tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31019131672267004842024-03-13T08:07:09.694-07:00Surprised by Time. . . a little wine for remembrance . . . a little water for the dustNauplionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10598950480737808706noreply@blogger.comBlogger423125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3101913167226700484.post-58649640778403260302020-07-02T12:56:00.001-07:002020-07-02T12:56:29.481-07:00Signs and Symbols<div style="text-align: center;">
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<img alt="The intriguing history of hobo signs/symbols | History 101" height="273" src="https://cdn.history101.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Hobo-signs-and-symbols-1024x701.jpg" width="400" /></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://www.history101.com/the-intriguing-history-of-hobo-signs-symbols/">https://www.history101.com/the-intriguing-history-of-hobo-signs-symbols/</a></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p style="clear: both; line-height: 1.5; text-align: left;"><span> At one point when I was talking with Mr. Matthews [see previous blog], I said to him, "There have been so many people come to the door lately, I am beginning to think my house has been marked.<br /><span> He said, "Yes, ma'am, it has." I looked at him blankly.<br /><span> He took me down the back stairs, down the walk to the back of the garage where he pointed out a number of chalked signs. I was so stuck by them, and so excited, I forgot to ask him for an explanation. I was sure I would remember them, and of course, I didn't. I cannot say if any of my signs were on the list above collected in the Depression -- mine were 35 years younger.<br /><span><span> I was excited because my grandmother's house was marked in Depression Alabama, and because in a very small world I had now the honor of her status. My grandparents, my father's parents, lived near the railroad tracks, and every day close to eleven, my grandmother would listed for the whistle announcing that the Birmingham train was coming. My grandmother would go to her kitchen and start making sandwiches. They were poor enough that sometimes the sandwiches were bread and margarine, sometime bread and boloney, and sometimes there were just slices of bread, but there was always something to give the men who came along the fence and up the stairs to her back door.<br /><span> I think my grandfather did not formally know this was happening. He would leave early every day with a sack lunch, and go to the hardware store which could no longer afford to employ him. He and several other men would go to the hardware store and sit around the iron stove, their work boots propped up on the fender, or if it was hot weather, sit in the dark rear of the store where a small breeze tunneled among stacks of pine planks.</span><br /></span><span> The men who rode the trains had to hide out for the rest of the day until the next train whistle announced a train going north or south -- there were two of each, each day. They had to hide because local unemployed men who were members of the Klan -- my grandfather was one of them -- would look for them, beat them up, scare them so that they would never get off the train in that town again. My grandmother gave me very little information, but enough to let me know of her own fear every time she heard the train whistle. The Klan might avenge themselves on white women.<br /></span><span> My other grandmother, in Birmingham, had a reputation, too. Her house was not marked, but everyone knew she bought violins. Thin tired men with worn shoes and frayed trousers would come to her porch and offer her a violin. She played the violin -- not terribly well though adequately for church solos -- but she led a small orchestra for workers at Avondale Mills who themselves were always thin and tired. The violins she bought on her porch for $5 -- a lot if you realize that my mother's wedding dress cost $10 -- she would give to people who wanted to play in the orchestra and didn't have anything to play. Usually the violins did not come with bows, so she would have to find or buy a bow, and then rosin, and probably a couple of strings. Also, she insisted on providing a square of velvet to go under the violin on the shoulder, and a piece of velvet to wrap the $5 violin in.<br /></span><span> I think often about the comfort my grandmothers provided to strangers.</span><br /></span></span></span></span></p>
Nauplionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10598950480737808706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3101913167226700484.post-38281190607997077542020-06-25T11:28:00.003-07:002020-06-25T11:29:46.983-07:00We is probably related<p style="text-align: center;"><span> </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6HVYO4kKiMk/XvToBiOFeSI/AAAAAAAAHuM/JGPrPsacCxkJjrMB6BZXx8bVw8jWY_aFACK4BGAsYHg/s3011/Moses%2BMatthews%2B1850%2BUS%2BCensus%2BSlave%2BSchedule%2B1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3011" data-original-width="2400" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6HVYO4kKiMk/XvToBiOFeSI/AAAAAAAAHuM/JGPrPsacCxkJjrMB6BZXx8bVw8jWY_aFACK4BGAsYHg/s320/Moses%2BMatthews%2B1850%2BUS%2BCensus%2BSlave%2BSchedule%2B1.jpg" /></a></div><p></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span>Fifty years ago when I was the young mother of small children, we lived in the family neighborhood of Chevy Chase, DC. Over several months I had the occasional knock on the door, a man asking for food. It was odd in that neighborhood -- you had to go there deliberately. It was not where you came to leaving the train or bus or truck stop. I noticed that the knocks came shortly after my husband had left for the Capitol, but there was nothing disturbing about them, only that someone needed food.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span><span> I fed people good Southern breakfasts, made conversations, gave them whatever I had available in the way of clothes. They called me "ma'am", bounced the little girls on their knee, offered to do yard work for me.</span><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span><span><span> The last person who knocked was quite tall, strikingly handsome, and looked exactly like my grandfather. When I opened the door I asked him where he was from.</span><br /></span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span><span><span><span> "Ozark, Alabama, ma'am." I said, "I have family from Ozark. What is your name?" He said, "Matthews, ma'am." I said, "My family is Matthews from Ozark." He said, "Yes, ma'am, we is probably related."</span><br /></span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span><span><span><span><span> </span>And I was too young and too self-conscious to question him further, to get names, addresses. But during the demonstrations recently for Black Lives Matter I remembered "We is probably related" and began to weep. A couple of days later, my daughter sent me two pages from the slave census from the 1860 US Census in Ozark, Alabama. We read over it together, several times, making sure we could translate the florid handwriting, and then trying to understand what the numbers meant.</span></span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span><span><span><span><span> The first of the two pages is up above here. The last name on the right is our concern. The name is Moses Matthews, the patriarch of the Matthews family, my great-great-grandfather. Now the two pages give a total of 20 slave owners, with 145 slaves. For these 145 slaves there are 24 houses: most owners have one house each with 2 to 10 slaves per house. Fifteen slaves are identified as mulattos. Five owners are identified as Matthews.</span><br /></span></span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span><span><span><span><span><span> Moses Matthews has the most slaves on the two pages: he has 24 slaves in three houses, though another ancestor, Dempsey Dowling, has 20 in three houses.. Three of the Matthews slaves are identified as mulattos. </span></span></span></span></span></span> One is a man older than he, but the other two are twin boys, four years old.It is what I think Mr. Matthews meant by "we is probably related." I have no documents that can prove anything, but I see these small twins in the shadows behind Mr. Matthews, and I can imagine that his own family had a story about them.</p><p style="text-align: left;"><span> That's all. Maybe. Perhaps. </span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span><span> </span>Black Lives Matter.</span><br /></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span>NOTE: Google no longer permits editing of the blog format. So I am unable to correct the address of my web site which is now NAUPLION.ORG. I would like to remove the blurbs for other blogs from the side. I do not know how well this is going to work after a 5-year absence.</span></p>Nauplionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10598950480737808706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3101913167226700484.post-25292478006293426802016-12-23T03:30:00.000-08:002016-12-23T03:30:07.850-08:00The Word becomes flesh<span style="background-color: white; color: #663300; font-family: "lucida grande";"><br /></span>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JkDFXn0NZ7o/WFhZCZWVbMI/AAAAAAAAHeY/WrfZjzIxEho5urmjpGyN3Cd8FQo0jt1jQCLcB/s1600/Piero-Parto.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JkDFXn0NZ7o/WFhZCZWVbMI/AAAAAAAAHeY/WrfZjzIxEho5urmjpGyN3Cd8FQo0jt1jQCLcB/s400/Piero-Parto.jpg" width="380" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #663300; font-family: "lucida grande";">What is wanted here is silence.<br /><br />That the young woman is pregnant is suggested by her unlaced gown, shorter in front than in back. Her labor has begun, and her right hand both indicates her pregnancy and feels the movement of the contraction, while her other hand presses into her back to relieve the discomfort. She has moved deep within herself into silence.<br /><br />The angels, mirror images, their colors inverted, are closing the tent to give her privacy. Inevitably these angels are described as pulling back the curtains to reveal her: this would be the convention, and innumerable <span style="font-style: italic;">putti </span>pull back draperies to uncover lovers or other important events. But Piero is never conventional when he follows conventions, and an understanding of the young woman's posture and the way in which they shield her with their wings makes it clear that they are protecting her, giving her privacy.<br /><br />This tent, though is even less conventional.</span><br />
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<a href="http://www.online-literature.com/bible/Exodus/" style="background-color: white; color: #663300; font-family: "lucida grande"; text-decoration: none;">Exodus</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: "lucida grande";"><span style="color: #663300;"> 25-26-27 describes the making of the tent of the Ark of the Covenant. Piero gives us an imperial tent of his day and here the red-dyed rams' skins and the gold of Exodus have become heavy red brocade woven with gold roses. Where Exodus constructs the tent of skins, Piero lines the young woman's enclosure with fur. The King James Version reads the skins as badger skins, but the word may actually refer to sealskins (there were and are seals in the eastern Mediterranean), and Piero's furs have that softness. So this young woman standing in the Tent of the Ark of the Covenant, flanked by two angels as was the Ark, becomes herself the Ark and the Covenant will be present among us this winter night in the protective quiet and warmth of the enclosing fur. </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "lucida grande";"><span style="color: #663300;"><br /></span><span style="color: #663300;">The first chapter of the Gospel of John, which nearly every church will read tomorrow night at midnight or Sunday morning, says, "And the Word became Flesh and pitched his tent -- </span><span style="color: #663300;"><i>ἐσκήνωσεν</i></span><span style="color: #663300;"> --</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #663300; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "trebuchet" , "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "lucida grande";">among us." Translators make that say that he lived, or dwelt with us. But John meant what he wrote: the tent of the Ark of the Covenant was pitched in our midst, and Piero has taken John's words and translated them into fresco.<br /><br />Piero always paints silence, whatever the images, the silence between notes, and the silence of this young woman about to give birth brings to mind a poem that ends:</span></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif;">
<span style="color: #663300;"><span style="font-family: "lucida grande";">She's crowning, someone says,</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #663300;"><span style="font-family: "lucida grande";">but there's no one royal here.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #663300;"><span style="font-family: "lucida grande";">just me quite barefoot</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #663300;"><span style="font-family: "lucida grande";">greeting my barefoot child.</span></span></blockquote>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #663300; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "trebuchet" , "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "lucida grande";"></span></span><br style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #663300; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "trebuchet" , "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "lucida grande";"><br /></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #663300; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "trebuchet" , "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #663300; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "trebuchet" , "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "lucida grande";">The poem is by Linda Pastan, from </span><a href="http://www.abebooks.com/products/isbn/9780804005531/Pastan,+Linda/A+Perfect+Circle+of+Sun/" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-family: "lucida grande";"><span style="font-style: italic;">A Perfect Circle of Sun</span>.</span></a><span style="font-family: "lucida grande";"><br /></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #663300; font-family: "lucida grande";"><a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Madonna_del_parto_piero_della_Francesca.jpg" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;">A larger version of the painting.</a></span><br />
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<br />Nauplionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10598950480737808706noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3101913167226700484.post-17478084071040936712016-12-04T03:30:00.000-08:002016-12-04T03:30:06.663-08:00Emperor or Sultan?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-KGSyaBVyyhU/WEL0Zk13GdI/AAAAAAAAHds/Op9KzwUBjOsYRDy1q3FI36z8AMHotLWfQCLcB/s1600/School%2Bof.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-KGSyaBVyyhU/WEL0Zk13GdI/AAAAAAAAHds/Op9KzwUBjOsYRDy1q3FI36z8AMHotLWfQCLcB/s400/School%2Bof.jpg" width="293" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif;">I
have been exchanging notes with a Byzantine art historian who
recently found this painting although she has never actually seen it. Fundamentally unknown, it
was sold at Christie's in 1995 as a portrait of John VIII, and then
disappeared into some collector's private world. Christie's dated it
to the early 1500s, maybe as late as the 1520s. The few scholars who have mentioned it assign it to a school or follower of Gentile Bellini.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif;">When
I saw the picture, I immediately saw it as Mehmed II. Mehmed
-- and later Suleiman the Magnificent -- were sometimes portrayed as
Byzantines, which is, I think, shorthand for "the ruler in
Constantinople." </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif;">Here, for example is a woodcut of John VIII serving as a representation of Mehmed II in the 1493 Nuremburg Chronicle. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif;">She -- the art historian -- believes the painting is John VIII, and feels details closely resemble those of John in the Sinaii portrait: </span></div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_ppejeTmewU/WEL4c3ZYtDI/AAAAAAAAHd8/MllAF-CRFTAZqgtYIRqX_ufCXeQkAIdmgCLcB/s1600/Sinai.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_ppejeTmewU/WEL4c3ZYtDI/AAAAAAAAHd8/MllAF-CRFTAZqgtYIRqX_ufCXeQkAIdmgCLcB/s400/Sinai.jpg" width="315" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif;">One problem with either identification is the late date of the portrait. Mehmed died in 1481, John in 1448. Was someone making a collection of Byzantine emperors or Ottoman sultans?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif;">The main problem, though, is that the location of the portrait is unknown. I am writing this entry on the off-chance that someone our there reading has seen the portrait and can give more information about it. Where is it? Who was the painter? Are there similar paintings out there? Would the collector make himself known to the art historian and allow her to see it?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif;">You can write me at the e-mail address up at the right.</span></div>
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Nauplionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10598950480737808706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3101913167226700484.post-56138183775711474302016-11-25T13:41:00.002-08:002016-11-25T13:41:48.762-08:00Pray for the soul of Michelis Fantalouris<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-f_m44Y_uT20/WDYRZV0AL8I/AAAAAAAAHcI/qfzzSoWBcisEJRxkhruUhOwC0QROrlFigCLcB/s1600/inscrpt-phto%2B001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-f_m44Y_uT20/WDYRZV0AL8I/AAAAAAAAHcI/qfzzSoWBcisEJRxkhruUhOwC0QROrlFigCLcB/s400/inscrpt-phto%2B001.jpg" width="318" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">I
have written before about Ag. Metamorphosis near Asine -- <a href="http://surprisedbytime.blogspot.com/2009/07/monastery-of-metamorphosis-asine.html">here</a> and <a href="http://surprisedbytime.blogspot.com/2009/09/ps-part-2-chapels.html">here</a>. I am writing
again because I want to call attention to Micheli Fantalouris --
that is his name in the third and fourth lines of the inscription in
the church. </span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">This
is the way the inscription looked when I first saw it in the 70s. Now
some idiot has installed a glaring electric light in the lower part
of it.<br />
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Michelis Fantalouris was a member of one of the
very few Greek land-holding families that we know of from the
Venetian occupation, and the only one where we actually know the
precise piece of land -- the land which surrounds Ag. Metamorphosis.
