Her Majesty’s Goose at Kew

We decided to visit Kew palace. Whether one wants to visit the Royal botanical Gardens (world heritage site since 2003) or not, one has to enter it to arrive at Kew palace. But who wouldn’t want to see these fabulous gardens at any time?

A visit to the Royal Botanical gardens at Kew and its Palace is a delightful way to spend a sunny afternoon in London. (And London has been particularly sunny while I was there). As life members of the Arts fund we were able to enter them at half price (and Kew palace for free), which is a considerable saving since the standard admission charge is £15 – a far cry when to get past the turnstiles one placed just one penny in the slot – not centuries ago but as recently as 1971 (if I remember correctly). This means that the admission price has increased at least 30,000 times! Having said this, a visit to Kew was worth every penny, inflated, decimal or not!

Kew has not only the largest collection of plants in the world; it has the best example of Victorian iron and glass building in Decimus Burton’s  palm house, the best example of chinoiserie in Sir William Chambers’ (he of Somerset house) pagoda, indeed the best of so many things.

From the Victoria entrance we headed for the palace which was actually used not so much as a “palace” (it’s only the size of a large house) but as a nursery for King George III’s children (of which he had fifteen who survived sired off Queen Charlotte who died here in 1818).

On our way we spotted a goose that had chosen a slightly exposed nesting place. Perhaps she enjoyed classical architecture!

A detour to the water-lily house revealed the most delicate wonders:

Kew palace must be one of the smallest of royal palaces and was George III’s favorite residence. For me the highlight was its herb garden which was beautifully laid out and provided some of the remedies which the king’s physicians tried on his madness, (remember the film starring the incomparable Nigel Hawthorne?), which has now been diagnosed in retrospect as bi-polar syndrome.

Nearby were the kitchens with a delightful vegetable garden outside which also grew artichokes.

The King’s bathroom would definitely be in need of an upgrade should any royal visitors take up residence here again.

All the palace rooms were delightfully presented and our visit was made much more alive by costumed attendants:

Kew palace was once also the scene of fetes champetres including this one which featured a giant swan..

It was clearly the scene of much music making – some of which continues today:

We found the palace very well-displayed but the only thing I wished for was that the brick work should have been stripped of its red paint to more clearly expose its unusual (for the UK) Flemish bond which has also given the building the alternative name of the Dutch house.

Back in Kew Gardens we explored the tree walk which was only opened in 2010. It was definitely not for vertigo sufferers since there was also a slight sway on it but what a great way to climb trees without the effort or the possibility of breaking one’s neck!

My visits to Lucca’s botanical gardens, still continuing to be very delightful, will never be the quite the same again although, at least, I’ll be more able to afford its entrance fee of three euros!

In the evening at the Punch tavern in Fleet Street we enjoyed a Beckenham historical society supper together with the company of an old school mate. Let us say that the company was rather better than the food…although the beer made up for that.

 

Insect Man Re-discovered in Bagni di Lucca

The AGIP petrol (gas) station bar at Chiffenti serves free tasty tit-bits from 5.30 PM on most days. If I’m there, I always try to fill my vehicle tank at around that time and then order a Campari soda, dig into the various culinary offerings and read the local papers freely available on the bar’s tables.

A couple of days ago I was looking through “Il Tirreno” there when I spotted a snippet about a surprise find in the Old Protestant cemetery in Bagni di Lucca. Prof. Marcello Cherubini, president of the Fondazione Michel de Montaigne, had re-discovered the tomb of a person whose eminence in the field of natural history must rank very close to that of Charles Darwin himself. Indeed, in 1883, Charles Valentine Riley, the American entomologist and artist, wrote: “No branch of natural science has more fully felt the beneficial impulse and stimulus of Darwin’s labours than entomology“.

Alexander Henry Haliday was an Irishman who laid the modern foundations of the science of entomology or the study of insects.

Frankly, I’d never heard of him before but digging deeper into the facts I realised what a pioneer he was.

