Becoming Italian Word by Word

Inside the Italian Renaissance: Money and the Beauty It Bought

Denaro e Bellezza

Money and Beauty

“Do you know the most beautiful thing Florence ever created?” a historian asked during my recent stay. As I began to list the obvious candidates, he interrupted. “No,” he said firmly. “Il fiorino.”

The city first coined “Messer Fiorino,” with the image of its patron saint, John the Baptist, on one side and the Florentine lily on the other, in 1252. Containing precisely 3.53 grams of 24-carat gold, the tiny coin quickly became the currency of Europe. The founding families of the Florentine banks, which loaned millions of florins to popes and princes, turned into medieval Midases.

Their fortunes funded the greatest flowering of art that Western Civilization has ever known. A dazzling exhibit at Palazzo Strozzi -- Denaro e Bellezza: I banchieri, Botticelli e il rogo della vanità (Money and Beauty: Bankers, Botticelli and the Bonfire of the Vanities) -- weaves together Florence’s financial and creative evolution.  The bottom line: No bankers, no Renaissance.

Items such as ledgers, strongboxes, coffers, keys, purses and an abacus (an ancestor of the computer) convey the history of commercial trade (la storia degli scambi commerciali) and the birth of the banking system (la nascita del sistema bancario). For money lenders and exchangers, money  provided luxury and pleasure for life on earth. However,  it also threatened their souls with eternal damnation for sins such as as avarice and usury (avarizia e usura).

“Wealth was seen as bringing with it immorality, greed and degeneration,” says art historian Ludovica Sebregondi, the exhibit’s co-curator (with author Tim Parks). No such stigma attached when money was transformed into beauty. And so rich Florentines invested in works of art (opere d’arte) by Botticelli, Beato Angelico and other masters of the Renaissance.

Assembled from major museums and private collections from around the world, the hundred or so paintings and sculptures provide a true picture of the life and of the European economy (una vera fotografia della vita e dell'economia europea) from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance.

The show spans the period from the mid-thirteenth century, when the florin was first coined, to the emergence of Savonarola, the monk who denounced those with “homes full of vanities, dishonest images and wicked books.” His influence on the artist Sandro Botticelli is seen in a series of works that range from radiant Madonnas to an alluring nude Venus to the stunning allegorical painting “The Calumny of Apelles” (In the poster above). Sebregondi describes it as “somewhat of a farewell to the Florence of Lorenzo the Magnificent.”

With Italy in the midst of an economic crisis that threatens the future of the euro, created to unite European currencies as the florin once did, the timely topic has attracted a great deal of international attention and acclaim.  The  exhibit continues until January 22, 2012.  Click here for information on times and tickets.

If you can’t get to Florence, the video below provides a wonderful overview—whether or not you can understand the Italian commentary.

 

Dianne Hales is the author of LA BELLA LINGUA: My Love Affair with Italian, the World's Most Enchanting Language. 

Florence's Crowning Glory

Il Duomo

From my temporary home in Florence, the first thing I see in the morning and the last at night is its splendid cathedral, Santa Maria del Fiore, one of the most recognizable churches in the world. People often assume that “Il Duomo”—as it’s called—translates as “the dome.” But “duomo,” from the Latin domus for home, means house of God.

Florence’s town fathers decided to build a new cathedral in the last decades of the 13th century to accommodate the city’s surging population — and to surpass in size and grandeur the churches of rival city-states Siena and Pisa. It took the Florentines several centuries, a sizeable fortune and strokes of architectural genius to build this heavenly home--"a structure so immense,” a historian wrote in the 15th century, “so steeply rising toward the sky, that it covers all Tuscans with its shadow.”

Visible from miles away, Il Duomo stands out at the ultimate masterpiece in a city of masterpieces. Upon completion of its crowning cupola, the townspeople proudly began introducing themselves with the phrase, “Io son fiorentino del Cupolone” (“I am a Florentine of the Big Dome”). However, the basilica of “St. Mary of the Flower” (symbol of Florence) is grand in ways that go beyond sheer immensity.

The original façade was the collective design of several 16th-century artists, but the unfinished work was eventually dismantled. The exterior remained bare until the 1870s, when the current façade was constructed primarily of white marble from Carrara, green from Prato and pinkish red from Siena in a design that harmonized with the existing patterns of the Baptistery and Campanile.