The family was involved in trade and owned a ship. (There is a
reference for the family in footnote 43 <a href="https://www.academia.edu/3074095/_The_fair_of_Agios_Demetrios_of_26_October_1449_Byzantine-Venetian_relations_and_land_issues_in_mid-century_">here</a>.)
Probably not a very large ship. Down the hill from the church is a
hidden cove, barely large enough for a </span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><i>grippo </i></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">or
a light galley. The inscription asks us to pray for the souls of
Michelis Fantalouris and his children, and is dated 1570, thirty
years into the Turkish occupation. I make the final bit of the
inscription November 28, which would make this November 1569 in our
calendar system.<br />
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No matter, Micheli paid for the little
church to be frescoed again. Here are a couple of the 1569/70
frescos. Several of them have been varnished over and
photograph poorly. The painter was very fond of diagonal lines. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">This
bit of fresco, though is different. Here the painter has preserved some of the previous fresco -- from about 1400. This is at the top
right, as soon as you enter the church. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">This
detail shows a group of Westerners, Latins -- there is a small child
at the left edge -- following the direction of a young man to look at
the crucifix appearing in the sky. It seems to have been painted by a
Greek, but the image is more Western. I think it is of
Franciscan influence, and have tried to get opinions on this, but
without any luck. It is one of the very very few -- about four --
Western frescos I have found surviving in the Argolid. I would be so
pleased to be proved wrong and shown that there are more.</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">
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<span style="color: black;"> </span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">In
1569/70 Michelis Fantalouris was an older man. What is most
remarkable is that he did not live in Nauplion, or out near Ag.
Metamorphosis, but in Venice. My friend Ersie Burke* has found
him listed in the register for the </span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><i>scuole</i></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">of
S. Giorgio dei Greci in 1575. It appears that he continued his
trading in Venice, was considered a worthy member of the Greek
community, and so that he sent money back to Nauplion to have his
family chapel refrescoed. From this entry in the </span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><i>scuole</i></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">membership
book, it looks as if Michelis died in 1579. </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">
</span></span>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">That
is all there is to say about Michelis. Sathas, V. 8, 363-64, mentions
the brothers Cosmas and Nicolò Fantalouris, and a woman, Cali,being
provided Venetian jobs in 1542, but we don't know their relationship
to Michelis. We don't know when Michelis went to Venice.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Pray
for the soul of Michelis Fantalouris. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype", serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Ersie Burke has an important book coming out soon from Brepols -- <i>The Greeks of Venice, 1498-1600: Immigration, Settlement, and Integration.</i></span></span><br />
<br />Nauplionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10598950480737808706noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3101913167226700484.post-57046188749043392062016-03-01T14:33:00.003-08:002016-03-01T17:02:42.397-08:00Sam and Argos<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<h2 class="western" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%;">
<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span lang="el-GR">I
was crossing Connecticut Avenue this afternoon behind a fluffy white table-dog,
the kind a daughter of mine would call a “kick-me dog,” and I
thought I should check to see if Homer had actually said "table-dog". <a href="http://surprisedbytime.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-maltese-whelp.html">The charming Maltese whelp</a> was a table dog. Was I
only remembering a translation?</span></span></span></span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span lang="el-GR"><br /></span></span></span></span></div>
<div>
<h2 class="western" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%;">
<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span lang="el-GR">You
will recall that when Odysseus first returns to his house, the first living creature to greet him is his old dog Argos. Odysseus tears up, and says that clearly used to be a fine dog, not like those “table dogs”.
Homer does say that: τραπεζῇες κΰνες. </span></span></span></span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span lang="el-GR"><br /></span></span></span></span></div>
<h2 class="western" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%;">
<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif;"><span lang="en-US">When
my husband and I honeymooned in Paris in 1988, we took a barge trip
from the north of the city down to the Seine. There was a table on
the barge, surrounded by all the characters from Renoir's</span></span></span><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif;"><span lang="en-US"><i>
Boating Party</i></span></span></span><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif;"><span lang="en-US">
(which lives two blocks from me), especially the young woman ignoring
her date and talking baby-talk to her dog. I was enchanted with the living painting, as I had been enchanted the previous afternoon on the train through fields of living Monet's.<br />
<br />
The first time I visited
Ireland, in the mid-90s, I was taken to the farm of my daughter's
in-laws. The first thing I really noticed as we drove up the hill to the house was a large pile
of cattle manure with an old dog lying on top – it was an icy day.
We parked beside the manure. I got out of the car, and the old dog
staggered towards me. “Argos!” I gasped, burst into tears,
and put my arms around him.<br />
<br />
Inside the house was a
table dog, a fluffy King Charles spaniel, Sam, who won prizes in dog shows. And this is where the story turns somewhat tragic. A couple of years later, my son-in-law, Sean, was working on the farm with a tractor. Sam ran under the tractor. Sean had to take his mother the news and the remains of Sam. </span></span></span></span></span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif;"><span lang="en-US"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<h2 class="western" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%;">
<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif;"><span lang="en-US">The next weekend there was a family wedding. When my daughter and Sean arrived, the various children ran up crying out, "Sean, you killed Sam!" Of course, he felt wretched. When they had lost interest and gone off, a ten-year old sidled up, not quite looking at Sean. "Sean, </span></span></span></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Sean!</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 100%;"> " he hissed. "How flat was Sam?"</span></h2>
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Nauplionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10598950480737808706noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3101913167226700484.post-86425107459216480062015-12-21T02:00:00.000-08:002015-12-21T02:00:00.587-08:00Nauplion Christmas<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-LywEdE_fC_w/Vm8rcHvtwUI/AAAAAAAAHWM/Opp3o0z3dGg/s1600/DSC01090%2B%25282%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="238" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-LywEdE_fC_w/Vm8rcHvtwUI/AAAAAAAAHWM/Opp3o0z3dGg/s400/DSC01090%2B%25282%2529.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif;">This
was our Christmas in Nauplion 38 years ago, when my children were
younger than my grandchildren are now, and when Greece was an
endearingly different world: when most people had little money instead of being attacked by incompetent government, when the old town was full of homes instead of little pink hotels, when the ringing we heard was the hourly bell instead of cell phones, when the voices of children
were heard in the streets, and when we met neighbors taking their
lunches to be cooked in the bakery ovens. It is a world that has
disappeared more completely than Dicken's London, because that world
is good for seasonal merchandise and Nauplion of the 70s has had no
literary genius. Greeks will remember a different Christmas: this was ours seen from the culture of Washington, DC.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif;">*
* * * * * * *</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif;">It rained relentlessly for the first three weeks of December, and during those
same three, there was no mail. We felt abandoned. There were no Christmas carols played
in Nauplion stores, no crass commercialization, no blatant attempts to
blackmail us into buying presents we did not need, no cranberries, no
cider, no fireplaces. No anticipating the Christmas Eve party where
the grownups wore evening dress, or Vespers at the cathedral,
no driving around the North Capitol Street neighborhood to look at
lights. And no Christmas trees. </span>
</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif;">As
far as we had been able to learn, Christmas trees were available only in Athens and there at high prices. Then the younger girls ran up the stairs crying out
that one of the tourist hotels had just brought a tree in its front
door. At the hotel, the desk clerk said the tree had come from the
florist shop in Argos opposite the bus stop. We were on the next bus
to Argos. The florist said to come back after 2:30, when his tree
delivery was to arrive. We had lunch in one of the venerable old
restaurants on the town square, a cavernous grey room, hung with
enormous fading photographs of stern Greek royalties. The other patrons seemed to all be very old men who smoked a great deal and watched us closely. We
ate hurriedly and went out to see the newest diggings. </span>
</div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif;">It is the misfortune of the residents of Argos to live on a site
inhabited without interruption for six thousand years, and given
special attention by the Romans. Every time someone wanted to build a
house, add an extra room or storage shed, or do something to the
garage, they dug up another Roman relic. Legally, all such
discoveries were to be reported to the Ephor of Antiquities and the
site properly investigated before any more building. A proper
investigation might not come for years, and the land could then be
appropriated by the government at its own evaluation. Anyone with any
sense at all, of course, followed the advice of the Duke of
Wellington and buried the damn thing immediately. Still, it did
happen that something was embroiled in official attention, and every
visit to Argos turned up a dig or two worth looking at. </span>
</div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif;">Just
after 2:30, the florist had a load of trees, each of them perfect,
each bearing a lead government seal. Christmas trees in Greece came
from government plantations. Those approved for sale were marked, and
possession of an unmarked tree could mean a year in jail. The
previous Christmas, Jorn and Erika, from South Africa, had suggested we
go in their van to a tree plantation and liberate our own trees. We
went to a ski resort down in the Peloponnesos on the slopes of
Menelaion. It was a splendid day, the snow was knee-deep and the
children raced about throwing snowballs with Erika, and watching for
approaching traffic. Jorn and I, stumbling with saws and implements
hidden in our boots and sleeves, slid into snow-covered crevices
looking for trees. Sawing through tree trunks was more difficult than we had anticipated, and
after we had slipped into more crevices taking the trees back to the
road, we crouched behind rocks until Erika signaled that it was safe
to dash to the van with our trees. Crossing the plain of Tripolis coming home, we bought large sacks of potatoes and walnuts. That was
last year.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif; line-height: 150%;">In Argos we selected an elegant silver fir which cost three times
what I had ever paid for a tree, and walked it to the bus stop where
it waited in line with us for tickets. The other passengers and the
passers-by admired it so generously that we began to feel we were
performing a social service. The bus driver, however, adamantly
refused to put the tree into his empty luggage compartment. Should I
have had any doubts on the matter, he explained that he had never
transported trees and never would. I shoved the children on the bus
where two of them immediately began to cry with a moderate degree of
sincerity. In those days Greeks could not abide seeing children cry,
especially blond children. The passengers on the bus began shouting
at the driver. He shouted at the bystanders on the sidewalk and
pointed at me and the tree. I fancied I bore a certain resemblance to
Joan of Arc carrying her own stake. The bystanders shouted at each other and the tree and
the bus, and I had the hopeful impression that the driver was very
close to being lynched. He must have had a similar impression, for he
abruptly decided the tree could ride in the luggage carrier on top of
the bus.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif;">For
the twenty minutes back to Nauplion, I watched the shadow of the tree
in the low afternoon light ripple along the side of the road. The
shadow rippled over the reed thatch on the roadside stands hung with
bunches of oranges, it rippled across the great stones of Tiryns, and
it rippled over the yellow prison walls. In Nauplion, we walked our
tree home, supporting it with arms through the branches as if it were an
unsteady friend, pausing constantly for it to be admired. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif;">We have
always collected decorations, each decoration bearing a memory to be
recounted every year during the decorating: a china bell from Irene's godmother; the gold
birds from the Christmas I was pregnant with Kathleen; the straw
stars made by my father's German POWs; a glass unicorn made one
Midsummer's Eve on the Boardwalk at Ocean City; a Robert Kennedy
button, Jan's red paper dolls from Denmark (the last remnants above). We added tiny Greek dolls and icons, and Diana Stravouradis brought a dozen sugar mice from Wales.
