto fosse dura, e spesso misera, la vita dei contadini italiani fino a non tanto tempo fa, fino agli anni '60, quelli del boom economico. Ecco quindi un estratto (in inglese ed in italiano) del bel libro di Elio Vittorini, Conversazione in Sicilia, libro che inizia con la memorabile frase: «Io ero, quell' inverno, in preda ad astratti furori.» Segue un estratto del libro di Paul Ginzburg, A History of Contemporary Italy: Society and Politics, 1943 - 1988, in cui il bravissimo storico inglese tratteggia le condizioni economiche dell'Italia negli anni antecedenti al boom economico. Seguono infine tre video: il primo, breve ma molto bello, è tratto da una serie di inchieste documentarie di Ugo Zatterin, dal titolo La donna che lavora, trasmesse dalla RAI nel 1959, in cui una famiglia di contadini toscani parla delle loro condizioni di vita; segue un episodio (di ben ventisei!) di un documentario straordinario della BBC del 1999, People's Century. L'episodio che vi propongo qui, 1948: Boomtime, parla dello sviluppo economico dell'Europa dopo la seconda guerra mondiale. Parte dell'episodio è dedicata all'Italia, quindi vi proponiamo, separatamente, lo spezzone che tratta dell'Italia, seguito dall'episodio completo.
Pioveva, sul molo della Stazione Marittima dove il piccolo treno che avrei preso aspettava; e della folla di siciliani scesa dal battello-traghetto parte se ne andarono, il bavero della giacca rialzato, le mani in tasca, attraverso il piazzale nella pioggia; parte restarono, con donne e sacchi e panieri, come dianzi a bordo, immobili, in piedi, sotto la tettoia. Of the crowd of Sicilians getting off the ferry, one group departed, hands in pockets, the collars of their jackets turned up, crossing the esplanade in the rain; the rest stayed standing immobile under the station awning, with their women and sacks and baskets, just as they had stood a short time before on board the ferry. Italy in the mid-1950s was still, in many respects, an underdeveloped country. Its industrial sector could boast of some advanced elements in the production of steel cars, electrical energy
Sempre a proposito di quanto fosse dura, e spesso misera, la vita dei contadini italiani fino agli anni '60, ricordo una polemica singolare scoppiata nel 2010 quando un popolare gastronomo italiano, Beppe Bigazzi, ospite fisso del programma della RAI La prova del cuoco, e che all'epoca aveva 77 anni, ricordò, citando un proverbio delle sue parti, che negli anni '30 e '40, nel mese di febbraio, c'era l'usanza tra le famiglie più povere del Valdarno, di mangiare la carne di gatto, affermazione che poi portò alla sua sospensione dal programma. Ecco come Wikipedia Italia ci spiega l'episodio, seguito dall'articolo de The Guardian del 17/2/10 dedicato appunto al caso:
Il 15 febbraio 2010 viene comunicato durante la diretta de La prova del cuoco che Bigazzi è stato sospeso dalla trasmissione. Il presentatore aveva citato un proverbio toscano che dice "a berlingaccio chi non ha ciccia ammazza il gatto" (che significa letteralmente "il giovedì grasso chi non ha più carne da mangiare si ciba del gatto") riferito a quando, in passato, ci si cibava anche di gatti per sopperire alla mancanza di proteine durante la fine del periodo invernale. Bigazzi spiegò la procedura utilizzata per trattare la carne dell'animale per migliorarne il sapore, riferendo altresì di averla consumata in diverse occasioni. A seguito delle polemiche suscitate dal caso, lo stesso Bigazzi ha avuto modo di spiegare al Corriere della Sera il reale senso delle sue frasi dichiarando: Italian TV chef axed after recommending cat stew:
Ecco in basso il segmento "incriminante" de La prova del cuoco del 10/2/10 in cui Bigazzi racconta di aver mangiato la carne di gatto alla conduttrice del programma di allora, Elisa Isoardi. Segue il servizio della CNN dedicato alla polemica e, infine, l'intervento molto bello ed interessante, e molto meno polemico, di Bigazzi a La prova del cuoco del 6/1/14 in cui spiega ad Antonella Clerici che cosa trovava, da bambino, negli anni '30, nella calza della Befana e che ci ricorda ancora una volta quanto fosse povera la vita dei contadini italiani.