The most striking impression upon entering the cathedral, the largest in Europe at the time of its completion, is its vastness. The two-aisled nave measures 502 feet in length and 295 feet in width. Designed to hold congregations as large as 20,000 people, the basilica can feel empty even with tour groups congregating at different meeting places. Many of the decorations, including works by Michelangelo and Donatello, are on display at the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo behind the cathedral.

The original design called for a cupola bigger than any the world had seen. But no one could figure out how to build it. For more than half a century rain and snow fell through a 143-foot hole in the ceiling. Finally Filippo Brunelleschi came up with a dome-within-a-dome plan based on the design of the Pantheon, the architectural wonder of ancient Rome.

Construction of Brunelleschi’s dome began in 1418 and continued until 1436. Time and again, faced with a seemingly insurmountable difficulty, Brunelleschi invented something entirely new: a hoist, a crane, even a way of installing stoves on the dome so his workers could eat well without wasting valuable time descending to the street. (He reportedly watered their wine to keep them sober.)

The dome, which weighs 37,000 tons, required some 4 million bricks. Built without a supporting wooden framework—unthinkable at the time—the construction inspired awe among the Florentines, who quoted a line from Dante’s Divine Comedy—de giro in giro, circle by circle—as they beheld its soul-stirring ascent into the Tuscan sky.

To appreciate just how big the dome is -- 142 feet in diameter, 300 feet high -- climb the 463 steps between its two vaults to the narrow gallery above the cathedral. Just avoid the dizzying mistake I made: Don’t look down.

Celebrating the "Treasure of Europe" in the Italian Language

Italia, Tesoro d’Europa

For months Italy has been reeling from bad news and bad press, particularly from other members of the European Union. But this weekend 50 European nations are dedicating their annual European Heritage Days to “L’Italia tesoro d’Europa.”

The title is well-deserved. For centuries “Italy” has been synonymous with art (arte). An estimated 60 percent of the world’s designated art treasures reside within its borders, and Italian paintings and sculptures grace museums and collections around the globe. But Italy did more than inspire masterpieces: it developed the visual language of Western culture and changed forever our concepts of beauty and its creators.

For its part, Italy has announced, “Per due giorni lasciamo le porte aperte.” (For two days we leave the doors open.) On Saturday and Sunday, September 24 and 25, visitors will have entra gratis (free entrance) to all state luoghi della cultura (cultural places). Those of us lucky enough to be in Italy will have access to 5,105  museums, theatres, concerts, performances, meetings, exhibitions and educational workshops. You can find the complete program here.

The Italian minister for cultural arts and activities has declared that this weekend is “una preziosa occasione” (a precious occasion) to re-affirm with other nations their “radici culturali e storiche comuni” (common cultural and historical roots), even in these momenti di crisi (moments of crisis). This awareness may, he noted, help the European community trovare le risposte necessarie ad affrontare le sfide del presente”  (find the necessary responses to confront the present challenges).

Art has always had a powerful impact on the individual and on society. When they were created, the works of the Renaissance artists inspired reactions such as meraviglia, a sense of marvel or extraordinary delight, and stupore, which David Summers defines in Michelangelo and the Language of Art as “the state resulting from the perception of a thing that exceeded the limits of the senses.” Perhaps these are just what a weary and woeful world needs now.

Words and Expressions

le belle arti -– the fine arts

arti figurative –- figurative arts

artefice -– craftsman or woman

pittore/pittrice –- painter (masculine/feminine)

Dianne Hales is the author of LA BELLA LINGUA: My Love Affair with Italian, the World’s Most Enchanting Language.

Here is another tesoro, Stanford University's stunning recreation of Michelangelo's David:

Angry Young Artists in Florence

 

Angry Young Men

Giovani e Arrabbiati

Visitors don’t usually come to Florence, jewel of the Renaissance, in search of modern art. But an exhibit called “Giovani e Arrabbiati: La Nascita della Modernità” (Angry Young Men: The Birth of Modernity), at the Palazzo Strozzi until July 17, offers a fascinating perspective on three of the twentieth-century’s great masters: Picasso, Miró and Dalí.

All three of these artists grew up (cresciuti) in Catalonia, Spain, but came to fame in France. Picasso and Miró lived and built their careers there, while Salvador Dalí remained largely in Spain. The Florentine exhibit brings together more than sixty works (più di sessanta opere) produced by the artists at the beginning of their careers in the first decades (nei primi decenni) of the last century.