Elias, Arete, Apostolos, Evangelitsa,Yannis, Sophia, Michaelis,
Costas, Maritsa, all saw the lights from the street and came up to
admire. "<i>Afto in</i><i>ai</i><i> oreio. In</i><i>ai</i><i>
kalo</i>." It is beautiful, it is good. Strangers knocked on the
door and asked if they might bring their children who had
never seen a Christmas tree before. The next day we cycled to the
far side of Palamidi – now gnawed up by roads and houses – to
collect armfuls of heather, narcissus and pine. We put tall beeswax
candles and crêches in the window alcoves – Irene's from Nigeria (still with us this Christmas),
Kathleen's from Mexico, Rosalind's from Germany. </span>
</div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif;">Abruptly,
Nauplion prepared for Christmas. Soldiers from
the local army base set up a life-sized crêche with Byzantine-style
figures in the main square, in front of the Venetian armory. Beside it they put a fishing boat hung with colored lights:
there was always a competition to have one's boat chosen. Agios Vasilios brings gifts at New Year's in his
boat. The windows on the main streets were heaped with sweets in
shiny colored papers and boxes. The dark, narrow shops on the side
streets smelling of chocolate and oranges – now all become
boutiques – were crammed with shiny things piled on the counters
and hanging from the ceiling like stalagtites. </span>
</div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif;">The
hunchbacked fiddler from across the bay strolled up and down the main
streets, fiddling a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nErlNqZbSU">carol</a>
over and over. We went over to him, he said the children were
beautiful, then spat to protect them from the Evil Eye. The gypsies
came to town. An aged woman sat near the post office asking for contributions, her
grown idiot son sprawled inertly across her lap, the two making a </span><span style="font-family: 'palatino linotype', serif; line-height: 150%;">hideous </span><i style="font-family: 'palatino linotype', serif; line-height: 150%;">p</i><i style="font-family: 'palatino linotype', serif; line-height: 150%;">iet</i><span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif;"><i>à</i></span><span style="font-family: 'palatino linotype', serif; line-height: 150%;">,</span><span style="font-family: 'palatino linotype', serif; line-height: 150%;"> . A man led a muzzled
bear cub about on a rope. When he bashed its feet with a stick, it
lifted them up and down: this was dancing. When poked with a stick,
it growled: this demonstrated ferocity, and observers squealed. A
teen-aged gypsy boy leaned against a pillar of the church porch under
our window. He played "St. James Infirmary" on his clarinet
in a dozen styles and variations. He was an artist. I wanted to know
his name, to hear him play more, but the old man near him spoke
sharply and set him to playing a proper carol The old man talked to
me for a bit, anxious that I know him to be a "real
Christian," that is, one baptized in church, unlike most
gypsies. He said the boy was rebellious, and did not know his place.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif;">On
December 23, the mail finally arrived. It took three trips to the
post office to retrieve all the packages. Phillipa, a graceful
Australian, came up the stairs and asked if she could visit.
She had been traveling alone for a month and wanted to see
someone at Christmas who spoke English. The morning of Christmas Eve,
we were awakened by the fire house band, composed mostly of drums,
clarinets and tubas. Rosalind ran down to join the horde of
small children who danced behind, up and down all the
streets of the old town collecting contributions of small change and
candy. More packages arrived. The children went out to deliver fruit
cakes – I had brought bourbon and pecans for this, and we baked them in the bakery oven next to Evangelitsa's shop (now a bank) – and small
gifts to our friends. They returned with more cakes and gifts than
they had taken. We made tablecloths from lengths of blue and white
material, and set out the silverware, and blue and white china we had
brought with us. </span>
</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif;">The
silver had nearly got us into trouble. When we packed to come to
Greece, I put household supplies in containers that were carried in
the ship's hold, but the sterling I put into my hiking boots in one
of the suitcases, thinking we might want to use it before we had
access to the containers. We arrived at customs with six suitcases, a
trunk, two musical instruments and assorted bags. With stunning
intuition, the customs inspector only opened the suitcase with the
hiking boots stuffed with silver. No one at customs spoke English,
nor did any of us speak Greek. After a long period in a smoke-filled
room where several men shouted at each other and at me, I tearfully
managed to get one of them to notice the scratches, bent tines and
tarnish that might indicate the silver had been in our possession for
a while. </span>
</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif;">We
hadn't enough plates to set out all we had cooked, and when guests
began arriving with their contributions, there wasn't enough room for
all the food, either. Everyone we had invited had found a foreigner
who wanted an American Christmas -- two Australian families in the
campground, an Irishwoman camping on the beach, an American
schoolteacher, a German couple, two Englishwomen who had married
Naupliots, several Greeks who had lived in America, and they all
brought bottles of drinks and more food. As soon as the first guests
appeared, the kitchen sink detached itself from all of its pipes and
fell off the wall. We tried to ignore this. </span>
</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif;">We
were interrupted several times by shouts from the Hotel Otto across
the street for phone calls from the States, and at the hotel we
acquired two solitary salesmen morosely watching television.
At midnight, the church bells rang and the ships blew their whistles.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif;">Christmas
morning we woke to the bells and incense of Panagia and the
warm tones of the priest's chanting. Phillipa breakfasted with us on
leftover ham and Roquefort, and then we took the bus to Argos. </span>
</div>
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<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "palatino linotype" , serif;">Argos
has a conical hill crowned with a castle, described in a medieval
chronicle as spreading down into the plain like a tent. We climbed up
the long way and sat in the arched casements and looked over the
snow-covered mountains deep in the Peloponnesos. A troup of merry
little boys joined us. They found great amusement in snatching at
sweaters and purses and Kathleen's long hair. It seemed best to go
back down, but we were looking for what the <i>Blue Guide </i>said was a
carving of a Thracian horseman. We had no idea of where to look or
what a Thracian horseman might look like. Phillipa asked the boys,
but we were saying <i>hippos</i>, which was classical, when we should
have said <i>alogos</i>. Phillipa tried sketching a series of
men-on-horseback. One of the boys pointed to one and showed us, not
ten feet away, a disappointingly small, grubby bas-relief of a man on
a horse with a snake. The church on the hill above is a Ag.
Georgios. Ag. Georgios is always shown with a dragon. Centuries ago
someone thought this carving of a horseman and serpent was he. Bored
with archeology, the boys threw stones at us the rest of the way down
the hill. Back home at dusk, there was just enough time to start the
Franklin stove before we wrapped in blankets and lay across the bed
in the firelight to listen to the Queen's Christmas message. We cried
a lot and said it was the best Christmas we had ever had. The next
morning we were up at six to begin two weeks of being migrant
workers picking <i>mandarinis.</i></span></div>
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Nauplionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10598950480737808706noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3101913167226700484.post-68664969913142064272015-10-29T11:34:00.000-07:002015-10-29T11:34:36.955-07:00The Rev. Hartley views the Morea<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-UT-rCESqvWU/VhgYzclhG7I/AAAAAAAAHUg/1Qoiw6cSqDo/s1600/Morea-1828-Hartley.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-UT-rCESqvWU/VhgYzclhG7I/AAAAAAAAHUg/1Qoiw6cSqDo/s400/Morea-1828-Hartley.jpg" width="387" /></a></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif; font-size: x-small;">From <i>Researches in Greece & the Levant </i>by the Rev. John Hartley, M.A., 1833. </span></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif; font-size: x-small;">The Rev. Hartley's route in 1828 from Napoli to Kakovouni, then Napoli to </span></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif; font-size: x-small;">Tripolitza, </span><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 100%;">Mistra, Leondari, Karitena, Demitzani, Megaspelaion, </span><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 100%;">and back </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
<div style="line-height: 100%;">
<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 100%;">to Napoli </span><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 100%;">are shown by a very pale dotted line.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%;">
<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 100%;"><br /></span></div>
<h1 class="western" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 150%; margin-left: 0.5in; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">From
the Rev. John Hartley, English missionary to Greece and Asia Minor.</span></span></h1>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 0.5in; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">NAPOLI
DI ROMANIA</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 0.5in; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><i>March
29, 1828 </i></span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">–
for the second time, I find myself in this celebrated fortress. We
sailed from the Port of Kranidi at eight o'clock, and in six hours
arrived here.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 0.5in; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><i>March
30 </i></span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">–
I have distributed several copies of Lord Lyttleton on St. Paul, and
of Bishop Porteus's Evidences – books which I find of great value
in the present crisis.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 0.5in; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><i>March
31 </i></span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">–
Since I was in Napoli, our Agent has sold all the Scriptures with
which he was entrusted: viz. 30 small Testaments, 17 large, and one
Hellenic; and he has paid me, deducting the per-centage, 124
piastres, 30 paras. I hope soon to send him a much larger supply.
Visited with much pleasure the Lancasterian School: it has 170
scholars, and is in excellent order: many Boys repeated, at length,
passages of Scripture History. . . . Valled on N. Skuphas and
conversed with his sisters. They shewed me the “Pilgrim's Progress”
. . . which their father had sent them from Smyrna.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 0.5in; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><i>April
1</i></span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">
– I presented a supply of books, for the School of Demitzani, to
Niketas Kallas, one of the Managing Committee; and others for the
Lancasterian School in Napoli.</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-left: 0.5in;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="line-height: 24px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> I
extract from a former Journal the following Narrative:</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 0.5in; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Oct.
17, 1827 – I have been highly interested by a visit, which we have
just paid to Griva, Commandant of the Palamidi. This Chief, after
having held possession of that important fortress for more than a
year, found himself unwilling to give it up; and, impelled by his
vindictive feelings, actually wged war on his countrymen. About two
months ago he commenced firing on the lower castle and on the town,
and even proceeded to throw bombs. No less than one hundred and
fifty persons became the victims of this outrage.</span></span></div>
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</div>
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<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 0.5in; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">On
reaching the summit of the remendous rock on which the fortress is
built, I was surprised to find Griva himself, waiting to receive us.
He is a fine-looking young man; and, apparelled as he was in a
magnificent Albanian dress, he presented such a noble and warlike
figure as I had never before seen. After receiving us with a friendly
Greek welcome, he introduced us to his quarters; where his wife, a
young lady of elegant appearance, arrayed in a handsome Turkish
costume, exhibited herself for a few moments, and then suddenly
disappeared; -- this Mussulman retirement of females still existing
among some of the Greek Clans. With Griva we had much conversation. I
told him, as I do many others, the history of the Bible Society; and
left with him, for the use of the Garrison, two copies of the New
Testament. Judge of our surprise at his answer: --”they are a good
thing for those who can read: but I do not know how to read.” . . .
I was thunder-struck, to fina a man, so prince-like in demeanor, and
Commandant of the famous fortress of Palamidi, making such a
discovery. He expressed, however, his regret --”His father had
never profided such an advantage for him.” Our conversation turned
chiefly on the politics of the day: he threw out hints, which he
evidently meant as a justification of his recent conduct: “Men,”
he said, “who possess no merit, who have never fought for their
country, are preferred to offices of importance; while those who have
distinguished themselves to the utmost are passed by with disregard.”