Haliday was born at Holywood, Co. Down, Northern Ireland in 1807 and died at Lucca in 1870. He is particularly noted for his studies on the insect orders of Hymenoptera, Diptera and Thysanoptera, but he worked on all orders of insects and various fields of entomology.

Haliday, who was fluent in Italian from an early age thanks to having Italian relatives, the Pisani family, divided his life between Dublin and Lucca. With some entomologists, including Camillo Rondani and Adolfo Targioni Tozzetti, he founded the Italian Entomological Society. He was a member of the Royal Irish Academy, the Belfast Natural History Society and the Royal Entomological Society of London.

Haliday was one of the most distinguished natural scientists of the nineteenth century. His contributions were in the development of three areas: taxonomy, or species classification, synonymy (re-naming of species) and biology. He established new orders such as the thysanoptera (mostly bad insects who prey on plants and can transmit infectious diseases) and new families such Mymaridae and Ichneumonidae or Hymenoptera (which include good insects such as bees).

I am by no means a specialist in insects but clearly I realise Haliday was a very great person in his field. His extensive correspondence with British and continental entomologists is preserved in the library of the Royal Entomological Society and in the Hope Department Library of the Museum of Natural History, University of Oxford.

Insects don’t just mean cockroaches, scorpions, earwigs and all the other creepy-crawlies that infest our houses. They include some of the most beautiful (and useful) members of the animal kingdom such as butterflies, bees and dragonflies.

Hopefully, Haliday’s tomb, which is now in course of restoration, will return to its former glory. Examining it the other day I realised that the main problem was the way the iron railing surrounding it had broken the monument’s stone base in various parts.

It will be great to be able to read the tomb’s inscription more clearly and (for those not provided with a classical education) have a translation from Latin. From what I could remember of Latin it says how industrious Haliday was in expanding the field of knowledge in the natural sciences.

I would add that Haliday loved Italy and became one of that select band of people from the north of Europe who fitted in perfectly with their southern European companions. Evidently, his strict northern Irish upbringing was soon loosened up and he enjoyed every positive pleasure which Italy could offer including good company, good opera, good food and drink.

Haliday’s obituary includes this passage which aptly sums him up:

“He was our first entomologist. His ideas of classification and tabulation were so logical, his Latinity so classical, and his knowledge of whatever he touched so masterly that I fear we shall be long before we look upon his like again.”

Happily the bulk of Haliday’s insect collection is now in the National Museum of Ireland and can be viewed as we did when last in Dublin. (See http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/20494392?uid=3738296&uid=2&uid=4&sid=21104121723617 for more).

What an honour for Bagni di Lucca that this great man should find his last resting place here! May Entomologists (and non-entomologists) from all over the world now flock to this eminent Irishman’s tomb and pay homage to him for establishing the study of insects in modern terms.

If you wish to contribute to the restoration of tombs in Bagni di Lucca’s Protestant cemetery do contact Angela Amadei, the librarian, at the English church library at Bagni di Lucca. It’s worth doing this if you are paying tax in Italy as, under the ART BONUS scheme, you can get 65% of what you’ve paid within three years.

 

 

PS There is a lot more information about Haliday’s life at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Henry_Haliday

 

 

Giovanni Santi’s Son

Houses associated with famous people – houses in which they were born, lived part of their lives or died – can sometimes come as a disappointment, especially if they are associated with painters. For example, there is not a single painting by Modigliani in his house in Livorno (explainable, perhaps, by the fact that he left that city quite early in life to go to live and die in Paris) and Michelangelo’s house in Florence is only redeemed by an early sculpture of his.

We, therefore, approached Raphael’s family house in Urbino (at appropriately named Via Raffaello no 57) in trepidation and were pleasantly surprised when we found it contained an early fresco by this most perfect of painters on one of the walls in the house.

 

What was rather more interesting to us, however, was the décor and layout of the dwelling which presented an excellent example of a typical Urbino town house from the fifteenth century.

Belonging to Raphael’s father, Giovanni Santi, who was court  painter (and a poet too) to the Duke Frederico of Urbino,  it had several interesting features including a painting by Raphael’s dad which shows just how far Raphael travelled in his artistic career:

There were lovely “soffitti a cassettoni” and some nice furniture:

 

There were several pictures of what seemed to be more Raphaels but they were just good very recent copies!