Structured like a film in a series of “flashbacks,” the exhibition (la mostra) takes visitors back in time (indietro nel tempo) to the very birth of modernity. Beginning with Dalí’s meeting with Picasso in 1926, it traces the origins (le origini) of modern art through Dalí’s responses to Miró and Miró’s relationship with Picasso and ends just before the young Picasso’s arrival in Paris in 1900. 

The exhibition explores the common roots (le radici comuni) of a style that was to bring renown to these three great artists, underscoring the eagerness they shared to rebel against the conventions of the time (ribellarsi alle convenzioni dell’epoca). Each was an “emerging talent” (talento emergente) in his day. Each sought to develop an artistic vocabulary of his own (un proprio linguaggio artistico). And each looked back to the past in order to invent the future.

In addition to masterpieces such as Picasso’s “The Weeping Woman” (Donna Che Piange), Miró’s geometric “Composition” (La Composizione), and Dalí’s “Harlequin” (L’Arlecchino), the exhibit presents for the first time outside of Spain eighty Picasso sketches (ottanta schizzi di Picasso), including the very first for his revolutionary painting (il rivoluzionario dipinto), "Les Demoiselles d’Avignon."  

As much as I enjoyed the exhibit, I also delighted in the contrast between the relatively recent masterpieces and their setting in a splendid Renaissance palazzo. To my initial surprise, they looked right at home. Then I realized that they should. After all, Florentines invented the Renaissance—which, as author Mary McCarthy observed in The Stones of Florence, “is the same as saying that they invented the modern world.”

Despite the passage of five hundred years, I could see, particularly in Picasso’s powerful sketches of his “demoiselles,” echoes of another artist whose rebellious approach (approccio ribelle) blazed the trail from all that had been in the past to all that could be in the future: the prototypical angry young artist, Michelangelo.

The Medici pope Leo X, who had known the fierce-tempered genius since boyhood, called him “troppo terribile” (too terrible) to deal with. In the artistic language of the Renaissance, terribilità took on new meaning as a term that captured the awesomeness, virtuosity, force and vehemence of Michelangelo's works. Could we say anything less about those of Picasso and the rebels he inspired?

Words and Expressions

belle arti -- fine arts

capolavoro -- masterpiece

stile artistico -- artistic style

arte moderna -- modern art

pittore -- painter

For more information on upcoming exhibits and events at Palazzo Strozzi, click here.

Dianne Hales is the author of La Bella Lingua: My Love Affair with Italian, the World's Most Enchanting Language. 

The Lost Angels of Rome

Gli angeli di Roma

The Angels of Rome

One of the most famous angels in Rome stands atop the Castel Sant’Angelo (Castle of the Holy Angel). The mammoth structure on the banks of the Tiber  was originally built as a mausoleum by the emperor Hadrian in the year 123.  From its ramparts Romans fought back the assaults of the Visigoths in 410 and the Ostrogoths in 537.

In 590 a virulent plague was ravishing Rome, and Pope Gregory the Great entreated God’s mercy. The archangel Michael, fulfilling the original meaning of angelus as a messenger from God, appeared in a vision sheathing his sword over the fortress, a signal of the plague’s end.   The grateful pontiff christened Castel Sant’Angelo in his name and had an imposing statue of Michael mounted on top.

Over the centuries the bridge leading to the Castel Sant’Angelo became the principal crossing point for pilgrims to St. Peter’s basilica.  In 1668 Pope Clement IX commissioned ten stone angels to line its balustrades, thereby transforming the Ponte Sant’Angelo into the most theatrical monument of Baroque design.

The master artist and architect Gian Lorenzo Bernini did the drawings for the angels—all male, with grieving faces and graceful bodies, brilliantly positioned to be observed (and appreciated) from every direction.   Each of the angels carried a symbol of Christ’s passion and death, such as the whip that scourged him and the nails used to crucify him.

The angels on the bridge became icons for millions of pilgrims, but the most exquisite, the only two carved by Bernini himself, never took their designated places.  Copies by lesser artists were installed instead.

Some say that the Pope couldn’t bear the thought of exposing such beautiful statues to the elements.  Others contend he wanted to move the pair of angels—one carrying the crown of thorns (above) and the other the mocking inscription I.N.R.I. (for Jesus, King of the Jews)—to his own palace.