He also intimated, that he waiting the coming of Count Capo d”Istria,
in order to give up the fortress to him.</span></span></div>
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</div>
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<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 100%; text-align: left;">
</div>
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<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">After
accompanying us, with one of his brothers, to the various works of
the fortification, he introduced us to another brother, who was laid
up with sickness. They described to us the warlike habits of the
family. They told us that they never lived on the three articles of
bread, meat, and win together: if they had bread, they had no meat:
if they had meat, they had no bread. For months in succession, they
never changed their dress: they were accustomed to heat, cold, rains,
and snows-- to wade rivers up to the neck – and to encounter many
other appalling hardships. If they were tow months without an
expedition, they grew sick. They had never paid tribute to the Grand
Signor: -- when they could not find Turks to fight, they attacked
their own countrymen!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 0.5in; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 0.5in; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">************************</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 0.5in; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">More to come from Rev. Hartley.</span></span></div>
</div>
Nauplionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10598950480737808706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3101913167226700484.post-87807651329972007052015-09-02T10:59:00.001-07:002015-09-09T10:04:02.389-07:00Time ages in a hurry<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 100%;">Μετὰ
τὴν σσιάν τάχιστα</span><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 100%;"> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 100%;">χρόνος.</span><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 150%;"> After the shadow
time ages in a hurry.</span></div>
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<i style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 150%;">Time Ages in a Hurry</i><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 150%;"> is the title of a marvelous book of short stories by Antonio
Tabucchi, published by archipelagobooks.org. The line, attributed
in the book to the </span><i style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 150%;">Critias</i><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 150%;">, is from a late
antique commentary.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 150%;">Time
surprises. Time ages in a hurry. I have never been so aware of
time. I am currently making plans for moving in December from Seattle -- after twelve years in this wonderful house, back to Washington, DC. I will be going back to the apartment where I have lived longer than any place in my life, taking it over from the daughter who took it over when I moved here.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">This will be my 15th move as an adult, and the first I have not wanted. This house is full of light: it faces due east and on sunny mornings, I begin my day by coming down the stairs into pools of liquid light. </span><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif;">I have never before lived where I could have a garden but </span><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 150%;">I have grown roses here, and developed my own garden. There is a grape arbor -- I've mentioned that before. And there have been the birds! The smaller ones follow me around the yard and when I go on walks. The crows track me from room to room in the house, and a member of the third generation I have fed informs me quietly when their food pan is empty. His parents below -- a pairing that lasted only for a year -- would come sit near us when we would sit in the yard. This small corner lot is overflowing with gratitude.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">Meanwhile, I find I am not able to maintain this blog reliably. There will be erratic posts while I try to decide what to do about it. I am grateful for my readers -- there have been nearly half a million individual looks at material here, and especially for you who have taken the trouble to comment or write me. If Time permits, I would love to continue writing.</span></div>
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Nauplionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10598950480737808706noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3101913167226700484.post-68889806299612337402015-08-25T05:00:00.001-07:002015-08-25T05:00:03.069-07:00On vacation: Giovannino's Menagerie<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<h1 class="western" lang="de-DE" style="font-weight: normal; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovannino_de'_Grassi">Giovannino
de Grassi, d. 1398.</a></span></span></span></h1>
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<br />Nauplionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10598950480737808706noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3101913167226700484.post-70626771126948207702015-08-18T05:00:00.000-07:002015-08-18T05:00:01.324-07:00On vacation: Marietta's Song<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
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<a href="http://www.aquinao.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Anne-Sofie-von-Otter-soprano-Singing-Mariettas-Song-The-End.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.aquinao.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Anne-Sofie-von-Otter-soprano-Singing-Mariettas-Song-The-End.jpg" height="236" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"> "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WN_vsAUEE8s&list=FLBwR2tCKKWTAlxOh9Vp-oZw&index=7">Marietta's Song</a>", sung by Anne Sofie von Otter, </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">from <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_tote_Stadt">Die tote Stadt</a></i> by Erich Korngold, 1920.</span></div>
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<div align="left" lang="de-DE" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">Glück, das mir verblieb,<br />rück
zu mir, mein treues Lieb.<br />Abend sinkt im Hag<br />bist mir Licht und
Tag.<br />Bange pochet Herz an Herz<br />Hoffnung schwingt sich
himmelwärts.<br /><br />Wie wahr, ein traurig Lied.<br />Das Lied vom
treuen Lieb,<br />das sterben muss.<br /><br />Ich kenne das Lied.<br />Ich
hört es oft in jungen,<br />in schöneren Tagen.<br />Es hat noch eine
Strophe—<br />weiß ich sie noch?<br /><br />Naht auch Sorge trüb,<br />rück
zu mir, mein treues Lieb.<br />Neig dein blaß Gesicht<br />Sterben
trennt uns nicht.<br />Mußt du einmal von mir gehn,<br />glaub, es gibt
ein Auferstehn.</span></div>
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<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 0.52in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="color: #252525;">Joy,
that near to me remains,</span><br /><span style="color: #252525;">Come
to me, my true love.</span><br /><span style="color: #252525;">Night
sinks into the grove</span><br /><span style="color: #252525;">You
are my light and day.</span><br /><span style="color: #252525;">Anxiously
beats heart on heart</span><br /><span style="color: #252525;">Hope
itself soars heavenward.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: #252525;">How
true, a sad song.</span><br /><span style="color: #252525;">The
song of true love,</span><br /><span style="color: #252525;">that
must die.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: #252525;">I
know the song.</span><br /><span style="color: #252525;">I
heard it often in younger,</span><br /><span style="color: #252525;">in
better days.</span><br /><span style="color: #252525;">It
has yet another verse—</span><br /><span style="color: #252525;">Do
I know it still?</span><br /><br /><span style="color: #252525;">Though
sorrow becomes dark,</span><br /><span style="color: #252525;">Come
to me, my true love.</span><br /><span style="color: #252525;">Lean
(to me) your pale face</span><br /><span style="color: #252525;">Death
will not separate us.</span><br /><span style="color: #252525;">If
you must leave me one day,</span><br /><span style="color: #252525;">Believe,
there is an afterlife</span> </span>
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Nauplionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10598950480737808706noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3101913167226700484.post-84957056823817651562015-08-08T13:55:00.001-07:002015-08-08T13:55:03.930-07:00On vacation: Oranges<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rXxh9dKArhY/VcG7v99heEI/AAAAAAAAHQc/2jCHnHsZrVQ/s1600/WmJMcCloskey-1889.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="290" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rXxh9dKArhY/VcG7v99heEI/AAAAAAAAHQc/2jCHnHsZrVQ/s400/WmJMcCloskey-1889.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Wrapped Oranges</i>,
William J. McCloskey, 1889.
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">12” x 16”. Amon
Carter Museum, Ft. Worth, TX</span></div>
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<br />Nauplionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10598950480737808706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3101913167226700484.post-4213573569103996532015-07-31T05:00:00.000-07:002015-07-31T05:00:09.162-07:00On first looking into Chapman's Homer<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OqA1sr8BFio/VbffCvWlb7I/AAAAAAAAHPY/dazuu4ph7rY/s1600/DSC00950.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="277" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OqA1sr8BFio/VbffCvWlb7I/AAAAAAAAHPY/dazuu4ph7rY/s320/DSC00950.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">In
recent weeks I have been sorting through <a href="http://surprisedbytime.blogspot.com/2015/06/pierre-antony-mackay.html">Pierre MacKay</a>'s boxes and
drawers and shelves and desks. The last project so far was the heavy
glass-fronted bookcase beside his bed full of, he said, his father's
poetry books. Most of these were late 19<sup>th</sup>-century and
early 20<sup>th</sup>-century editions of all the English poets,
perhaps not as interesting to me as they should be. One book stood
out, and its photograph is above.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">There
are several thousand books in this house, quite a few of them
important. I have rarely been interested in an old book or a first
edition. Books to me are primarily tools. I read with a pencil,
fold down corners, make notes, break spines (though not intentionally). A
beautiful edition is very nice to look at, but otherwise useless. So
nothing in my life had prepared me for the thrill of this book. The blackening along the top edge has a very faint charred smell, souvenir of its surviving a fire in Princeton. This book that touched fire was, is, Chapman's Homer. This is the book
Keats wrote about.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">When George Chapman began translating Homer, he issued it in installments beginning in 1598. It was not until 1616 that he issued his complete Homer -- the first complete translation in English -- with copious marginal notes, fulsome dedicatory poems and prefaces, and remarkable etchings.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 24px;">Wikipedia has an excellent article about </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Chapman" style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 24px;">Chapman</a>,<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 24px;"> a prolific playwright, and possible the rival poet mentioned in Shakespeare's </span><i style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 24px;">Sonnets</i><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 24px;">. When Chapman was reissued in 1998 and 2001, the </span><i style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 24px;">London Review of Books</i><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 24px;"> published</span><a href="http://www.lrb.co.uk/v24/n12/colin-burrow/chapmaniac" style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 24px;"> an eloquent discussion</a><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 24px;"> of the man and his work. I will not try to repeat them here, but I urge you to read the LRB because it so well explains how magic happens. Chapman translated the <i>Iliad </i>in iambic heptameter and rhyming couplets. Take this of Phoenix from Book 9 -- the spelling takes getting used to:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">O
thou that like the gods art fram'd: fince (deareft to my heart)</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">I
us'de thee fo, though lov'dft none elfe; nor any where wouldft eate,</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">Till
I had crownd my knee with thee, and caru'd thee tendrest meate,</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">And
given thee wine for much, for love, that in thy infancie,</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">(Which
ftill difcretion muft protect, and a continuall eye)</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">My
bofome lovingly fuftain'd; the wine thine could not beare;</span></div>
<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 24px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 24px;">Here is a view from the <i>Odyssey</i>, this in iambic pentameter and rhyming couplets, Odysseus speaking to Nausicaa: </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 24px;"> And here,<a href="http://pyrekbolo.blogspot.com/2013/05/most-of-all-i-wanted-to-see-your-eyes.html"> John Keats</a> describes what happened to him when he read Chapman's Homer, and what happened to me when I found it in that dark corner of the bookcase:</span><br />
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<span style="color: #505050;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">Much
have I travell'd in the realms of gold,</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in; orphans: 1;">
<span style="color: #505050;"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">And
many goodly states and kingdoms seen;</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in; orphans: 1;">
<span style="color: #505050;"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">Round
many western islands have I been</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in; orphans: 1;">
<span style="color: #505050;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">Which
bards in fealty to Apollo hold.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in; orphans: 1;">
<span style="color: #505050;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">Oft
of one wide expanse had I been told</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in; orphans: 1;">
<span style="color: #505050;"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">That
deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne;</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in; orphans: 1;">
<span style="color: #505050;"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">Yet
did I never breathe its pure serene</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in; orphans: 1;">
<span style="color: #505050;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">Till
I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in; orphans: 1;">
<span style="color: #505050;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">Then
felt I like some watcher of the skies</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in; orphans: 1;">
<span style="color: #505050;"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">When
a new planet swims into his ken;</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in; orphans: 1;">
<span style="color: #505050;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">Or
like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in; orphans: 1;">
<span style="color: #505050;"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">He
star'd at the Pacific—and all his men</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in; orphans: 1;">
<span style="color: #505050;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">Look'd
at each other with a wild surmise—</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in; orphans: 1;">
<span style="color: #505050;"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">Silent,
upon a peak in Darien.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in; orphans: 1;">
<span style="color: #505050;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"> John Keats</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #505050;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #505050;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #505050;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #505050;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
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<br />Nauplionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10598950480737808706noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3101913167226700484.post-25387467258288708132015-07-24T05:00:00.000-07:002015-07-24T05:00:07.011-07:00Cheilas' Cleofe<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-u1JGLcN-5lU/VbFCNqAXrpI/AAAAAAAAHO4/z8QrAmYiYeU/s1600/______082.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-u1JGLcN-5lU/VbFCNqAXrpI/AAAAAAAAHO4/z8QrAmYiYeU/s400/______082.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif; font-size: x-small;">Mistra in shrouds. Photo by Stella Chrysochoou.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">The<a href="https://www.academia.edu/2640262/Nicephorus_Cheilas_Monody_on_the_death_of_Cleofe_Palaiologina_Malatesta_"> monody by Nikiforos Cheilas</a> is the last of the four monodies delivered at the <i>mnemosyne </i>for Cleofe in late May of 1433. I have used them frequently in entries here for information, and have looked individually at those by P<a href="http://surprisedbytime.blogspot.com/2014/12/plethons-cleofe.html">lethon</a>, <a href="http://surprisedbytime.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-doctor-and-his-patient.html">Pepagomenos</a>, and <a href="http://surprisedbytime.blogspot.com/2014/12/bessarions-missing-manuscript.html">Bessarion</a>. This by Cheilas was the third delivered that day, and the one that probably would have been most remembered by those who heard him. On first reading, it appears to rush from one high point of emotion to the next, at times almost near hysteria, but it is the most literary of the four, and demonstrates the most concern for rhetoric.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">Cheilas begins, and ends, with a justification for mourning (and includes a dig at Plethon and Pepagomenos, accusing them of showing off), both times bringing the mourning directly home by listing the mourners: the godly despot, the despots, his relatives, her most dear daughter, the priests, the monastic orders, the senators, the others, and the cities and villages. These at the beginning are all present at the </span><i style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif;">mnemosyne</i><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 150%;">, while at the conclusion, he gives a shorter and different list, more poetic and more poignant: all kingdoms, groves and meadows, the Graces, widows, orphans, captives, the impoverished, and your subjects.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 150%;">This identification with the listeners carries throughout as he talks about Cleofe and their grief in ways that they would wish they could have thought of, moving back and forth between factual statements about her life, and then rhapsodical images of what they have lost. The image of light is preeminent: it is one of the oldest and most persistent of the <i>topoi </i>of Greek mourning. "The land of Hesperia sent her, a light flowing out from a golden race, but she shone back with a radiance that made all the brilliance of that race seem less." "O ornament of queens, or rather, queen among all queens, as you shown out, surpassing them in all your virtues." (Here he used </span><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 150%;">βασιλὶς βασιλίδων in a graceful recognition of the Palaiologos βασιλεὺς or βασιλέως βασιλεων.) "You, our sun, have set." Then inverting the metaphor he says, "What a change has come to hide away what was sweetest and best, igniting the entire flame of griefs and wretchedness."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 150%;">Earlier he inverts a metaphor to great effectiveness: "</span><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; font-size: 12pt;">You gave us then a celebration, showing us all something new, a reason to sing sweetly, songs worthy of your goodness and of the good fortune that came to us from you, . . . But now you set us to deep grieving, to uttering long cries of pain, to weaving a tragic song, antiphonal to our former hymns, singing farewell to the hopes we had in better times."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">He inverts another metaphor, working with </span></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 150%;">κιβωτὸς, ark: "</span><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; font-size: 12pt;">O, bitter ark, that made away with such beauty. The psalmist of old even danced before the ark, when it was returning whence it came, but before this bitter ark which carries off our great queen to the tomb, it is entirely right for us to stand and wail continuously, and to mourn, and do everything short of trying to exhume her from it."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 150%;">Cheilas reminds his listeners of Cleofe's intelligence, of her quiet and effective assistance in council, of her diligence in Bible study, and her self-discipline. He indicates a more intimate knowledge when he tells of her standing in prayer all night, and that she had said quietly to a few that she would not live through this childbirth. He is the source for the information that she died on Good Friday at noon, and was buried almost immediately. He confirms and supplements information in Pepagomenos and Bessarion.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 150%;">Towards the end, Cheilas lets loose a cascade of metaphors: </span><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span lang="el-GR">"She departed leaving behind amazement . . . O, shell of our common existence, what a change has come to hide away what was sweetest and best . . . </span></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">O, who was it that did not spare this loveliest and most beautiful eye for us, cutting it out? Who was it that made this loveliest object and image of all the virtues and graces vanish? O, what a thing has been looted from us in her beauty, what loveliness has been destroyed? What light is now hidden under the bushel? O, what a sun has abruptly gone down into the tomb and is now miserably concealed? What a tongue full of grace has been imprisoned in final silence. Where has such loveliness ever before been extinguished? When has a flower so utterly withered, how has that precious gem been shattered?"</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 150%;">His conclusion is quiet, gentle, after the summary of the mourners: "</span><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Accept these words offered by us to you, O, in all things for us best and most holy, and most regal lady, they are entirely insufficient, but we could not mourn our loss in silence."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 150%;">Just before his conclusion, Cheilas said: "</span><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Therefore I think that for all time and among all nations, this account, both as a written and as unwritten message will be sent out, and you will be remembered among all men until day and night yield to one another." As far as survivals are concerned, they never mentioned her again.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Translation by Pierre A. MacKay.</span></span></div>
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Nauplionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10598950480737808706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3101913167226700484.post-42393869766987879832015-07-17T17:30:00.000-07:002015-07-19T16:53:47.011-07:00The black saint of the Holy Roman Empire<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3rrYi7Sd6HQ/VamSWUMqIzI/AAAAAAAAHNs/9vbnjjjQHgU/s1600/M-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3rrYi7Sd6HQ/VamSWUMqIzI/AAAAAAAAHNs/9vbnjjjQHgU/s400/M-1.jpg" width="353" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 150%;">St.