There was a delightful inner courtyard complete with well:

 

Interestingly, the house was purchased by an aristocratic Englishman, John Morris Moore, who donated it to the city and it now also contains the Raphael Academy dedicated to research on the painter. I haven’t been able to find out much about this person except that in 1885 he wrote a book about Raphael called “Apollo and Marsyas”.

We are used to seeing pre-Raphaelite paintings in English art galleries. In my opinion such a name is a misnomer – none of those “Pre-Raphaelites” could have painted their pictures if they had not studied Raphael closely enough to bring at least a part of his genius into their compositions. And this genius died at the age of only 37 in 1520!

 

 

 

 

 

Parting Ways

The year was 1997 and I’d arrived in Italy from London on my Honda Transalp, spending most of my nights camping out. It was sheer bliss, absolute freedom. One of the places I’d visited from Florence was the city of Urbino. I was determined to visit it again seventeen years later with my wife and in our cinquina.

Yesterday morning was overcast and the weather steadily deteriorated as the day progressed but there was one place I wanted to stop at before reaching Urbino. It was the same place I’d seen in 1997 and it was the same fresco I wanted to enjoy again.

I found it still in its disputed present location in the former school and its effect on me was, if anything, greater than ever before.

Piero della Francesca’s “Madonna del Parto”, which he painted for  a small chapel near his mother’s home town of Monterchi in the Val Tiburina while at work on the great cycle of frescoes on the finding of the true cross in the church of San Francesco, Arezzo is a work of transcendent beauty and inspirational impact.

“Parto” in Italian also means on the verge of giving birth and “incinta” means pregnant – the word deriving from “cinta” or belt or girdle and “in” meaning “without”.

 So the Madonna with her quizzical, hieratic expression, which might assume tranquillity or concern in the eye of the viewer, has had to remove the belt from her dress which is now unbuttoned at the point of her almost bursting womb, sheltering her soon-to-be-born son, just as the tent whose sides are held back by mirror-image angels is sheltering her whole person.

It is an incredibly moving scene, and equally affecting are the hundreds of little notes which are left on a platform below the fresco by couples imploring for a safe child-birth or wishing to become pregnant in the first place, thus fulfilling the same act of devotion that millions of hopeful mums must have carried out right down through the ages from Etruscan and even more ancient fertility rites.

How strange and yet how marvellous it is that art lovers and pleading mothers-to-be can come together in one of the world’s greatest icons of birth and redemption!

Art is really so much more than just the depiction of an object of beauty – it is above all a way of expressing and instrumentalising the deepest of life forces.

In the Florentine Mannerism

Florence’s Palazzo Strozzi is hosting until  July 20^th an exhibition which brings together the paintings and drawings of two of Italy’s most unusual renaissance painters:  Jacopo Carucci, better known as Pontormo, (1494-1557)  and Giovan Battista di Jacopo, nicknamed Rosso Fiorentino (1495–1540).

What makes these two unusual is that they chose to paint in a radically different way from that “perfection” which earlier in the sixteenth century had been reached in Raphael’s ethereal harmony, Michelangelo’s energetic musculature and Leonardo’s mysterious chromaticism.

Even their lives were differently unconventional with Pontormo living as a reclusive in a Bohemian-style garret and Rosso’s menagerie, especially his monkey, getting him into some trouble with the monks who were his neighbours and then subsequently starting a new life in France where he was supposed to have committed suicide.

In his book, “le vite dei più eccellenti pittori”, Giorgio Vasari recognises the unconventionality of the two and refers to their stylistic “modern manner” while, at the same time, not particularly enjoying it and going in for some heavy criticism.

Both painters came out of the “faultless painter” Andrea del Sarto’s workshop when it was the custom to spend years of apprenticeship filling in small details of the great master’s work before launching on their own independent career. Indeed, the exhibition, excellently curated by Carlo Falciani and Antonio Natali, starts off with three works by Sarto, Pontormo and Rosso (so-called because of the colour of his hair) which come from the chiostrino dei Voti at Florence’s great shrine of Santissima Annunziata.