Bernini, perhaps as a way of promoting his not-so-talented offspring, claimed that they were the work of his son Paolo Valentino and kept the  “lost" angels in his studio opposite the church of Sant’Andrea delle Fratte (St. Andrew of the Thickets), so called because it was once literally out in the sticks.  

In 1729 Bernini’s nephew donated the angels to the church, which was partly designed by Bernini’s former student and eventual rival Francesco Borromini. The angelic pair remains there still, their beauty undiminished by fire, earth, water or air, to each side of the front altar.  I think of these heavenly messengers when the bells of Sant’Andrea, right across from the apartment we are renting, ring out the Angelus, and I never fail to pause before them whenever I visit the lovely church.

Words and Expressions

angeli custodi -- guardian angels

il sesso degli angeli-- the sex of angels, a phrase for trivial or inconsequential matters  

angelino, angioletto -- little angel, cherub

angelo caduto -- fallen angel like Lucifer

arcangelo -- archangel

angelico -- angelic, saintly, pure, as in voce angelica (heavenly voice), viso angelico (sweet, angelic face), or carattere angelico (angelic character)

Sei un angelo! –- You are an angel (to thank someone who has done a favor or service)

“Uomo solitario, o bestia o angiolo!” -- A loner is either a beast or an angel.

Cav. Dianne Hales is the author of LA BELLA LINGUA: My Love Affair with Italian, the World's Most Enchanting Language. 

Click below for a modern Italian "Angelo""

 

Why Women Fall in Love with Italy

My friend Susan van Allen provides 100 reasons in her book 100 Places In Italy Every Woman Should Go. 

 

to fall in love

essere inamorata di

by Susan Van Allen

It's not surprising that so many women travelers fall in love with Italy--it overflows with art that glorifies the female form and spirit.

In Florence, the Botticelli Rooms in the Uffizi are an overwhelming example of this glorification, Renaissance style. The most famous of the beauties in this room is "The Birth of Venus" (1484). Here's a story behnd that painting: 

Describing a woman as a Botticelli automatically brings up this famous image of a naked, curvy Venus stepping off a seashell to the shore. But Botticelli actually translates to “little barrel.” A better description of a beautiful woman would be to call her a Simonetta Vespucci , the name of the model for this painting.

Simonetta was Botticelli’s muse, the most adored woman in Florence, and his neighbor’s wife. She came to Florence from Genoa as the fifteen-year-old bride of Marco Vespucci, whose cousin was the famous Italian explorer Amerigo. Her fans called her La Bella Simonetta and liked to say she was born in the Ligurian coastal town of Portovenere, where the Romans believed Venus arose from the sea.

Though these days she’d be ordered to do Pilates to tighten her abs, in 1469 Simonetta’s pear shape was ideal. Only poor starving gals were skinny back then, and Renaissance guys adored chicks with childbearing hips.

In Florence, artists clamored to have Simonetta pose for them, writers sent her love poems, and she was showered with gifts from admirers. Botticelli, an artist on the rise, introduced Simonetta to the men who ran Florence, the brothers Lorenzo and Giuliano de Medici.

Lorenzo was involved with being Magnificent and his banking and philosophy biz, but smitten with Simonetta, ordered a painting of her for his bed chamber, which some say became Botticelli’s Venus. Giuliano, a sporty type, called for a jousting tournament to be held in honor of the glamour-puss who had quickly become the Marilyn Monroe of Florence.

Botticelli painted Giuliano’s joust banner with the words “The Unparalleled One” under Simonetta’s image. Giuliano won and Simonetta was declared “Queen of Beauty.” Since she was married, there’s no record of nooky between Simonetta and Giuliano, though the locals imagined their steamy affair as fervently as the Brangelina romance of our times.

A year after the joust, twenty-two-year-old Simonetta died of consumption. Her funeral was an Italian day of mourning. Thousands came to Florence to join in her casket procession, weeping and tossing flowers.

Botticelli had started painting The Birth of Venus before Simonetta died. It took him nine years to finish it, perhaps because the thought of his nude muse being gone from him was too tragic to bear.

As you look around the room, you’ll see how Botticelli used Simonetta’s inspiration again and again—from Primavera to The Annunciation. He never married, in fact said the idea of marriage was a nightmare.

When he died, thirty-four years after La Bella Simonetta, Botticelli asked to be buried at her feet. In the Church of Ognissanti, which was Simonetta’s family parish, you can see his wish was granted.