Maurice (detail) 1520-25.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">The
Metropolitan Museum of Art recently published a monograph about an
addition to the collection, a panel by Lucas Cranach the Elder (and
his workshop) showing St. Maurice who is wearing the most gorgeous
clothes in the whole world.</span></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3v7UONNzaww/Vag6ZZ6wSmI/AAAAAAAAHNM/XpFb45l8wRM/s1600/010.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3v7UONNzaww/Vag6ZZ6wSmI/AAAAAAAAHNM/XpFb45l8wRM/s400/010.jpg" width="112" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">Here is the whole St.
Maurice panel, and below, a second St. Maurice whose panel is still
attached to his altarpiece in the Marktkirche, Halle.</span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-aJC0VTKb5fA/VamSQNBVm9I/AAAAAAAAHNk/097t4twOS-c/s1600/M-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="312" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-aJC0VTKb5fA/VamSQNBVm9I/AAAAAAAAHNk/097t4twOS-c/s320/M-2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qnsTQBz60O0/VamTKCRNStI/AAAAAAAAHN4/PsRLwCqlMyo/s1600/Altarpiece.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qnsTQBz60O0/VamTKCRNStI/AAAAAAAAHN4/PsRLwCqlMyo/s320/Altarpiece.jpg" width="258" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">Both
of these panels are based on this drawing of a reliquary statue of
St. Maurice.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieziCVAeDA1x5NuvzjXBQ4e-vee3lIw6RKeSLxAA1EB8B4n5AHgaJVStuWRzGcHSdZH1j8Yni8nqrxyCQdO9OBPwrIMV7tPXwznLChr5DHWzXqwWhtdH5ooPfMq1YCPYejd4p1vXNQyL7I/s1600/005.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieziCVAeDA1x5NuvzjXBQ4e-vee3lIw6RKeSLxAA1EB8B4n5AHgaJVStuWRzGcHSdZH1j8Yni8nqrxyCQdO9OBPwrIMV7tPXwznLChr5DHWzXqwWhtdH5ooPfMq1YCPYejd4p1vXNQyL7I/s400/005.jpg" width="245" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-cTnkge0LZbA/VagP6zcniqI/AAAAAAAAHMU/OuCGIpdq04A/s1600/004.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-cTnkge0LZbA/VagP6zcniqI/AAAAAAAAHMU/OuCGIpdq04A/s400/004.jpg" width="256" /></a></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif; font-size: x-small;">Both
drawings from the <i>Liber ostensionis</i>, 1526/27.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">According
to an account written about 450 AD, St. Maurice was a member of the
Egyptian Theban Legion which was composed of Christians. Sent to
France and ordered by the Emperor Maximian (ca.250-ca.310) to
persecute Christians, they refused, and eventually were all executed.
Another version of the story written a little later says that they
were martyred for refusing to worship the Roman gods.</span></div>
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</div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">By
515 the ruler of Burgundy built a basilica and monastery in Valais
for the throngs of pilgrims who were coming to visit Maurice's
relics. In the 10<sup>th</sup> century Maurice's cult was promoted by
Otto the Great who ultimately pronounced Maurice patron saint of the
Holy Roman Empire.</span></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zpY3SwHEb1Q/VamTgb1AnNI/AAAAAAAAHOI/HoGamEjbyHk/s1600/006.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zpY3SwHEb1Q/VamTgb1AnNI/AAAAAAAAHOI/HoGamEjbyHk/s400/006.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif; font-size: x-small;">Statue
of St. Maurice, ca.1240-50.<br />Cathedral of St. Maurice and St.
Catherine. Magdeburg.</span></div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2zCNAHXa6NQ/VagQD9C1DhI/AAAAAAAAHMo/HWPswYhT-j4/s1600/007.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="381" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2zCNAHXa6NQ/VagQD9C1DhI/AAAAAAAAHMo/HWPswYhT-j4/s400/007.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 100%;"><i>St.
Maurice and the Theban Legion. </i></span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 100%;">South German Master (early 16</span><sup style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 100%;">th</sup><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 100%;">
C). <br />Private collection, NYC.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 100%;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 100%;"><br /></span></div>
</span><br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">This
panel painting of the Theban Legion dresses them in the spirit of the
Vatican's Swiss Guards. The feathered headdresses look as if the
painter knew of the tradition that produced. Ag. Alexandros from
Kastoria in northern Greece.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Wm6qh24xvSI/VagQD2aIZLI/AAAAAAAAHMk/KcjfzSFPU7c/s1600/agios%2Balexandros%252C%2Bkastoria%2B%25282%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Wm6qh24xvSI/VagQD2aIZLI/AAAAAAAAHMk/KcjfzSFPU7c/s1600/agios%2Balexandros%252C%2Bkastoria%2B%25282%2529.jpg" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-B6Y7eFalVew/VagQPamU8MI/AAAAAAAAHM0/bFfw9cmyRys/s1600/003.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-B6Y7eFalVew/VagQPamU8MI/AAAAAAAAHM0/bFfw9cmyRys/s400/003.jpg" width="302" /></a></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif; font-size: x-small;"><i>The
Meeting of St. Maurice and St. Erasmus. </i><br /> Matthias Gr<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">ü</span>newald,
ca. 1520-24. Alte Pinakothek, Munich.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">Finally,
this Gr<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">ü</span>newald panel of
St. Maurice who gives him the most extraordinarily luminous armor.</span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Uo3r_O08F5M/VagQTk5OH3I/AAAAAAAAHM8/Armue1hznLo/s1600/002%2B%25282%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Uo3r_O08F5M/VagQTk5OH3I/AAAAAAAAHM8/Armue1hznLo/s400/002%2B%25282%2529.jpg" width="260" /></a></div>
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<br />Nauplionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10598950480737808706noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3101913167226700484.post-49801927883801246192015-07-10T05:00:00.000-07:002015-07-10T05:00:06.164-07:00Evliya's sea battle<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-a45G8n2F-8k/VZxwlPO87ZI/AAAAAAAAHLk/hZ5pSakKIWg/s1600/16thC%2BOtt%2Bfleet.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-a45G8n2F-8k/VZxwlPO87ZI/AAAAAAAAHLk/hZ5pSakKIWg/s400/16thC%2BOtt%2Bfleet.jpg" width="278" /></a></div>
<pre class="western" style="line-height: 100%; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">The Ottoman Fleet of Tarik-y Bayezid (ink and gold leaf on vellum)
16th century, </span></span><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">which is early for Evliya.</span></span></span></pre>
<pre class="western" style="line-height: 100%; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">
</span></span></span></pre>
<pre class="western" style="line-height: 100%; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">
</span></span></span></pre>
<pre class="western" style="line-height: 100%; text-align: center;"></pre>
<pre class="western" style="text-align: left;"><pre class="western"><pre class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0.16in; orphans: 1;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif; line-height: 150%;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">This week, a section from Evliya Çelebi's </span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><i>Setyahatname</i></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">, about a famous pirate and a battle at sea off Clarentza in 1668. The translation is by <a href="http://surprisedbytime.blogspot.com/2015/06/pierre-antony-mackay.html">Pierre MacKay</a>. The bolded headings in the text represent Evliya's red-ink marginal comments on <a href="http://surprisedbytime.blogspot.com/2011/06/evliyas-manuscript.html">the original manuscript</a>
* * * * * *</span></span></span></pre>
</pre>
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<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 150%;">Departing from [Vostitza], I went for 3 hours southwards to the Kamenítza river, which comes down from the Kalâvryta mountains and flows into the gulf at this spot. It is a small river, and crossing it on horseback, I came to the village of Mustafa Paşa. This is a great bequest trust for the mosque of Mustafa Paşa in Gebze, which is a day's journey away from Üsküdar. The tributary populace is all Albanians. Another 3 hours from there is the </span><span style="color: black; line-height: 150%;"></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: black; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 150%;">village of Mertéza, which is a zeamet-class fief of the Commander of the Levy for Morea. It tributary populace is all Greeks. This village is at the skirts of the "Black Mountain" of Morea, where all the infidel frigates have little landing places in the forest. They hide here and capture travellers and passers-by, and then sail away. From this village we went into the limitless plain of Gastúni and passed by prosperous villages with mosques, </span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 150%;">inns and great houses, and through gardens and orchards like the gardens of Irem, and so came to Glarénza).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 19.5px;"> </span></div>
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<span style="color: black; line-height: 150%;"><b style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 150%;">Description of the entire castle of Glarénza</b></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 150%;">It was founded by the </span><i style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 150%;">Bundukani</i><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 150%;"> Venetians. In Greek, Glarénza (Larence) means . . ., and that is the reason for the name.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 19.5px;"> </span></div>
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<span style="color: black; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 150%;">In the year . . ., it was a conquest of Sultan Beyazid the Saintly, but the conquest was made with great toil and suffering, and since the castle was largely useless he demolished it in several places. Since Patras and Chlemútsi are both close by, he left this castle in ruins although, when it was still standing, the saying goes that on the whole island of Morea there was no stronger nor more thickly populated | fortress. There are huge great pieces of the wall fabric lying about in many places, and it could easily be repaired if there were any occasion for it. It was a stout, five-sided fortress on the seashore with freshwater sources and two harbors where one may lie safe from all eight winds without fear or apprehension. The Algerian privateers, when they are </span><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 150%;">cruising at sea looking for a prey, come in to cast anchor and lie at this harbor of Glarénza whenever they perceive the hill of Chlemútsi.</span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 19.5px;"> </span></div>
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<span style="color: black; line-height: 150%;"></span>
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<span style="color: black; line-height: 150%;"><b style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 150%;">Witness of a seafight, in a tale worthy of future remembranc</b><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 150%;">e</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 24px;">Your </span><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif; line-height: 150%;">poor and humble servant hid my horses away in the hills and came back on foot with two of my servants to Glarénza, where the three of us concealed ourselves in a corner of the great field of ruins, and inspected the island of Cephalonia, out in the gulf, with a telescope.This island is under the domination of the Venetian Franks, and while we were making a survey of all the details that were clearly visible through the telescope--</span><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 150%;">the towers and wallsof the castle, the landing places, and the infidels themselves, both great and small--eight Muslim frigates appeared, flying green standards, with pennants waving in the wind. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 150%;">It happened that certain of our warrior heroes from Naupactus, namely Dorak Bey and Mısırlı Oğlu, were bringing their ships back from an expedition when ten frigates emerged from the harbor of the afore-mentioned infidel castle of Cephalonia and fell unexpectedly on Dorak Bey's squadron. The ships of Islam came into close engagement with the infidel frigates all across the face of the sea, and there was a huge battle. Your humble servant could not endure the rain of spent cannon and rifle shot falling in the ruins of Glarénsa castle, and retired to hide in a corner, but certain it is that our brave heroes made a fine, vigorous fight of of it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 19.5px;"> </span></div>
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<span style="color: black; line-height: 150%;"></span>
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<span style="color: black; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif; line-height: 150%;">Now our ships were returning from an expedition, and all eight of them were crammed full of infidel captives and loaded down with immeasurable amounts of tightly packed booty acquired as the spoils of war. The crews themselves were battle-ready, but the ships were not properly loaded for an engagement. The ten galleys of the enemy, on the other hand, were first-rate ships, fully armed and not loaded down. Moreover they had <i>caiques </i></span><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 150%;">and rowing boats coming up behind to help. Our ships of the Muslim fleet, therefore, | became apprehensive about the close-packed cargo of infidel prisoners, fearing that they might have a chance to raise their heads against us in the course of the fight. As a result, all eight Muslim frigates broke off from the engagement and as soon as they were free cried, "Full speed ahead!" and pulled on the oars with all their strength, </span><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 150%;">heading in to shut themselves up in the harbor of Glarénza castle, from which we had been watching them. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: black; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 19.5px;"> </span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
</div>
<span style="color: black; line-height: 150%;"></span>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: black; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 150%;">When they saw my poor self there, the heroes were delighted, and in the twinkling of an eye they had unloaded all the booty, the heavy cargo and the infidel prisoners with their hands bound behind their necks. They turned this all over to me, and I brought down my slaves and my horses, and mounted my own horse to stand guard over the infidel captives while | I sent one of my slaves up to a village in the hills to tell the tributary populace to come down here fully armed. As soon as they arrived, we massed the infidel captives into the middle of our party, loaded them up with all the heavy cargo and marched them up away from the castle ruins and into the hills where we left them safe. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: black; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: black; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 150%;">Meanwhile, Dorak Bey, with his eight frigates now free and unencumbered, selected five hundred of the youngstalwarts who were gathering round from all four sides to look at the battle and tumult, and filled his ships with them. Then he sailed back out of Glarénza harbor again and pulledahead at full speed against the infidels. The noise and tumult of the close-fought melée and the exchange of fire was heard all the way to Patras and Chlemútsi, and young warriors rushed along the roads to get into ships in time to bring aid to the hero, Dorak Bey. He then took up a position in the middle of the ten enemy frigates, and filled the gun-crews tending the infidel cannon with so much lead and cannon-shot that he made prizes of eight of the enemy ships all at once. The other two turned about and ran back into the harbor of Cephalonia.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: black; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: black; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 150%;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 150%;">Glory to God--Dorak Bey had now conquered eight more ships with his eight and had madeprisoners of all their infidel crews, as well as capturing a proportional amount of cargo, weapons and ordnance materiel. He turned back into Glarénza harbor, therefore, and whenhe dropped anchor, I brought back the prisoners </span><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 150%;">and booty that were up in the hills and turned them over once again to Dorak Bey. At this, the hero Dorak Bey, Mısırlı Oğlu, and the other officers and sea-captains gave me three prisoners in payment for my services, along with two European boy-slaves and a purse of silver </span><i style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 150%;">thalers</i><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 150%;">. Then the whole expedition reboarded the sixteen ships and after turning the crucifix idols upside down on all he eight infidel ships, they fired a joyous salute </span><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 150%;">of cannon and rifle fire, let out their sails and set out straightaway with the day's prizes for the castle of Naupactus. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 150%;"> </span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 150%;">So your humble servant was accidentally the witness of such a sea-fight, and God, in His Greatness, presented me with five captives and a purse of silver. For it was God who rewarded me thus, in that I, a traveller by land, was granted a present of booty taken at sea. Actually, I sent the five captives I had been given </span><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 150%;">to accompany the remaining prisoners of Dorak Bey and the other heroes who were going to Naupactus, and directed one of my slaves to send them on from there to Zekeriya Efendi in Corinth, along with a letter telling him to sell them. So they went off to Naupactus and I went on southwards, and in three hours climbed up to Chlemútsi.</span></div>
Nauplionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10598950480737808706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3101913167226700484.post-79611184756074446092015-07-03T05:00:00.000-07:002015-07-03T05:00:05.455-07:00Justice<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sR5S4xWeAs4/VZQZ8g73U4I/AAAAAAAAHLA/5iireX5Qe4M/s1600/Bailo-2%2B%25282%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="270" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sR5S4xWeAs4/VZQZ8g73U4I/AAAAAAAAHLA/5iireX5Qe4M/s320/Bailo-2%2B%25282%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 100%;">In
the Venetian “house of the </span><i style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; font-size: small; line-height: 100%;">bailo</i><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 100%;">,” Halkis, during
restoration. </span></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif; font-size: x-small;"> If it was the house of the <i>bailo</i>, justice might
have happened here.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">I
have been looking for information about justice in the Morea. I have
a number of examples where people, like Bartolomeo Minio, acted