The exhibition continues with sections dedicated to large religious canvases, some of which have been specially restored.

drawings (both artists were brilliant draughtsmen)

and, (what I felt was my favourite section) portraits.

There was also a smattering of mythological paintings including an exquisite death of Cleopatra.

Although both Pontormo and Rosso followed unconventional paths they diverged considerably with regard to their patronage. Pontormo was taken up by the restored Medici dynasty after the Savonarolan and republican interlude and became extremely popular with them, decorating the great villa at Poggio a Caiano, for example. Rosso, however, remained republican in sentiments and was befriended by Savonarolan sympathisers which lead to some confusion as to who is represented in his portraits as the families of the sitters were ruthlessly evaded under the Medici. Furthermore, Rosso, because of lack of commissions, fell into debt and was, thus, very pleased when he was recommended for the post of court painter to King Francis I of France at his wonderfully expanding palace of Fontainebleau and where he helped to establish the very influential “Fontainebleau” school of painting.

What distinguishes the “new manner” of these two out-of-the-ordinary painters then? Apart from going to the exhibition and finding out for yourself here are a few suggestions:

1. Reaction against the too-perfect harmonies of the high renaissance painters with their perfectly balanced forms, placidity leading, in the worst cases, to an utter lack of inner tension.

2. Influence of German wood prints, especially those of Durer coming from a completely different northern school with greater emphasis on expression and distortion of the human shape to represent pain, anguish and ecstasy.

3. Cabalistic and esoteric influences entering their work to such an extent that one whole series of paintings by Pontormo (which must have been his masterpiece) in the apse of Florence’s San Lorenzo basilica was eventually destroyed by ecclesiastical order in the eighteenth century.

4. A different and strangely unbalanced method of painting composition when compared with the previous high renaissance – mass of bodies in odd places, eccentric lacunae, weirdly asymmetrical arrangements etc.

5. A strong reaction to the difficult times they were living in. If there is a Christian BC and AD then there is also a Roman Catholic BC and AD centred on the sack of Rome in 1527 – an event which both painters had to live through by hiding in monasteries and surviving not only the Emperor’s troops but also the plague which followed.

I am no art critic and will not  venture any profound analysis on what I saw except to say that it affected me very much and that the exhibition which I entered into out of curiosity rather than anything else since mannerism (the name given to the movement which included Rosso and Pontormo) has never previously enthralled me, completely captivated me instead and gave me a quite different perspective on Florentine art following its first high points after Botticelli, Lippi and their immediate followers.

Clearly, it became a disturbed time in the first part of the sixteenth century – Savonarola, the Church V Empire clash and, ultimately, the reformation and succeeding Counter-Reformation all worked their unbalancing work on the minds of the previously highly contented thinkers of Florence’s neo-Platonist academies.

But isn’t that dialectic between certainties and doubt what affects our human intellect and helps development into different directions, new questions, and innovative answers?

If you seek a visual representation of the great ideological battles waged in sixteenth century Florence (and indeed in the rest of Europe) and a pictorial demonstration of the highest intensity and drama then there is no more significant place to experience it than at this remarkable exhibition.

One word of warning, however. If you have been grabbed by Rosso’s and Pontormo’s brush then you will want to make a feast of it and visit those places in the Tuscan region where more of their works can be found but which, for technical and other reasons, could not be brought to the exhibition.

I would start with the easiest to find (and one of the best of them) Pontormo’s frescoes in the cappella Capponi in the church of San Felicita, just off the south side of the Ponte vecchio, and then work your way further afield to other amazing sites such as the Medici Villa at Poggio a Caiano and other more secretive treasures.

Certainly, bringing together the two painters at Palazzo Strozzi’s current exhibition was a stroke of calculated genius.