Excerpted from 100 Places In Italy Every Woman Should Go, by Susan Van Allen.  

Click here to win a $500 gift certificate for a tour of Italy and other fun prizes in our "Fall in Love with Italy" contest.

Baking Words in the Italian Language

L’arte delle parole

The Art of Words

As part of Florens 2010, an international week of cultural events. two of Italy’s great institutions—the Uffizi Gallery and the Accademia della Crusca—are celebrating art and letters in a presentation on ”Parole e Immagini dei Mestieri e delle Arti” (Words and Images of the Crafts and Arts) in the Uffizi biblioteca (library) on Friday, November 19.  

Although less famous than the Uffizi, with its renowned collection of paintings (pitture) and sculptures (sculture), “La Crusca,” the oldest scholarly academy in Europe, deserves acclaim for a different masterpiece: the Italian language (la lingua italiana).

During the 1500s, an unheralded but invaluable invention transformed Italian agriculture: il frullone, a sieve-like device that separated wheat from chaff to produce flour. A group of irreverent Florentine intellectuals, passionately devoted to preserving their language’s più bei fiori (loveliest blooms), decided to become human frulloni and separate the linguistic fior di farina (the flower of the wheat) from the coarse crusca (chaff or bran).The  self-declared Crusconi formed  L’Accademia della Crusca (the Academy of the Bran) and took on a lofty mission:  creating the first dictionary of officially recognized words in any language.

This was no dry academic venture by uptight language police. The Crusconi playfully gave themselves names related to farming, cooking, and baking, such as Lievito (yeast or leaven), Macinato (milled into flour), Sollo (soft or spongy), and Grattugiato (grated). Each Cruscone also selected a related symbol, such as a sieve or sheaf of wheat, which was embossed in vibrant colors upon a wooden pala (above), a shovel-like paddle bakers used to slide loaves of bread from an oven.

Among La Crusca’s traditions was an annual stravizzo, a term members used defined with understatement as “eating that happens together with pleasant conversation.” The menu from one stravizzo presents five staggering courses that included eight types of meat, even more varieties of pasta, fruit, vegetables, cheese, biscotti — and stuzzicadenti (toothpicks).

Despite their jocularity, La Crusca’s founding brothers took their mission seriously. Over decades of research, discussion, and debate, they created the Vocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca, published on January 20, 1612. The 960 oversized pages of this unique compendium contained only words that qualified as “belle, signifcative, e dell’uso nostro” (“beautiful, noteworthy, and of our use,” that is, from Italian authors such as Dante, Petrarca, and Boccaccio).

When I had the privilege of turning the stiff, dry pages of a first edition of the Vocabolario, I was so moved that I became senza parole (speechless). This volume, constructed of words chosen to please the ear, the eye, and the soul, contains Italian’s genome. No less than the artists laboring in a Renaissance bottega, the language “bakers” of La Crusca had painstakingly created a living work of art: la più bella lingua del mondo (the most beautiful language in the world).

Last week brought belle notizie (good news) for Italian’s belle parole: The College Board has reinstated the AP Italian placement exam, a decision heralded as a triumph for Italy, Italian-Americans, and all who love the language “baked” by Florentine wordsmiths some four hundred years ago.

Words and Expressions

parolina, paroletta -- nice word

parolone -- big or long word, pompous-sounding word A

avere la parola facile -- to have the easy word, to be articulate

in parole povere -- in poor or plain words

È una parola! -- it’s a word (easier said than done)

in poche parole -- in short, in brief

Dianne Hales is the author of  LA BELLA LINGUA: My Love Affair with Italian, the World’s Most Enchanting Language.

Click below to hear Italian music icon Mina dismiss the "parole, parole, parole" (words, words, words) of Alberto Lupo in a famous pop tune:

 

Inspiration in an Italan Hill Town

 

 

Todi as Muse

Todi come musa

by John Jay Gebhardt

For the last ten years I have traveled to Todi to paint during the month of August. This past summer I arrived anticipating another beautiful painting experience. I was not disappointed.

Carlo, my friend and proprietario of La Gardenia, where I stay, picked me up in Pian Di Porto-Todi for the short drive to the historic city center. I immediately saw many familiar friendly faces around the Piazza del Popolo. It felt like I was returning home. 