justly, but I have been trying to get an idea of the process. As
usual, there is little information, and what there is is almost
entirely about the Venetian system.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="justify" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;">In the Venetian
</span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;"><i>città</i></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;">
in the Morea, justice was to a large extent determined by custom,
with decisions made by the governor and his councillors. The governor
was to hold a court every Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Friday, with
fines over a certain amount and imprisonments (other than for
soldiers) dependent on the majority vote of his councillors. However,
<a href="http://surprisedbytime.blogspot.com/2009/06/complaint-of-anonymous-naupliote.html">the
one surviving </a></span></span><a href="http://surprisedbytime.blogspot.com/2009/06/complaint-of-anonymous-naupliote.html"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;">personal
</span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;">account</span></span></a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;">
of Venetian judicial action is a narrative of -- from the anonymous Greek
narrator's point of view -- prejudicial and arbitrary actions.</span></span></div>
<div align="justify" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div align="justify" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;">The anonymous Greek narration concludes with his waiting for the <i>sindici</i>. Venetian justice provided for two <i>sindici </i>to visit each </span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;"><i>città </i>every two years to hear complaints that locals might have against the governor and his officials. This worked a little better than you might think: Michele Salomon served a time in prison and paid a stiff fine for overcharging two <i>stratioti </i>on a horse sale, for engaging in trade with a Turk from Athens in wartime, and for cheating a Naupliot woman in a business deal. Another governor spent six months in jail for adultery with the wife of a Greek citizen of Nauplion. I can identify no other decisions by <i>sindici</i> for the Morea.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;">A peasant, hired to murder Giovanni Catello by his brothers, only managed to wound him five time. The governor sentenced the peasant<i> in absentia </i>to be hanged at "the forks", after his hand was amputated. We don't know if the sentence was ever carried out, but this is the only judgment I have found for Nauplion. I wrote about this in more detail here at<i> "The Forks."</i></span></span></div>
<div align="justify" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div align="justify" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;">We have a few actual records from the court at Patras, possibly a continuation of the court structure
there when Patras surrendered to Constantine. Zakythinos points out
that in the surviving records of the court, four of the seven members
have Italian names: he sees this as an example of decentralization of
judicial authority. This is much more likely to be a factor of wealth and </span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;">status</span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;">
and in fact, the decentralization of judicial authority is better
seen in the judicial control of the archons over their people.
There are three surviving records of Patras court actions for the
fifteenth century. One shows Thomas Palaiologos as Despot giving a
decision about land in 1436 against the Jew Salomon on behalf of
Nikolas de Leonessa. A second decision in 1438, again involving
Nikolas de Leonessa, was signed jointly by Ioannis Kantakuzenos
Palaiologos and Theodoros Erastopulos on behalf of Thomas when he
went to John VIII in Florence on behalf of Constantine in
Constantinople. In 1440, Nicholaos Neapolites who was also notary of
Patras, had the position of judge. </span></span>
</div>
<div align="justify" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div align="justify" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;"> Sphrantzes'
instructions as governor of Mistra were "</span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;">to
stay here and govern your command well. You are to put an end to the
many instances of injustice and reduce the power of the numerous
local lords." </span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;">But
Sphrantzes says nothing about what he did. </span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;">Governors
held their own courts and we have no information as to whether there
was a distinction between a despot's court and that of a governor
when a city had both. When Constantine gave Sphrantzes those
instructions, he was leaving to tend to the Hexamilion and then the
rest of his territories, exploring options. </span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;">Constantine
</span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;">had
created several large administrative divisions in the Morea: Corinth
under Kantakouzenos, Patras under Alexios Laskaris, and Mistra under
Sphrantzes. Monemvasia must have accounted for another division,
although it is not named. Constantine also left a Ioannis
Eudaimonoioannes as intermediary, </span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;"><i>mesazon</i></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;">.
Perhaps Sphrantzes and Eudaimonoioannes conducted the Mistra court
in Constantine's absence, as Palaiologos and Erastopoulos did for
Thomas. But there is no specific information. Theodoros </span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;">sat
in the</span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;">
court at Mistra and was complimented by Scholarios:</span></span></div>
<div align="justify" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.98in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;">[Theodoros was]
naturally inclined to treat others well, a generous giver, very eager
to praise virtue in those who pursue it, and to crown them, but very
severe in dismissing those who tended the other way, and astute in
exacting penalties against those caught in any sort of evil-doing,
decreeing them rather in a sense of reason than of anger, looking
more to aid than to deal out to a wrong-doer extremes of punishment
for extreme crimes . . .</span></span></div>
<div align="justify" style="line-height: 0.07in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.98in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="justify" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;"> </span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div align="justify" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;"> "Looking more to aid than to deal out to a wrong-doer extremes
of punishment for extreme crimes" was a concept dear to Gemistos
and is a point where we can probably identify a very specific
influence. </span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;">
In the section of his </span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;"><i>Laws</i></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;">
on sexual misconduct, he calls for a court, </span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;"><span lang="el-GR">συνέδριον,</span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;">
to vote on such matters, and though he writes with approval of
burning for those found guilty of pederasty, bestiality, and rape, he
wants the court to consider the circumstances of the accused, his
education, and whether a period in prison might instead bring about a
desired correction. Gemistos is said to have been a judge at Mistra,
but we have no evidence for it. Nor do we have any evidence for any action of Theodoros as judge.</span></span></span></div>
<div align="justify" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;">It may be a subtle comment on Byzantine justice in the Morea that Mazaris has this to say about the judges in Hades:</span></span></span></div>
<div align="justify" style="line-height: 0.07in; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.98in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<br /></div>
<div align="justify" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.98in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;">Don't be afraid of the judges because
they are pagan. For they are genuinely devoted to justice. It is
precisely for that reason that they were elevated to the supreme
court.</span></div>
<div align="justify" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.98in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="justify" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.98in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="justify" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.98in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="justify" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.98in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="justify" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.98in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="justify" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div align="justify" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div align="justify" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
Nauplionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10598950480737808706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3101913167226700484.post-5261942179927907052015-06-26T02:33:00.000-07:002015-06-26T02:33:39.100-07:00Giovanni's valetudinarian body<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NgJ6viQk_js/VYw0qaXg6CI/AAAAAAAAHKY/egUtYCTXR84/s1600/ZD-Bellini%2Bportrait-zoom.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="288" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NgJ6viQk_js/VYw0qaXg6CI/AAAAAAAAHKY/egUtYCTXR84/s320/ZD-Bellini%2Bportrait-zoom.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">Giovanni
Dario between his friends, the Bellini brothers.</span></span>
</span>
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif; font-size: x-small;">Gentile
Bellini, <i>Procession at San Marco</i>, 1496.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; text-align: start;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; orphans: 1;">Every
week the New York Times interviews a famous person and asks which
three people would be the best dinner guests. I would need several
dinners, but for one I would choose Giovanni Dario, Cyriaco of
Ancona, and Cardinal Bessarion. We know that Dario and Cyriaco were
acquainted, and I can demonstrate the likelihood that Bessarion knew
both of them. It is possibly not correct to chose only men for
guests, but I would prefer an all- women's dinner another time with
Cleofe, Paola, and Battista Malatesta. I have written
about </span><a href="http://surprisedbytime.blogspot.com/2015/05/two-for-cyriaco.html" style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; orphans: 1;">Cyriaco</a><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; orphans: 1;"> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; orphans: 1;">and </span><a href="http://surprisedbytime.blogspot.com/2014/12/bessarions-missing-manuscript.html" style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; orphans: 1;">Bessarion</a><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; orphans: 1;"> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; orphans: 1;">in
recent months, but it has been a long time since Giovanni Dario was a
guest here.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.16in; orphans: 1;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">He
came to mind because a recent publication by Nicky Tsougarakis
in <i>Dumbarton Oaks Papers</i> of 14th-century Cretan
notarial documents includes a number from 1356-57 with a Giovanni
Dario as witness. This is surely my man's great-grandfather: we know
he was a notary, as was my Giovanni – or Zuam or Zuan or Zan (I
have all three names in a letter to him from the Signoria).</span></span></span></div>
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1;">
<span style="color: black; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span lang="en-US">Dario
was born about 1414 in Crete, a citizen of the </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span lang="en-US"><i>stato
da mar. </i></span></span></span></span><span style="color: black; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span lang="en-US">He
was</span></span></span></span><span style="color: black; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></span></span><span style="color: black; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span lang="en-US">at
least the fourth generation of his family to be trained and certified
as a notary, following his great-grandfather Giovanni (who also owned
sheep) and his grandfather and father (both named Marco). Marco
Dario </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span lang="en-US"><i>fils</i></span></span></span></span><span style="color: black; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></span></span><span style="color: black; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span lang="en-US">was
also a gold-worker and jeweller, </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span lang="en-US"><i>protomaestro</i></span></span></span></span><span style="color: black; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></span></span><span style="color: black; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span lang="en-US">of
the goldworker’s guild,</span></span></span></span><span style="color: black; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></span></span><span style="color: black; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span lang="en-US">a
procurator of the cathedral of St. Titus, and a merchant who combined
business with travels as an emissary for the </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span lang="en-US"><i>duca</i></span></span></span></span><span style="color: black; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></span></span><span style="color: black; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span lang="en-US">of
Crete. </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">I
am quite sure, without evidence, that Marco Dario had something to do
with Commander Giovanni Delfino's acquisition of the most beautiful
small antiquity in existence, that <a href="http://surprisedbytime.blogspot.com/2008/07/on-galley-by-lamplight.html">Cyriaco
wrote about</a> in 1445. </span></span></span><span style="color: black; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span lang="en-US">Cyriaco
had visited the Dario property at Pediada in Crete, possibly
arranging for a shipment of cheese or wine, while looking for
antiquities.</span></span></span></span></div>
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span lang="en-US"><br />Giovanni
joined his father in business and political ventures to
Constantinople, Venice, Rhodes, and other ports of the eastern
Mediterranean, apparently picking up useful bits of Arabic and
Turkish to add to his Venetian and Italian. He was licensed as a
notary in 1450, which certified him as </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span lang="en-US"><i>doctissimus
in litteris grecis et latinis</i></span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span lang="en-US">,
which means that he was compentent to write legal documents in both
languages. That same year he interpreted for Nicolò da Canale,
Venetian ambassador first to the court of Constantine XI in
Constantinople, then to the court of Murad IV, and finally to the
court of Thomas Palaiologos in the Peloponnesos,</span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> and
may have translated the final agreements from Greek into Latin for
Venetian records. </span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span lang="en-US">Tradition
puts him in the camp of Mehmed II as an observe during the 1453 siege
of Constantinople, but documents put him in Sitia in eastern Crete.</span></span></span></span></div>
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span lang="en-US"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.16in; orphans: 1;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span lang="en-US">Like
his father, Dario combined government responsibilities with his own
business as a merchant. His knowledge of Greek and Latin extended to
the classical forms, and he found his friendships among
humanists—writers and artists. One of them was the humanist and
hunter of antiquities, Cyriaco of Ancona. Both of them them were
engaged in the same kind of work, some of it diplomatic, some of it
brokering </span><span lang="en-US"><i>objets des fines
arts </i></span><span lang="en-US">between Italy, Crete, Egypt,
and Constantinople: both were men of great good humor and good
conversation, Cyriaco hyperactive and ebullient, Dario quiet and
inclined to sit.</span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span lang="en-US">By
1465 Giovanni was employed in the </span><span lang="en-US"><i>cancelleria</i></span> <span lang="en-US">in
Venice which involved him in most aspects of the Venetian government,
especially diplomacy within Italy. He received regular raises of
salary, and promotions in titles and responsibilities, but it was was
clearly the exhausting Venetian-Ottoman war (from July 1463 to
January 1478/79 ) that demonstrated his unique value to the Signoria:
he was sent at least four times to Constantinople with various
patrician ambassadors to negotiate peace, on one trip negotiating
with Mehmed's emissary on Mount Athos. It was to his great
advantage that he could speak Turkish. He went at least twice to
Egypt to protest abuses against Venetian merchants in Damascus and
Cairo. He continued his own business—just before he left on the
second Egyptian voyage, he and his brother contracted with a Paduan
goldworker to buy metal and worked silver in Cairo, and exchange a
silver cup for a pearl, and then he arranged in Alexandria to export
wheat, always needed in Crete.</span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">In
Venice, he lived near S. Apostoli (just off the Rialto bridge) with a
woman to whom he was devoted, though all we can be sure of is her
name, Chiara. Their child <a href="http://surprisedbytime.blogspot.com/2011/10/marieta-dario.html">Marieta</a> was
born, probably, in 1473. The household included his sister Salamona's
sons—Francesco, Giovanni, and Andrea Pantaleo (who eventually took
Dario for their last name), whom he expected to regard Chiara as if
she were their mother.</span></span></span></div>
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1;">
<br /></div>
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span lang="en-US">Because
the official ambassador to the Sultan had died, exhausted from his
many trips between Venice and Constantinople in the last year of the
war, Dario was given broad discretion to negotiate, persuade, and
cajole the final peace agreement from Mehmed. </span><span lang="en-US">Mehmed
gave him his </span><sup><span lang="en-US"><i>c</i></span></sup><span lang="en-US"><i>ahd-name </i></span><span lang="en-US">on
25 January 1478(9), and presented him with</span> <span lang="en-US">a
horse, and three cloth-of-gold robes. Mehmed</span> <span lang="en-US">sent
a </span><span lang="en-US"><i>kyahya</i></span><span lang="en-US">,
Lüfti Beg, back with Dario to Venice to receive the Signoria's
confirmation of the agreement, and the Signoria gave Lüfti Beg
cloth-of-gold robes of his own in return. Mehmed asked for artists:
when Dario returned to Constantinople in early summer, he took with
him Gentile Bellini and a sculptor. </span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">In
Gentile's painting above, Dario is shown as an elderly man. The
painting was made two years after he died, in 1494 at the age of 80.