 

PS If you can read Italian then Pontormo’s diary at

http://www.frammentiarte.it/dal%20Gotico/Pontormo%20opere/0%20Pontormo%20diario.htm

makes the most fascinating reading of the daily life of a painter back in the sixteenth century down to his diet and maladies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

La Spezia – Again…

While La Spezia may not be a major attraction in any visit to Liguria (Genoa must remain that and, of course, the classic Cinque Terre footpath) it is well-worth visiting even if the Arsenal isn’t open to the public (See my post at https://longoio.wordpress.com/2014/03/23/a-top-secret-establishment/)

The city (which is Liguria’s second largest) has an essentially modern aspect. This is because of two reasons: first, the city only really developed after its arsenal was opened in the 1860’s; second, as a strategic naval base, it was heavily bombed by allied forces in WWII.

Despite this, La Spezia is of great interest to all lovers of neglected Italian cities. For example, it has some superb examples of Art Nouveau. The palazzo Maggiani, in particular, is outstanding and points to those fin-de-siècle days when La Spezia’s citizens were developing a more confident attitude as a result of the city’s increasingly important role as Italy’s première (as it then was) naval base.

 

(There is a good web site on the subject of La Spezia’s Art Nouveau at http://turismocultura.spezianet.it/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=567&Itemid=566&lang=it)

Fascist architecture, too, is well represented, especially in Franco Olivo’s classic Teatro Civico, its present appearance dating from that fateful year, 1933. I was stunned by this incredibly fine example from a neglected period of architectural history.

Of churches I found Santa Maria della Neve an excellent example of the eclectic style of Italian ecclesiastical architecture. It was designed by Giuseppe Ferrari d’Orsara (of whom I know nothing) and built in the 1890’s.

Of the cathedral of Christ the King, which I had entered on a previous visit the less said about it the better. This gross example of 1960’s modernism reminded me more of a sports palace, or even a multiplex cinema, than an important place of worship.

La Spezia is also famous for its pedestrian staircases which ascend the hills surrounding it. It’s a great way to get rid of that “spare tyre”!

 

Climbing one of these staircases one can reach La Spezia’s really old building – its castle called Castello San Giorgio which has part of the old mediaeval walls attached to it and which I have up to now been unsuccessful in gaining admission to.

Furthermore, La Spezia has a number of very interesting museums which I have visited on my previous two excursion to the city.

By far the best (and worth a visit to La Spezia just to visit it) is the Museo Lia (web site at http://museolia.spezianet.it/) which contains a remarkably rich collection of (mainly Italian) pictures gathered together and donated to the comune by Amedeo Lia.

Less exciting, but still worth a look in, are the ethnographic museum and the diocesan museum further along La Spezia’s Main Street. There was nice exhibition of local current embroidery there:

A museum I have yet to visit is the Transport museum. I think that’s going to be my first stop on any future visit to La Spezia. As a lover of railways, trolley-buses and trams I understand it has a particularly good selection of restored examples of trolley-buses some of which still parade around the city today.

Although few people would now think of going for a dip at La Spezia shoreline it used to be Italy’s ex-royal family’s preferred seaside spot – a sort of equivalent to Brighton. La Spezia was also selected a couple of years ago as one of the five Italian cities with the best quality of life. It’s now, unfortunately, lost that position.

(If you’re interested these are the current most liveable cities in Italy in this order:

Trento, Bolzano, Bologna, Belluno, Siena

No marks for guessing the worst place to live in Italy – it’s Naples – how sad for such a once so beautiful city.)

Returning to La Spezia’s railway station it’s worth looking up, when buying your return ticket, at the booking hall’s ceiling where three fine frescoes, painted by local painter Luigi Agretti (1877-1933), represent La Spezia, Commerce and Industry.

I call that a fine farewell to this intriguing city!

(And so did Richard Wagner, who was inspired to start his Ring Cycle here with the prelude to Das  Rheingold as this plaque, on a fine old palace I found in La Spezia’s centre, tells us:)

 

 

 

The Prince of Lucca’s Landscape

There are at least two “smart” art museums in Lucca and they are always worth looking up because the exhibitions they hold are often very interesting and very well presented.