Ultimissimo contributo a questa lungo digressione a proposito della vita dei contadini prima del boom economico. Uno storico inglese, John Dickie, autore di Delizia: The Epic History of the Italians and Their Food, offre una riflessione davvero affascinante - con la quale si può essere o non essere d'accordo ma che indubbiamente fa riflettere - sul contributo della cosiddetta cucina povera, quella contadina, al concetto di cucina italiana che abbiamo oggigiorno prendendo spunto dalla pubblicità del Mulino Bianco, una nota marca italiana di biscotti. Ecco Dickie a proposito:
Italians eat lots of biscuits, mostly for breakfast. In 1989 leading biscuit brand Il Mulino Bianco was looking for a set for its new advertising campaign. The White Mill shown on the packets was about to become a real place. The industrialised Po valley - flat and featureless - had distinctly the wrong image, thus ruling out locations in the region around Parma where the biscuits were actually made. Instead set researchers found what they were looking for, abandoned and almost derelict, off the Massetana road near Chiusdino in Tuscany. The old building was given a coat of white paint and a new mill wheel powered by an electric motor. In a short time it was ready to receive its imaginary family of owners. Dad was a square-jawed journalist; Mum, a pretty but prim teacher; their children, Linda with curly hair and a bonnet, and Andrea in slacks and a tie, were as smart-but-casual as their parents; a marshmallow-eyed grandfather completed the group. This, as the company website would have it, was a 'modern family who leave the city and choose to live healthily by going back to nature'. Their story, to be told in a series of mini-episodes, was to embody the second-home aspirations of millions of urban consumers. And to tell it, the agency hired two of the biggest talents in Italian cinema: Giuseppe Tornatore, fresh from winning the Oscar for Best Foreign Film with Cinema Paradiso; and Ennio Morricone, famed for his scores to the spaghetti westerns (among other things).
Parlando della pubblicità del Mulino Bianco, eccone alcuni spot. Il primo è del 1990 e vi appaiono i personaggi citati da Dickie ("Dad was a square-jawed journalist; Mum, a pretty but prim teacher; their children, Linda with curly hair and a bonnet, and Andrea in slacks and a tie, were as smart-but-casual as their parents; a marshmallow-eyed grandfather completed the group"). Il secondo, terzo, e quarto spot hanno come protagonisti, a parte i biscotti, l'Uomo del Mulino interpretato da Antonio Banderas, che è testimonial del Mulino Bianco dal 2012, insieme alla gallina Rosita. Il quinto filmato è una parodia degli spot interpretati da Antonio Banderas, da parte del simpaticissimo, bravissimo e a volte scurrilissimo comico italiano, Maurizio Crozza. Avvertenza: il filmato di Crozza contiene riferimenti a sfondo sensuale, anzi è tutto un susseguirsi di riferimenti a sfondo sessuale quindi potrebbe recare fastidio o addiritura offendere, quindi attenzione!
Ma prima di riprendere a parlare dell'isola d'Ischia, torniamo ancora più indietro nel tempo, all'epoca della colonizzazione greca in Occidente e alla Magna Grecia:
The Latin term “Magna Graecia” (in Greek, “Megálē Hellás”) means “Greater Greece.” In the term’s first attested usages, by Pindar and Euripides in the fifth century BCE, it applied to all of the territory inhabited by Greeks around the Mediterranean. While it has been suggested that “Megálē Hellás” was used as early as the fifth or fourth century to mean only the parts of modern Italy that were colonized by Greeks – the coasts of Sicily, Campania, Calabria, Basilicata, and Puglia – the texts which might have done so, by Antiochus of Syracuse and Pythagoras of Croton, are not preserved today. The earliest recorded use of the phrase to mean southern Italy and Sicily is thus Polybius (Histories 2.39) in the second century BCE, followed by Strabo (Geography 6.1.2) and, for the Latin version, Pliny the Elder (HN 3.95). Modern scholars tend to be even more restrictive in their usage, employing Magna Graecia to mean only peninsular Italy where it was settled by Greeks, in contrast to Sicily, which is often considered as a case by itself. Greek Colonization
Nell'articolo in alto, Mark Cartwright menziona i Fenici e gli Etruschi. Ma chi erano? Per spiegarcelo, ecco tre podcast del meraviglioso programma della BBC Radio 4, In Our Time, condotto dall'inimitabile Melvyn Bragg. Il primo podcast è dedicato ai Fenici; il secondo, all'alfabeto; il terzo, agli Etruschi. Potete ascoltare i podcast cliccando sulle schermate ["screenshots"] delle pagine dedicate ai tre programmi che vi porterà direttamente alle rispettive pagine del sito di In Our Time, oppure potete cliccare sui file audio ["audio files"] sotto le schermate. Segue un breve video, molto bello, di Tim Mostert, che illustra la storia dell'alfabeto e del ruolo fondamentale che i Fenici e gli antichi Greci ebbero nello sviluppo e nella diffusione dell'alfabeto che usiamo oggi.