He had been troubled for some years with heart trouble. In
Turkey in 1485 he had pled with the Signoria to allow him to return
to Venice:</span></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in; margin-right: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span lang="en-US">To
stay here in order to spend uselessly seems to me unnecessary;
besides my age</span></span></span><span style="color: black;"> </span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span lang="en-US">and
the condition of my valetudinarian body require a better place than
this. because if I should have another attack,</span></span></span><span style="color: black;"> </span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span lang="en-US">it
will take me with no coming back Here there is neither doctor nor
medicine, nor any tending, either physical or spiritual, and one who
dies here dies like a dog. It makes me extremely afraid when I think
of such danger, and so I hope in the clemency of Your Most
Illustrious Signoria that it will not want such a faithful servant to
perish in this way, entreating from you a particular grace in reward
for my fatigue, that you grant me welcome permission to come home,
and that you do not leave me here to die unnecessarily – because if
I live it might happen that some other time I might be a useful
instrument for some need of Your Most Excellent State . . .</span></span></span>
</span>
</div>
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
</div>
<div id="sdfootnote1">
<div class="sdfootnote">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span lang="en-US">The Venetian bailo in Constantinople wrote:</span></span></span></div>
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span lang="en-US"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
</div>
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in; margin-right: 0.5in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span lang="en-US">He
is much loved by the </span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span lang="en-US"><i>paşas</i></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span lang="en-US">.
Frankly, Most Serene Prince, I will say that it would be a sin to
lose this man because of his fine service, because he is profoundly
fatigued because of his personal condition, incurably sick, he has
spent the winter in Adrianople with the greatest discomforts of
living and continual fatigue . . . I respectfully request that Your
Most Illustrious Signoria grant that he be permitted to return with
me on the galleys.</span></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.16in; orphans: 1;">
<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">It
was another year before he was permitted to return, but he came back
to the </span><a href="http://www.nauplion.net/CaDario-PALAZZO.HTML" style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">lovely
little house on the Grand Canal </a><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">that the Signoria gave him
in appreciation for his work. I have written about its
decoration </span><a href="http://surprisedbytime.blogspot.com/2010/09/interlaced-circles.html" style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">here</a><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">,
and about its inscription (and Cyriaco)</span><a href="http://surprisedbytime.blogspot.com/2009/09/genio-vrbis-johannes-darivs.html" style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> here.</a></div>
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span lang="en-US">Despite
his age and ill health -- he wrote three wills between then and his
death in 1494 -- Dario made a final trip to Turkey in 1487, to
persuade Beyazid that Venice would not join the Knights of St. John
at Rhodes for a crusade against the Ottomans. In his last,
handwritten, will of 1493, he directed his </span><span lang="en-US"><i>procuratori</i></span> <span lang="en-US">to
free his slaves -- some of them Turkish -- with ten years of service
and provide them with adequate clothing and money for the next stage
of their lives.</span></span></span></span></div>
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1;">
<br /></div>
<div align="left" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span lang="en-US">In
one of his <a href="http://surprisedbytime.blogspot.com/2008/08/most-beautiful-red-parrot.html">wonderful
letters</a> he wrote: </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span lang="en-US"><i>io
che son de natura quieta et de etade ormai inclinata a la quiete—</i></span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span lang="en-US">"I
am by nature quiet and now at my age inclined to rest." That
quietness shows in the mild face that gazes from Gentile Bellini's
great </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span lang="en-US"><i>Procession
in the Piazza San Marco. </i></span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span lang="en-US">Towards
the lower left, where the white-robed figures break, standing between
the Bellini brothers, is an elderly</span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span lang="en-US">balding
man, somewhat overweight, in the red patrician "toga" with
old-fashioned sleeves to which he was entitled as a Secretary, and
Guardian Grande of the </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span lang="en-US"><i>scuola </i></span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span lang="en-US">of </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">S.
Giovanni Evangelistra</span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><i>.</i></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> The
Bellini brothers were members, too, and Dario was the one who paid
them for their work.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span lang="en-US">There
are two clear reminders of Dario's Turkish experience in Venice
today, in addition to his</span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span lang="en-US">letters
and the </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><sup><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span lang="en-US"><i>c</i></span></span></span></sup></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span lang="en-US"><i>ahd-name</i></span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span lang="en-US">with
its<a href="http://www.nauplion.net/M2-MEHMED-ElFatih-1.html"> great
gold tugra</a>. One is the <a href="http://www.nauplion.net/Sgarbi-fountain.jpg">small
Turkish fountain room</a> he had put in his house at the end of
the great L-shaped room of the </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span lang="en-US"><i>piano
nobile</i></span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span lang="en-US">.
Marble benches center on a fountain in a small square pool, and
windows look out on the garden behind. The second is in that Bellini
painting.</span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span lang="en-US">Dario
had taken Bellini to Constantinople to paint for Mehmed. In the
painting, <a href="http://www.nauplion.net/ZD_Bellini_portrait.png">Bellini
shows Dario </a><a href="http://www.nauplion.net/ZD_Bellini_portrait.png">carrying
a Turkish handkerchief.</a> He never saw the work: it was
painted two years after he died, a tribute from a friend.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">Much
of this blog was taken from</span></span><a href="https://www.academia.edu/838083/_To_temporize_with_dexterity_waiting_for_the_benefit_of_time_Four_Letters_From_Giovanni_Dario_At_The_Court_Of_Beyazid_II"> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">this
article</span></a><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">,
published in </span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><i>The
Turkish Studies Association Journal. </i></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">In
it you can read translations of Dario's letters about </span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><i>stratioti</i></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">,
the Kladas affair, and exotic visitors and gifts to the Sultan's
court. Giovanni Dario's <a href="http://www.nauplion.net/ZD.html">web page is here</a>.</span></span></span></span></span></div>
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Nauplionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10598950480737808706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3101913167226700484.post-34371771239203740902015-06-19T01:08:00.000-07:002015-07-05T10:34:50.853-07:00Pierre Antony MacKay<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">Pierre
MacKay, my partner and <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span lang="el-GR">ξυνεργὸς,
</span></span><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span lang="en-US">died
quietly on Sunday morning, June 14. Typically for him on Sunday, he
was doing the New York Times crossword puzzle, and he went so gently
he didn't drop his pencil. Readers of </span></span><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span lang="en-US"><i>Surprised
by Time</i></span></span><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span lang="en-US">
will be intensely familiar with his work: he is responsible for the
wonderful Mistra and Evliya </span></span><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span lang="en-US">Ç</span></span><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span lang="en-US">elebi
translations used here. I am putting a few photographs of him </span></span><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span lang="en-US">below</span></span><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span lang="en-US">.
His daughters, Camilla and Alexandra, and I are having a gathering
here at home on Saturday. We will be using the marvellous
Callimachus poem below. It has been very personal to us: every
evening for twelve years, when the weather has permitted, we have
eaten out under our grape arbor and talked the sun down out of the
sky.</span></span></span></div>
<blockquote style="margin-left: 0.5in; margin-right: 0.79in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">Εἰπέ τις, Ἡράκλειτε, τεὸν μόρον ἐς δέ με δάκρυ<br /> ἤγαγεν ἐμνήσθην δ᾿ ὁσσάκις ἀμφότεροι<br />ἠέλιον λέσχῃ κατεδύσαμεν. ἀλλὰ σὺ μέν που,<br /> ξεῖν᾿ Ἁλικαρνησεῦ, τετράπαλαι σποδιή,<br />αἱ δὲ τεαὶ ζώουσιν ἀηδόνες, ᾗσιν ὁ πάντων<br /> ἁρπακτὴς Ἀίδης οὐκ ἐπὶ χεῖρα βαλεῖ</span></span> </blockquote>
<blockquote style="margin-left: 0.5in; margin-right: 0.79in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 24px;">Someone told me of your death, Heraclitus, and it moved me to tears, when I remembered how often the sun set on our talking. And you, my Halicarnassian friend, lie somewhere, gone long long ago to dust; but they live, your Nightingales, on which Hades who siezes all shall not lay his hand. </span><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 24px;">by W. R. Paton</span></blockquote>
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<br />Nauplionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10598950480737808706noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3101913167226700484.post-44669449631494934212015-06-12T00:02:00.000-07:002015-06-12T00:02:22.598-07:00In recovery: Glitter and be gay<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/--u56svTVEHg/VVdrmZOUWPI/AAAAAAAAHG0/MHTpaNue9T4/s1600/Natalie%2BDessay-Glitter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="306" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/--u56svTVEHg/VVdrmZOUWPI/AAAAAAAAHG0/MHTpaNue9T4/s400/Natalie%2BDessay-Glitter.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="color: #343434;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">"Glitter
and be gay!" Natalie Dessay.</span></span>
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<span style="color: #343434;">“</span><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="color: #343434;"><span style="font-size: 13pt;">In
recovery”-- this is the third of these. You may ask, recovery
from what? I have had reconstructive surgery again, this time on my right hand, <a href="http://surprisedbytime.blogspot.com/2015/01/my-left-thumb.html">the
same kind that I had in January on my left.</a> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #343434;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">This
entry is a great change, in that I have almost never presented any of
the music that is so much a part of my life. Here are two, very
similar arias, by the same extraordinary singer, Natalie Dessay. I
have been playing these over and over recently. First listen to
her <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCg4r1Ile4w">“Glitter
and be gay</a>" from Leonard Bernstein's </span></span></span><span style="color: #343434;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><i>Candide</i></span></span></span><span style="color: #343434;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #343434;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Then
listen to her sing Bernstein's inspiration, Zerbinetta's aria
“Großmächtige Prinzessin” from </span></span></span><span style="color: #343434;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><i>Ariadne
auf Naxos</i></span></span></span><span style="color: #343434;"><span style="font-family: TitilliumRegular, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span></span></span><span style="color: #343434;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">(my
favorite opera) which is<a href="http://listverse.com/2011/05/16/top-10-horrifyingly-difficult-opera-arias/"> #8
on this site</a>.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #343434;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">I
don't know what happen to music videos internationally. Good luck.</span></span></span></div>
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Nauplionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10598950480737808706noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3101913167226700484.post-15440051200362577512015-06-05T05:00:00.000-07:002015-06-05T05:00:01.119-07:00In recovery: The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nation's Millenium General Assembly<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
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<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 100%;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">The
Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nation's Millenium</span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 100%;"> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 100%;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">General
Assembly</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="line-height: 100%;">National
Museum of American Art, Washington, DC</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">In
Washington, DC, in April, I went to see the most wonderful thing I
know. I have seen many wonderful things in my life, but
ever since I saw The Throne of the Third Heaven in 1970, this has
outshone everything else. It is a great throne for God, with altars for the Virgin Mary, Elijah, Moses, and others, crowns, processional regalia, and much else. It was constructed over nearly twenty years by James Hampton, a janitor in Washington, who had visions. You can, and should, read a fine essay about him <a href="http://www.fredweaver.com/throne/throneessay.html">here</a>. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">Over the years, he collected gold and silver foil from wine bottles and cigarette boxes, light bulbs, cardboard cylinders, electric wire, old furniture, and much else in a child's wagon, working five or six hours every night after he had finished his day's work. The little bits of tan you see are pieces of construction paper, faded from the original purple. </span></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2KPoyy-kunA/VUQK44E0odI/AAAAAAAAHC4/fp5xiBY2WFE/s1600/throne-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2KPoyy-kunA/VUQK44E0odI/AAAAAAAAHC4/fp5xiBY2WFE/s1600/throne-2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif;">There are innumerable (tan) labels and writings about his visions scattered about these pieces. Many of the pieces are held together by wrappings of aluminum foil. This massive powerful display is staggeringly fragile. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif;">Above the great throne, a sign says "Fear Not."</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">"We
knew not whether we were in heaven or on earth, for surely there is
no such splendour or beauty anywhere upon earth. We cannot describe
it to you, only this we know, that God dwells there among humans . .