The “Centro Studi art Licia and Carlo Ludovico Ragghianti “stands alongside the botanical gardens, mentioned in my previous post. Indeed, part of its space is looked after by the gardens. The centro was created in 1981 by the Ragghianti family’s donation of their large arts library and photographic archive to the Cassa di Risparmio di Lucca. The foundation continues to be supported by the Cassa di Risparmio and also the Tuscany Region, the Province of Lucca and the City of Lucca.

According to the intentions of the donors the primary purpose of the Foundation is “to offer to the city and district of north-western Tuscany, as well as any interested party, a tool for the study of art, in history and in the present.”

Since its establishment the foundation has also acquired a considerable number of paintings in addition to enlarging its library to seventy thousand volumes, keeping eight hundred art periodicals and holding many theses on art.

So if you are keen to do some art research around Lucca this is definitely the place! I’m thinking of doing some investigations myself there…

The foundation also has an extensive collection of drawings, graphic works and sculptures mainly on permanent display in its home. It publishes its own magazine “Luk”. Interestingly, the Foundation is located in the San Micheletto convent, once occupied by the Clarissan nuns which I mentioned in my post at https://longoio.wordpress.com/2014/03/18/none-the-wiser/   It is a very beautiful and historic site.

The current exhibition dedicated to the work of Prencipe at the Fondazione Ragghianti should be of great appeal to any lover of the Lucca countryside and also to any landscape painter.

A very productive painter and engraver, Umberto Prencipe (Naples 1879 – Rome 1962), spent several periods of his life in Lucca where he taught engraving and developed a lasting bond with what D’Annunzio described as one of Italy’s “Città Del Silenzio”.

The exhibition is divided into nine sections: each section dedicated to a particular area of Tuscany Prencipe painted or engraved.

Prencipe was particularly captivated by the buildings of Lucca.

For those of you who know and love Lucca the areas and buildings in the above selection will be instantly recognizable,

Prencipe was also enamoured of the Lucca plain. I was fascinated to discover how the area of Padule, where the paint factory in which I teach business English is situated, used to look like (and to some extent still does). Evidently, there was a substantial system of waterways used both for goods and passenger transport and there was even a little port at Padule. Prencipe captures the atmosphere of the Lucca “fenland” to perfection with a use of colour which heightens the varieties of white and black and the shimmering effects of water and sky. His work is instantly appealing.

There are also some lovely Fauve-like portraits of his family which show Prencipe to have been equally marvellous in depicting people.

A final section contains a collection of portraits of him painted by his friends, including the famous de Witte.

The impetus of the exhibition was the recent donation to the Ragghianti Foundation by Giovanna Prencipe, daughter of the artist, of fifty three of her father’s works. In addition there are included paintings from private collections, the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Orvieto, Archivio Umberto Prencipe of Rome, the National Museum of Palazzo Mansi of Lucca, Gallery of modern art of palazzo Pitti in Florence, Gallery of modern Art in Rome and the Gallery of modern and Contemporary Art of Viareggio.

Every beautiful part of the world has its own painters dedicated to discovering the particular characteristics of their area. Suffolk has its Constable, the Maremma has its Fattori and the Thames has its Whistler. Now I know that, at least for its plains and city buildings, Lucca has it Prencipe.

The exhibition is free admission and is open until June 22 at the following times: Tuesday to Saturday, 10.30 – 1.00 pm and 3.30 – 7.00 pm. Sunday and holidays: 10.30 – 7.00 pm. Monday (except holidays) closed.

Dreaming of a White March

Normally snow usually lies for at least a few days every winter in Longoio. This year, exceptionally, there was none. I felt I needed a snow-fix and rared to get some of the white stuff under my feet (I certainly didn’t get that on my recent visit to Vietnam although it has been known to snow in that country’s northern highlands) so I headed towards a place where I was guaranteed to find it: the ski slopes at Doganaccia above the little town of Cutigliano.

I took my time over the journey on the glorious day it was yesterday. The views over the Controneria were particularly enchanting.