Perché Greci, Fenici, Etruschi con l'iniziale maiuscola? Ecco la spiegazione tratta dalla rubrica
Si dice o non si dice? del Corriere della Sera online:
Per capire meglio il motivo per cui, a partire dall'inizio dell'VIII secolo a.C., molti Greci lasciarono la Grecia per fondare numerose colonie lungo le coste del Mediterraneo e del Mar Nero, ecco un bell'articolo, tratto dal numero di maggio 2015, di Focus Storia, seguito da un estratto del libro The Classical World: An Epic History of Greece and Rome dello storico inglese Robin Lane Fox, che ci spiegano il perché. Inoltre, vi proponiamo una bellissima puntata del programma della RAI, Ulisse, in cui Alberto Angela ci porta alla scoperta della Magna Grecia e della straordinaria civiltà degli antichi Greci.
Il bello dei migranti Fra Tirreno e Ionio. I pionieri della colonizzazione greca in Italia salparono dall'isola di Eubea, nel Mar Egeo, e si fermarono attorno al 770 a.C. a Ischia. Qui è stata trovata una delle più antiche tracce della scrittura greca, incisa sulla cosiddetta Coppa di Nestore. Da lì sbarcarono poi sulla costa attorno a Napoli, a partire da Cuma. «Molto battute furono poi le coste ioniche, dove Greci del Peloponneso fondarono Crotone, Locri, Metaponto, Sibari e Taranto, l'unica colonia fondata ufficialmente da Spartani», prosegue l'esperto. «Le poleis magnogreche generarono in molti casi delle sub-colonie, creando un cosmo politico-culturale in cui sorse il concetto di Megàle Ellàs, espressione che apparve tra IV e II secolo a.C. con il significato di "Grande Grecia"; Magna per i Latini. La terminologia si estese poi a tutto il Sud dello Stivale, mentre la Sicilia era chiamata Trinacria ("tre punte", data la forma triangolare)». Qui, a partire da Naxos, sorsero importanti città-Stato come Agrigento, Messina, Selinute e Siracusa, le cui vicende storiche furono sempre connesse a quelle del resto del Meridione. Tramonto al rallentatore. «A fermare lo sviluppo della Magna Grecia, già messa sotto pressione dai cartaginesi, fu nel III secolo a.C. l'arrivo delle legioni romane, che sconfissero e soggiogarono una dopo l'altra le grandi poleis del Meridione cosi come i popoli italici presenti nell'area», avverte Montesanti. «Nel 272 a.C. fu piegata Taranto, mentre attorno al 212 a.C. cadde l'indomabile Siracusa, sottoposta a un lungo assedio durante il quale la difesa era coordinata dallo stesso Archimede». Secondo la leggenda, lo scienziato avrebbe utilizzato i suoi celebri "specchi ustori", in grado di convogliare i raggi solari contro le navi nemiche fino a infuocarle. I Romani ebbero comunque la meglio e anche per Syrakousai iniziò il declino.
Vi ricordiamo che, se volete acquistare la versione cartacea di Focus Storia o altre riviste italiane qui a Sydney, ne troverete una vasta selezione all'Haberfield Newsagency (139 Ramsay Street; a pochi metri dalla pasticceria Papa) dove potrete fare anche quattro chiacchere in italiano con il Signor Alfio.