Todi is an amazing paradise, relaxing and exciting at the same time. There are friends to enjoy and share caffè and food at Caffè Ciucci or the Caffè Giardinetti or at each other’s homes. Everywhere one looks one sees old and new engaging artifacts: a hidden Roman church; the 9/11 Memorial, an incredibly moving six-foot granite slab inscribed with the words “in ricordo delle vittime dell’ attentato terroristico di New York Settembre 11, 2001” (in memory of the victims of the terrorist attack in New York); an Etruscan vicolo (alley); a rare medieval window with two arches and a column down the center; a larger-than-life wooden statue of the eighth-century Pope Martino I da Todi; and a bronze statue of Pope John Paul II, originally intended for the Vatican, by a Todi artist. Most amazingly this summer, after a refreshing rainstorm, a double rainbow (arcobaleno) appeared spanning the entire historic center . 

Todi is the perfect place to paint because the city and the surrounding countryside are wonderful settings. I plan my days around my painting. In the morning I usually stand with my easel (cavalletto) in the shade looking out at my subject, draped in the ever-changing Umbrian sunlight. 

After lunch (everyone in Todi lunches at 12:45 p.m.) I paint one afternoon painting and then another around 5:00 p.m. It takes three outings for each painting. The past two years I have been painting outside the Porta Perugina near the Cimitero Vecchio as the sun goes down (mentre il sole tramonta). 

With the changing colors of the sky and reflections on the terrain, my color choices are more vibrant. The sky turns red or yellow or green; the landscape becomes more fantastic. One day, recalling the magnificent rainbow I’d seen over Todi, I introduced a triple rainbow into my painting (below) and, boy, that really did it for me. 

Words and Expressions

dipingere -- to paint 

dipingere dal vero -- to paint from nature 

pittore -- painter, artist 

dipinto, pittura -- painting, picture

Guest blogger John Jay Gebhardt is a Manhattan painter whose main subjects are the landscapes of his native New York and of his adoptive Italy. He is represented by six galleries. See more of his recent Todi paintings and get additional information at his website.   

If You Go

Federica and Gabriele of Umbria Lovers, who specialize in non-touristic travel experiences, provide a terrific guide to Todi's top sites. Find out more about the region and their services at their website.

But you don't have to leave home to travel to Italy. Just  enter the Viva l'Italiano Book Bonanza Contest to win my favorite books on Italy's language, culture, people, food, and wine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Secrets of a Roman Stationery Store

 

la cartoleria 

the statonery store  

On a blustery winter day in Rome, the bright  flowers and fruits on notebooks, folders, and stationery in the window of the Cartoleria Imperiale at 10 Via Metastasio caught my eye. I went inside to admire shelves of hand-crafted paper products, including carta da lettere (writing paper), carta da disegno (drawing paper), cartoncini d’auguri (greeting cards), biglietti da visita (business cards), cartelle (folders, files, portfolios), and partecipazioni (announcements). 

Italy’s tradition of making beautiful paper dates back to the 7th century, when the Arabs introduced techniques they had acquired in the Far East. In the 13th century the powerful Chiavelli family in Fabriano near Ancona created the first great center of the paper-making industry. Its first official document, dated 1283, was the deed of a public notary recording the purchase of a house by a cartaio (paper maker), witnessed by another six paper makers. 

The Chiavelli family fiercely guarded its secrets, and anyone divulging information about the process faced a stiff fine. However, when only one old maestro knew the family’s trade secrets, local authorities intervened and ordered him to pass them along to an apprentice. Today you can trace the evolution of paper over the centuries at Il Museo della Carta e della Filigrana in Ancona. 

I discovered a secret of another sort at the Cartoleria Imperiale. The owner’s husband, Andrea Ospici, invited me into the adjacent studio where Gabriella Venturi meticulously crafts her beautiful designs. When I asked if he shared his wife’s passion for paper, he pointed to the walls, covered with bold abstract paintings. 

“Dipingo” (I paint), he said modestly. As I looked around, I felt the power of his dramatic compositions. Only later did I learn that Ospici is a widely recognized pittore (painter), born in Rome of Venetian parents. He dedicated much of his working life to Grafica Pubblicitaria (advertising graphics), but has returned fulltime to la pittura (painting), which he describes as “quale coronamento della sua anamnesi vitale” (the crowning of his life’s history). 

Ospici has participated in many mostre (exhibitions) in Italy and other countries and has won il plauso della critica e numerosi premi (critical acclaim and numerous prizes). You can view and purchase his works at his website.  