 

Beyond the village of Cocciglia the valley narrows considerably, indeed it becomes a constricted gorge. At the entrance to this gorge (called “i stretti di Cocciglia”) is a nondescript looking building which is, in fact, an oratory built in 1532 (as is shown on its headstone) and dedicated to saint Rocco (Roche) the patron saint of plague prevention. Perhaps there might have been a particularly serious outbreak of the plague in 1532 or perhaps the oratory was built to shelter pilgrims on the way across the bridge on what once was a much frequented road from Modena to Lucca. Who knows? In any case it is a particularly delightful place to stop and visit if you are on a scooter. (If driving, forget it, there’s absolutely no parking space around for some way).

Inside the oratory is an elaborate fresco of a crucifixion painted by a certain Jacopo da Pistoia in 1563.

The pedestrian bridge (called “il Ponte Nero”) leads to a delightful walk along the Lima which I have done on a previous occasion (and met an ancient lady who has lived all her life in an isolated hut in the woods). The path also leads to an excellent bathing place which I have tried out on several occasions during the hot summers. Not yesterday however!

It’s worth looking into the gorge at this stage of the Lima River’s course. There are fantastic rock formations and the water is a tropical blue reflecting the intense azure of the sky.

I passed the impossible village of Lucchio on my right – impossible because how could a village be sited at such a crazy angle without falling down? Evidently people come from as far afield as Japan to see this amazing place.

 

We now leave the province of Lucca and enter into that of its arch-enemy Pistoia.

Popiglio, which I described as grim in a previous blog at https://longoio.wordpress.com/2013/06/17/proud-popiglio/ looked instead very sunny and its beautiful Pieve was quite gorgeous. If any asks how such a richly ornate church could be built in a remote mountain village then the answer is that one of the Popiglio families, the Vannini, obtained very remunerative posts in the papal government during the sixteenth centuries and wanted to give something back to the place where they were born and brought up.

It would be tedious to enumerate the treasures of the Pieve which also extends to a whole museum of sacred art. The pulpit, however, stands out with its stone carvings including one of a mermaid (?). In respect of this see the article in Barga News at http://www.barganews.com/2013/06/20/international-interest-in-the-bare-breasted-twin-tailed-mermaid/. The saint George is immediately charming.

I’ve talked about Cutigliano in a previous post at

Cute Cutigliano

For me it remains a delightful borgo, especially so now when there are few bipeds around. I headed immediately for the cable car and was in snowfields in the space of less than quarter of an hour.

The slopes were practically deserted, the sunshine was exceptional – one of the ski instructors said it was the best day they’d had so far – and I was glad crunching the snow under my boots. No ski-ing for me yesterday, however, although I’m sure it would have been superb with the whole place practically to oneself.

Before descending below the snow-line I treated myself to a plate of fusilli arrabbiati and a beer at the self-service restaurant at the Doganaccia – which went down very well!

Now my return journey began..

From Norodom to Reunification

Ho Chi Minh city’s Reunification Palace used to be the official residence of the Presidents of the former South Vietnam government but is now a museum and also used for special events.

Historically, it’s important because it was here that the American war ended on April 30 1975, when a North Vietnamese Army tank crashed through its gates, entering the grounds and forcing the South Vietnamese president to resign. That’s why it’s called the reunification palace because it was then that, finally, North and South Vietnam became one nation.

The original palace was built by the French in the nineteenth century, was called Norodom and looked like this:

In 1962 two pilots from South Vietnam’s air force, instead of going on a raid against the Việt Cộng, mutinied and bombed the palace as an assassination attempt against president Diệm. The president escaped the attempt (he was eventually killed in 1963) but the west wing of the palace was destroyed

Diệm ordered the old palace’s complete demolition and commissioned a new one which was designed by Ngô Viết Thụ, an internationally-awarded Vietnamese architect.

The palace is a great example of early sixties architecture and ranks among the best I’ve seen from that era. I really loved the sense of space and the opulence (most of the building material was imported from France).

Entering the building is like a time-warp: with a few exceptions everything is as it was when the North Vietnamese captured it. It’s a wonder (and a credit) that the winning side didn’t destroy or damage or disband the palace, which stands as testimony to a former era in Vietnamese history.