Even in the 730s these overseas settlements were official ventures. The names of the Greek founders were remembered, not least because they continued to be celebrated in 'founders' festivals'. Religious rituals also accompanied the settlers' departures and arrivals. Before setting out, advice was sought from the Greek gods at one of their oracle-shrines, usually by asking if it was better and preferable to go or not: even if the venture went badly, participants would then know that the alternatives would have been worse. The most important source of advice was the god Apollo at Delphi, although the oracle there was a relatively recent cult in central Greece (no older than c. 800 BC). In Asia Minor, founding cities like Miletus turned to a nearer oracle, Apollo's shrine at Didyma, for similar encouragement.
Ma cosa c'entrano gli antichi Greci e la Magna Grecia con Ischia? Nell'VIII secolo a.C., coloni dell'isola di Eubea, in Grecia, crearono il primo insediamento greco stabile del Mediterraneo Occidentale proprio ad Ischia, a cui diedero il nome di Pithecusae. Ecco cosa ci dice a proposito di Pithecusae lo storico inglese David Abulafia in The Great Sea: A Human History of the Mediterranean:
The opening of contact between the Greeks of the Aegean (specifically, Euboia) and the lands facing the Tyrrhenian Sea has enthusiastically been described as a moment 'of greater lasting significance for western civilisation than almost any other single advance achieved in antiquity'. It was an important moment not just for the Italian lands into which the first Greek traders and settlers penetrated, but for the lands back home which flourished as centres of trade: after the eclipse of the Euboian cities, Corinth came to dominate this traffic, sending its fine vases westwards in their thousands, and bringing back raw materials such as metals and foodstuffs; and after Corinth, Athens acquired a similarly dominant role in the fifth century. It was these outside resources and contacts that enabled the Greek lands to experience their great Renaissance after the collapse of Bronze Age civilization, and to disseminate objects in the distinctive styles favoured by Greek craftsmen and artists, with the result that the art of the Greeks became the point of reference for native artists among the Iberians and Etruscans in the far west. To write the history of Greek civilization as the story of the rise of Athens and Sparta without much reference to the waters of the central and western Mediterranean is like writing the history of the Italian Renaissance as if it all happened in Florence and Venice.
Lo storico inglese, Robin Lane Fox, che ho citato prima, ha dedicato anche un bel libro agli Eubei ed ai loro viaggi nel Mediterraneo, Travelling Heroes: Greeks and Their Myths in the Epic Age of Homer (Allen Lane; 2008), in cui dedica alcune pagine a Pithecusae. Ma, anziché riportare le pagine del libro dedicate a Pithecusae qui, voglio proporvi il bellissimo documentario basato sul libro e presentato dall'autore stesso: Greek Myths: Tales of Travelling Heroes. Il documentario è lungo, e bisogna seguirlo con attenzione, mane vale la pena perché è assolutamente affascinante! Quindi, in basso, troverete prima il segmento del documentario in cui lo storico si reca ad Ischia, seguito dal documentario per intero.
Come Robin Lane Fox menziona nel documentario sopra, gli oggetti rinvenuti nella necropoli di Pithecusae, tra cui appunto la cosiddetta Coppa di Nestore, sono conservati, dal 1999, nel Museo Archeologico di Pithecusae che ha sede in Villa Arbusto, la villa che appartenne al famoso magnate dell'editoria italiana, Angelo Rizzoli. Ecco, in basso, l'articolo bellissimo di Sergio Frau apparso ne la Repubblica del 17 aprile 1999 dedicato all'apertura del museo e al contributo inestimabile dell'archeologo tedesco Giorgio Buchner alla "riscoperta" di Pithecusae.
I greci all' assalto di Ischia: Da oggi un nuovo Museo
Un'altro libro assolutamente bellissimo che dedica alcune pagine memorabili a Pithecusae, o meglio, a due oggetti in particolare conservati nel Museo Archeologico di Pithecusae, è The Mighty Dead: Why Homer Matters di Adam Nicolson. I due oggetti presi in esame sono la Coppa di Nestore e il Cratere con scena di naufragio e la loro descrizione da parte di Nicolson è carica di emozione. Il libro è talmente bello che, dopo l'estratto dedicato a Pithecusae, ho incluso anche il link alla recensione del libro di Charlotte Higgins, apparso in The Guardian, e due interviste all'autore, in podcast: la prima di Geraldine Doogue; la seconda di Michael Enright. Infine troverete la terza delle sei puntate di un bellissimo documentario televisivo della BBC del 1985, In Search of the Trojan War, presentato da Michael Wood che prende in esame il ruolo degli aedi (cantori professionisti) nella composione dell'Iliade.