. For we cannot forget that beauty." </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">This creation is put into a category known as "outsider art." For another act of worship in outsider art, look at <a href="http://surprisedbytime.blogspot.com/2011/11/terrible-beauty.html">Ag. Fotini at Mantineia</a></span></span></span></div>
</blockquote>
<div style="line-height: 150%;">
<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><br /></span></div>
Nauplionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10598950480737808706noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3101913167226700484.post-48714887882578797752015-05-29T05:00:00.000-07:002015-05-29T12:10:18.103-07:00To the city<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-eEW4h1sy734/VSBV0PiD-SI/AAAAAAAAG90/IBr2FUnriXI/s1600/CYR-CP%2B(2).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="222" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-eEW4h1sy734/VSBV0PiD-SI/AAAAAAAAG90/IBr2FUnriXI/s1600/CYR-CP%2B(2).jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"> by
Rowan Williams</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><i>To
the City</i></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">1.
<i>Bosphorus</i></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">Once
there were chains between the towers</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">shackling
the green-black forest walls across the water</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">locked
in each other's mirror-gaze, chains to choke off</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">the
galleys headed greedily for the tense city. Not now:</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">this
is a motorway shining with oil, the lanes</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">jostling
and humming with their relaxed freight,</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">birthdays
and anniversaries and conference excursions</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">bouncing
and rocking along the cleft so confidently</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">you
could forget the swimmers dead in the green-black</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">depths,
the ones who failed to breach the walls</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">on
the far shore or break the mirror. And the day trips</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">swing
round and land where they began. But in the unquiet</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">morning
dazzle, the dolphins arch and plunge, unannounced,</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">bright
needles pulling threads between air</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">and
sea. They stitch their trails round the lethal cruisers,</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">the
crates of oil and spinning blades, come without call</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">or
cause, go without mercy. Out of the green-black vaults</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">the
thread leaps, wavering in unquiet light,</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">to
tow the boats out of their channels, craw</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">short
to shore, face to face, swimmers to gulls and sailors.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">2.
<i>Ayia Sofia</i></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">And
that, the Greeks tell you, is the Conqueror's black handprint,</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">when
he rode in over the ten-foot depth</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">of
corpses; when he leaned over, pushing </span>
</div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">the
half-globe on its axis, swinging the arrow</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">towards
a new, south-eastern pole. The bars of light</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">lie
angled silently, rolling against the tilted bell:</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">a
tongue's thread cut. The foliage of immense</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">words
painted curling and waving, unmown</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">green
verges of a scoured field, drifts across open mouths</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">and
scratched eyes, the layered dead</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">under
the flaring frozen seraphs. There are no hours</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">to
strike, no consecrating whisper to be marked, where death</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">so
rolls and stacks its fields. Handprints of soot</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">inside
the burnt domes of skulls; the empty segment</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">on
the sundial, where worlds have pulled apart</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">and
shadows stand unmoved, the clock's hands</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">are
nailed still, the bell cracks open to a sky</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">of
frozen stars pointed in accusation,</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">flaring
on spikes, burning for the uncountable names</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">harvested
by conquerors for this or that revelation's sake.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">3<i>.
Phanar; the Patriarch's Cantor</i></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><i>Anastas.</i>
Leaning back, lifting elbows, braced,</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">jaw
out, he curls fingers and lips, to make</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">his
brassy diaphragm a bowl where the round gale</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">swings
on itself, brushed the metal to a shine. Fingers</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">unfold
into the quieter pulsing of a sandy breeze;</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">the
drone shifts with a grind, brows are wiped,</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">a
tired eight-year-old begins to cry, is hugged,</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">scolded,
bundled behind the screen. The wind</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">starts
rising once again, the couriers pick up speed</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">and
ride into the gaping caves, the lifting wind</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">scrapes
sandy flanks against the bowl of lung, sinus,</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">damp
and bone. What does it carry, the straining</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">weight
searing his arms against the stall's wood?</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">The
creak of stones shifting on the hill; forests falling; a body,</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">massive,
limp, released from its ropes around the mast,</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">struck
dumb? The windy grains ringing half-audibly,</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">bouncing
around the bowl's rim? He lifts</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">his
palms again; welcomes the rising, the stone,</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">the
grain, the body, the little pestle</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">drawn
round the bronze. <i>Anastas.</i> Lifted. </span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif; font-size: x-small;">From Rowan Williams, <i>The Other Mountain</i>, 2014.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><br /></span></div>
Nauplionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10598950480737808706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3101913167226700484.post-48454559119423600482015-05-22T05:00:00.000-07:002015-05-22T13:46:41.768-07:00In recovery: The warriors<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-wlUFivur-IY/VUQEv7cgKpI/AAAAAAAAHCY/tu8hqqjZmSo/s1600/Patton-a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-wlUFivur-IY/VUQEv7cgKpI/AAAAAAAAHCY/tu8hqqjZmSo/s1600/Patton-a.jpg" width="303" /></a></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 100%;">General
George Patton, Jr., 1885-1945, </span></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif; font-size: x-small;">National Portrait Gallery, Washington,
DC</span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">Here
are portraits of warriors, dressed to best dramatize their authority
and power. Gritti as Doge of Venice in cloth-of-gold and red velvet and ermine. Patton in battle jacket and cavalry pants, with his ivory-handled pistols, riding crop, dispatch rider's bag, and his four </span><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 150%;">stars -- two sets of two pairs of four stars. (In the portraits of General Marshall and Gene</span><span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 150%;">ral Eisenhower in the same room, they each only wear one pair of their five stars, but that was Patton. A friend of my family was his chaplain when he crossed the Rhine: I grew up hero-worshipping him and kept begging for toy ivory-handled pistols only to be told that they were for boys.)</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Y91r3b4_1jw/VUP_YdEjd3I/AAAAAAAAHBs/O7ikPawECJw/s1600/Gritti.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Y91r3b4_1jw/VUP_YdEjd3I/AAAAAAAAHBs/O7ikPawECJw/s1600/Gritti.jpg" width="307" /></a></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif; font-size: x-small;">Doge
Andrea Gritti, 1455-1538, </span></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif; font-size: x-small;">National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC</span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; line-height: 24px;">In Washington, in April, the similarity between the men and the portraits struck me. Both men are wearing old leather belts, so old and worn you can smell the sweat that soaked into them over the years and the wars. The fancy dress does not portray the essence of the men: the belts do.</span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-TQup_bipiN0/VUP_ghH3sxI/AAAAAAAAHB0/eVzGArefun8/s1600/Gritti%2B(2).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="82" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-TQup_bipiN0/VUP_ghH3sxI/AAAAAAAAHB0/eVzGArefun8/s1600/Gritti%2B(2).jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3xY0cwiBVjA/VUQAOBz0WeI/AAAAAAAAHCM/GOvl5V6do5Q/s1600/Patton-a%2B(2).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="88" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3xY0cwiBVjA/VUQAOBz0WeI/AAAAAAAAHCM/GOvl5V6do5Q/s1600/Patton-a%2B(2).jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />Nauplionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10598950480737808706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3101913167226700484.post-10628005425741519782015-05-15T05:00:00.000-07:002015-05-15T05:00:00.303-07:00Two for Cyriaco<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-LKt7VkjIY_s/VUu3YPiTfUI/AAAAAAAAHF0/rjbu13XbHKE/s1600/Privilegi%2Bf45.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="130" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-LKt7VkjIY_s/VUu3YPiTfUI/AAAAAAAAHF0/rjbu13XbHKE/s640/Privilegi%2Bf45.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.16in; orphans: 1;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">Two documents for Cyriaco of Ancona, one new, one ignored, that contribute to his portrait.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><br />
</span> <br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">* * * * * * * * * *</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">Cyriaco is conventionally thought to have died in 1452 or 1555: I find authors fairly evenly divided on that. I'm quite sure 1452 is wrong, as I have found the document above which certainly has him alive on 8 March 1454 when he was granted Venetian citizenship at the age of 62. This is not a very exciting or important piece of information, but it was a surprise and raises the question of why Venetian citizenship at this point? He was 63 and had been going to Venice since he was 10.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.16in; orphans: 1;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">This document is available on-line at </span><a href="http://www.archiviodistatovenezia.it/divenire/ua.htm?idUa=22400">ASV Senato Privilegi 1425-October 1560</a>.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
* * * * * * * * * *</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">In 1431 Francesco Filelfo, a fellow citizen of Ancona, wrote Cyriaco a letter. Cyriaco had been studying Greek for five years or so -- we don't know what that means -- but apparently Cyriaco had written a letter in Greek to Filelfo who was teaching Greek in Florence. To my mind, Filelfo was a bit of a charlatan, and this letter demonstrates it. His quotation of Homer bears no resemblance to anything Homer ever wrote, thought it seems to refer to Aphrodite and Diomedes in Iliad 5. And his compliments of Cyriaco's Greek make me wonder what the Florentines were paying to learn from him: Cyriaco's Latin was not so good, his Greek was unlikely to have been any better. Pierre MacKay translated the letter for me.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">Francesco Filelfo to Cyriaco, greetings,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">I have for a long time admired your capabilities in language, and now I would have no way of doing so adequately; so much has the beauty of your letters written in Greek astonished me; it informs me vividly that you did not learn it in Constantinople but there in Athens. The grace inherent in your composition is from there. I believe that the first of the Muses, if you were to meet her in person, on experiencing and </span><span style="line-height: 24px;">marveling</span><span style="line-height: 150%;"> at the charm of your words would utter that Homeric phrase:</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">Who and from where are you, where is the city that bore you,</span><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"> For I shall tell you that I, most distinguished of goddesses, am envious</span><span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"> At being so utterly defeated by a mortal</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">Be in good health, therefore, so that you may be able to enchant us and all those others who are similarly disposed toward you with your God-given talent from the Muses. I wish for you also that you may reach the age of Nestor, since you yield in wisdom in no way whatsoever not only to our contemporaries, but even to the outstanding figures of those in the past. Stay well, shrine of the Muses, and love your Filelfo as always, who would for your sake and for the sake of all who support you, jump into the fire, metaphorically, with great eagerness. </span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">From Florence, on the nones of March, in the year 1431 from the birth of Christ. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;">This letter can be found on-line as #8 in <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=sdbVAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=cent-dix+lettres+grecques+de+francois+filelfe&hl=en&sa=X&ei=f-9MVe7POOTbsATFhoCgDA&ved=0CCAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=cent-dix%20lettres%20grecques%20de%20francois%20filelfe&f=false">Cent-Dix Lettres Grecques de Francois Filelfe</a>.</span></div>
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Nauplionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10598950480737808706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3101913167226700484.post-12497753288526624132015-05-08T05:00:00.000-07:002015-05-08T05:00:01.201-07:00The wunderkammer<br />
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<span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, serif;"><i>Wunderkammern</i>
fascinate me, so I have made my own small cabinet of small things that belong no
place in particular. Small things attract other small things, so I
am going to have to get another cabinet. Meanwhile, I take some out, put others in, rearranging to find ways for these small things to speak to one another. Perhaps the main thing they have in common is that each one is small enough to be concealed in my hands</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Amethyst and moonstone. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; font-size: x-small;">Ghanaian goldweight snake and tourist Athenian owl.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; font-size: x-small;">Fox skull. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; font-size: x-small;">Sixteenth-century Persian sherd.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; font-size: x-small;">Hummingbird nest and silkworm cocoons. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; font-size: x-small;">Theo's otter. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; font-size: x-small;">Miniature of a Benin leopard. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; font-size: x-small;">Glass carafe stoppers and a hedgehog.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; font-size: x-small;">Corinthian aryballos. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; font-size: x-small;">Thirteenth-century Corinthian sherd.</span></div>
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Nauplionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10598950480737808706noreply@blogger.com0