 

 

Words and Expressions 

scartabellare -- to leaf/thumb/ flick through (documents, books, folders etc) 

carta marmorizzata -- marble paper 

cartaccia -- waste paper 

avere le carte in regola -- to have one’s paper in order, to have the right credentials  

avere carta bianca -- to have total freedom in taking decisions, to have a free hand 

Carta canta e villan dorme -- “Paper sings, and the peasant sleeps.” Its meaning is close to the Latin expression, “verba volant, scripta manent” (spoken words fly away, written words are here to stay). Since written agreements cannot be contradicted, even a peasant can sleep without worries if he has everything in writing.

Dianne Hales is author of La Bella Lingua: My Love Affair with Italian, the World's Most Enchanting Language. 

Caravaggio in Porto Ercole

A 400-Year-Old Mystery

The Baroque master painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610) has returned to Porto Ercole, where he died four centuries ago. His remains, contained in a crystal urn, will be on display for several weeks along with a photographic exhibit of the scientific investigation that determined their identity. The bones, exhumed from an unmarked grave in 1956, had been kept in the  ossuary of the Church of St. Erasmo until a year or so ago.

Caravaggio’s death is Porto Ercole’s sole claim to historic fame. I know. Every summer since 1990 my husband Bob and I have come to this picturesque port, named for the mighty Hercules but lacking any distinguished museum, church, or work of art. However, Caravaggio has been bringing fame—and controversy—to Porto Ercole for years.

Acclaimed for his dramatic compositions and bold use of chiaroscuro, the contrast of darkness and light, Caravaggio dazzled Rome with his brilliance. His personal life also oscillated between light and dark. Forever arguing and brawling, he killed a young man in a fight and had to flee Rome with a price on his head.

For years Caravaggio careened around southern Italy until he ended up in a prison in Malta. He escaped, and the fugitive, wearying of life on the run, eventually won a papal pardon. However, his plans to return to Rome with paintings for his powerful patrons went terribly wrong.

Thrown into jail in a small coastal town, Caravaggio bought his freedom with a large bribe, only to discover that the boat with his paintings and possessions had sailed north. He set out in pursuit, traveling by whatever means he could find, including by foot, in the midsummer heat. According to folklore, the desperate artist collapsed on the beach and died in Porto Ercole. The paintings disappeared.

I was swept into the lingering mystery about Caravaggio’s final days through my friend Ludovica Sebregondi,  a distinguished art historian at the University of Florence. A few years ago, as a special privilege, the pastor of the church of St. Erasmo allowed Ludovica to bring the official parish record book to our rented villa for a careful examination.

We gathered around her as she opened the stained cover of the oversized ledger, which dates back to 1590. Ludovica turned the tattered pages slowly until she came to an envelope containing a torn piece of paper.

As she read the bold black script out loud in Italian, I translated the words into English: “Here in Porto Ercole 18 July 1609 died Michelangelo di Merisi di Caravaggio, painter, in the hospital, of an illness.”

The document raised intriguing questions. If it were genuine, the accepted historic date of the celebrated artist’s death—July 18, 1610—might be wrong. If it were fake, who inserted the bogus certificate into the record book? When? And, most perplexingly, why? Scientific analysis has since proved the notice false, but no one knows how it made its way into the ledger.

The cause of Caravaggio’s death has been debated as much as the date. Most assumed that he died of malaria. However, the recent investigation by anthropologists, microbiologists and art historians suggest otherwise. The artist, who also suffered from syphilis, had extremely high levels of lead and mercury in his skeleton, possibly the result of his notoriously messy handling of  paints.

The investigators, who say they are 85 percent certain that the bones belong to Caravaggio, contend that lead poisoning may have driven his already unstable mind over the edge in the final years of his life. Along with infected wounds and sunstroke, it also probably contributed to his death at age 39.

The return of Caravaggio to Porto Ercole has sparked yet another controversy. Should his bones be returned to his home town, the Lombardy village of Caravaggio that gave him his name? Or should they remain in Porto Ercole, where he ended his days?

I’m hoping he gets to stay in the peaceful port we think of as our home in Italy. And may he finally rest in peace!

Parts of this post originally appeared in LA BELLA LINGUA: My Love Affair with Italian, the World's Most Enchanting Language, now available in paperback.