In a way that remains permanendy and inevitably uncertain, the Phoenician alphabet arrived in the Greek world, probably in the ninth century BC, from the trading ports of the Near East. Powerful currents were running between the Near East and the Aegean. Craftsmen, foods, spices, herbs, precious metals, ways of working that metal, myths, metaphysical ideas, poetry, stories - all were flooding in from the east, and the alphabet came with them. Unlike the earlier complex scripts, the simple Phoenician alphabet wasn't confined to high-class scribes, and the Greeks soon adapted it to their own use, adapting Phoenician letters for vowels and for 'ph-', 'ch-' and 'ps-', which do not occur in Phoenician. Like the songs of Homer themselves, the Greek scripts they developed varied from place to place, but of all the scraps and fragments of early Greek text that have survived from the eighth century none is more suddenly illuminating than a small reconstructed object from the island of Ischia, at the far, western end of the Greek-speaking world, guarding the northern entrance to the bay of Naples. On its grey and rapidly painted body, a ship floats all wrong in the sea, turned over in a gale, its curved hull now awash, its prow and stern pointing down to the seabed. Everything has fallen out. Wide-shouldered and huge-haunched men are adrift in the ocean beneath, their hair ragged, their arms flailing for shore and safety. Striped and cross-hatched fish, some as big as the men, others looking on, swim effortlessly in the chaos. A scattering of little swastikas does little to sanctify this fear-filled waterworld. One man's head is disappearing into the mouth of the biggest fish of all. It is a disaster, fuelled by the fear the Greeks had of the creatures of the sea, alien animals which, as Achilles taunts one of his victims, 'will lick the blood from your wounds and nibble at your gleaming fat'. The scene is no new invention; it is painted with all the rapidity and ease of having been painted many times before. In the Iliad, during a passage of brutal bloodletting and crisis for the Greeks, the beautiful Hecamede, a deeply desirable Trojan slave-woman, captured by Achilles and now belonging to Nestor, mixes a medicinal drink for the wounded warriors as they come in from battle: strong red wine, barley meal and, perhaps a little surprisingly, grated goat's cheese, with an onion and honey on the side. Hecamede did the mixing in a giant golden, dove-decorated cup belonging to Nestor, which a little pretentiously he had brought from home: 'Another man could barely move that cup from the table when it was full, but old Nestor would lift it easily.'
Oggigiorno tutti i ragazzi d'Ischia visitano, prima o poi, soprattutto in gita scolastica, il Museo di Pithecusae ma "ai miei tempi" il museo non era stato ancora aperto e nei miei ritorni ad Ischia, da quando il museo è stato aperto nel '99, non ho mai avuto il tempo, e forse nemmeno tanta voglia di visitarlo. Questa volta, avendo letto i libri di Adam Nicolson e di Robin Lane Fox, ci tenevo tantissimo ad andarci. Mi sono informato sugli orari d'apertura visitando il sito internet del museo e, appena ho potuto, un pomeriggio, mi sono recato a Lacco Ameno dove ho trovato il museo chiuso senza nessun tipo di avviso. Quindi sono andato a Ischia Porto, che si trova quasi dall'altra parte dell'isola, e, per caso, sono passato per l'ufficio turistico dove c'era una scritta avvisando della chiusura del museo nel pomeriggio. Morale: ci vuole pazienza.
La mattina dopo, sono tornato a Lacco Ameno, il museo era apertissimo, ed è stato davvero molto emozionante vedere da vicino la Coppa di Nestore - questa semplice coppa d'argilla decorata a motivi geometrici, affatto appariscente, che che però racchiude così tanta storia ed emozione. Ecco in basso alcune foto del Museo di Pithecusae:
E di Villa Arbusto:
Da continuare...
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AuthorAt Italia 500 we've been offering Italian courses, in Sydney, since 1995 and one of the most beautiful aspects of learning Italian is that it opens the door to a culture of unrivalled richness and diversity. In this blog we'll be sharing some of our favourite books, movies, places in Italy to visit, music, links to podcasts, information about local and international Italian themed events, and the odd "personal" view, in the hope that it will encourage you to delve further into a culture which continues to inspire us and millions of people all over the world. Archives
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