During my visit I saw the private quarters:

The conference and presidential receiving rooms,

The telecommunications center and war rooms in the undergound bunker:

The palace grounds are very beautiful and contain some really ancient trees.

In the afternoon I visited yet another of HCMC’s many swimming pools. This one was definitely the largest and was attached to a sports centre complex. There’s no reason to have to bear the heat with these great pools all over the city…

Where “Frankenstein” was Conceived?

The person who commissioned the Temple of Minerva Medica at Montefoscoli described in my previous post, Andrea Vaccà Berlinghieri was the son of Francesco Vaccà Berlinghieri (1732-1812), professor of medicine at the University of Pisa.

Andrea Vaccà Berlinghieri was born in Montefoscoli in 1772 and died at Orzignano, near San Giuliano Terme (Pisa) in 1826. He is remembered as a pioneer in pressing for more suitable hospital facilities and designing more adequate and efficient surgical instruments – a necessary thing in the days before anaesthetics when the best way to keep patients calm during operations and amputations was to get them blind-drunk.

Andrea Vaccà Berlinghieri was sent by his father to Paris to study medicine. After two years there, Andrea went to London to work under the Scottish surgeon John Hunter, (1728-1793), one of the most distinguished surgeons of his day and an advocate of precise diagnosis in medical science.

London’s Hunterian Society was named in Hunter’s honour, and the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons preserves his name and his collection of anatomical specimens. This collection, in Lincoln’s Inn Fields on the opposite side of the square to the Sir John Soane museum, is full of the most fascinating specimens, including skeletons of dwarfs, giants and various examples of genetic malformations. (A warning for the squeamish: if you don’t like to see examples of rodent ulcers in formaldehyde, don’t visit the museum.):

In 1791 Andrea returned to Pisa from London, where he graduated in medicine and surgery.

Two years later Vaccà wrote a treatise on surgical techniques and began to give well-attended lectures. In addition to medicine Andrea devoted himself to the study of chemistry, physics, mathematics and astronomy.

Andrea Vaccà Berlinghieri became Professor of Surgery at Pisa, and is regarded as the founder of Pisa’s Medical School. The excellence of Pisa’s Ospedale di Santa Chiara, where I have, on occasions, had to visit friends in serious clinical conditions, is in no small part due to Vaccà’s efforts in improving hygiene practise and diagnosis methods.

During his stay in Pisa the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and his wife Mary Shelley had the chance to know, appreciate and be treated by Vaccà. In their meetings they would also share their passions for architecture, poetry and esotericism. In particular, Vaccà’s surgical experiments, including the stitching together of different body parts and the use of galvanic batteries to make muscles convulse, inspired Shelley’s wife to write her famous gothic novel Frankenstein, an amazing achievement for a nineteen-year old and one whose financial returns enabled her to bring in much needed funds for their exile in Italy. (Indeed, there are letters stating how both Shelleys followed intently the sales of Frankenstein while living in Bagni di Lucca).

How I would have loved to be a fly on the wall at their convivial meetings!

I was privileged to spend the night in Vaccà’s home in his native town of Montefoscoli. Lady Sophia Donalisio, Vaccà’s direct descendent, has excellently turned the palazzo into a house-museum where her forefather’s medical treatises and surgical instruments are displayed. I was reminded a little of the Hunterian museum in London – without the rodent ulcers, of course!

The palazzo’s interior is very attractive in presenting the Italian equivalent of the UK’s Regency style in the room decorations. There are gracious items of furniture, including a wonderful grand piano dating from the first quarter of the nineteenth century,

Montefoscoli is, itself, an exquisite Tuscan borgo to visit and is filled with many picturesque corners.

It also has the most delightful long views over southern Tuscany.

There is even more to see at Vaccà’s palazzo since, attached to it, is one of Italy’s best museums of by-gone peasant life with fascinating insights into the way viniculture, bee-keeping, threshing and agricultural life in general was conducted when Italy was a barely industrialised country.

Times of opening are as follows:

Sundays 9.30 am -12.30 am / 3.30 pm -7.30 pm

Other times by appointment.

The museum’s web site is at

http://www.tempiodiminerva.com/