Category Archives: Art and Architecture

Art and Architecture, Europe - Northern Europe & Scandinavia, Uncategorized

A Battle with BATTLE

May 9, 2024 maristravels 27 Comments

Our battle was with the weather, and we were in Battle, Sussex, scene of the Battle of Hastings. If the wind and rain had been as bad in 1066 as it was during part of our stay, I think the Normans might have turned tail and gone back home.

As it was, we did what we Brits always do, grumbled a bit and then got on with it, struggling against the elements and elbowing our way into cafes to drink mugs of hot chocolate, in between sampling the Award winning local beer, Abbey Pale Ipa brewed by Battle Brewery. A shout out here to the very welcoming Abbey Pub just opposite the Abbey where the fire in the cosy nook added to the welcome.

English Heritage Accommodation

We had five days in the area so we managed to see and do a lot. We had a car, lots of reading matter and fabulous accommodation at The Lodge at Battle Abbey, an English Heritage rental which provided us with some of the best self-catering I’ve ever had. It was warm, the heating was superb, the bedrooms were luxurious and comfortable, the kitchen had everything one could wish for, from Jasper Conran china to Joseph utensils and state-of-the-art means of cooking. Oh, and a lovely hamper of local produce to start us off.

Photographs of The Lodge at Battle provided by English Heritage

We looked out on green fields where the sheep safely grazed and a flowering crab apple lit up the garden, our rental included VIP tickets to English Heritage sites in the area, discount in the shops and cafes, and access to the Abbey through the grounds in which our Lodge was situated. What more could travellers, history buffs and walkers want?

Location of Battle?

Lying just 50 miles from London and 27 miles from Brighton, Battle is well placed for visitors to the UK to include a day trip to see the attractive town and its Abbey. It gets its name from the Battle of Hastings, fought between Harold the Saxon king and William the Conqueror in 1066, a battle that changed the course of English history.

Battle Abbey & St. Mary’s Church

After he won the battle, William built the Abbey of St. Martin, something he’d vowed to do if he won. Built between 1070 and 1094, the high altar is believed to have been placed on the spot where Harold fell, although this fact is disputed today.

Looking up Battle’s High Street with cottages and houses dated form the 1700’s on the left.

The Abbey ruins and the battlefield are a magnificent sight as you look down the length of Battle’s High Street, past the Georgian buildings that line the street. At the northern end can be found the Almonry, built in 1090, which now houses the Town Council and the Battle Museum of Local History. At the other end of the street, the cottages and houses near the Abbey date from around 1700: the nearby parish church of St. Mary is for the most part 12th century in construction. This lovely old church is worth a visit for its rare 14th century wall paintings and its Norman font, but it also houses a modern tapestry in the style of the Bayeux tapestry, a community project conceived and designed by local Tina Greene. The contemporary tapestry is a three-metre long depiction of how the town of Battle might have grown between the years following the Battle of Hastings in 1066 to the founding of St Mary’s Parish Church in 1115. Started in 2016 and with contributions from 741 registered stitchers, not only from Battle but from the rest of the UK and abroad, the tapestry was finally completed in January 2017.

Dissolution of the Monastery in 1538

Battle’s influence grew over the years until the Dissolution of the Monasteries under Henry Vlll and the closure of the Abbey in 1538. In later centuries however, the town achieved fame through its charcoal-making technique and Battle became famous in the 17th and 18th centuries for its gunpowder, rated by Daniel Defoe as the finest in Europe.

Battle Today

Now today, this quiet market town concentrates on the finer things in life and, apart from its great historical appeal, it offers the visitor great food experiences from the comfort of tiny cafés and tea rooms that spill out onto the pavements (and a special mention here to Bluebells Tea Rooms) to fine dining at chef Paul Webbe’s The Wild Mushroom, in nearby Westfield, right up to tastings at Oastbrook Estate Vineyard.

Shopping is a delight too, as Battle’s historic high street features many of the kinds of shops you don’t often see elsewhere, independent clothes shops, craft shops, wool shops and book shops, and my favourite, the delightful British Design British Made, showing the best of British design. For beer lovers, Battle Brewery and Bottle Shop is a don’t-miss, offering beer from their own microbrewery as well as other locally produced ciders, wines and snacks.

There are mapped walks ranging from 4.5 miles to 37 miles and the helpful tourist office can offer guidance on these.

In fact, the weather doesn’t really matter in Battle as there is just so much to do. I know this for a fact, five days in Battle flew by and we even made time to visit Hastings (more about that another day).

Facts:

For a selection of English Heritage accommodation: https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/holiday-cottages/ I have previously stayed at Walmar Castle in Deal and Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, both of which I highly recommend.

Art and Architecture, Famous Men & Women, Uncategorized, USA

New Orleans: Tennessee Williams Festival

April 15, 2024 maristravels 10 Comments

In With a Shout.

One of the Apps on my computer offers what it calls Memories. It flags up a photo taken on the same date years before. A few weeks ago, the photograph was one taken some years back at the Tennessee Williams Literary Festival in New Orleans.

My photo was one taken at a very quirky part of that festival – the ‘Stella Shouting Contest’ – a homage to A Streetcar Named Desire and the character of Stanley Kowalski, the hero/antihero of the play.

The Stella Shouting Contest in New Orleans

“Stellllllaaaaa! Stellllllaaaaa!”

The cry reverberates around the French Quarter of New Orleans and the crowd jostling in the packed courtyard applauds. From the balcony above, Stella waves to the damp-haired man in the sweat-stained shirt below who blows kisses to the crowd as the next tee-shirted Stanley steps forward to chance his luck at outshouting the other participants.

For this is the Stella Shouting Contest, part of the Literary Festival, held for nearly 40 years in honour of New Orleans’ favourite playwright, Tennessee Williams. The Stella contest pays homage to his classic A Streetcar Named Desire and for the last three decades or so, the primal screams of wannabe Stanley Kowalskis have been echoing around the magnolia-laden French Quarter to mark the Festival.

Photo credit: **Tennessee Williams Literary Festival**

A Streetcar Named Desire

“They told me to take a street-car named Desire, and transfer to one called Cemeteries, and ride six blocks and get off at Elysian Fields”, says Blanche when she arrives at the house in which her sister Stella lives with Stanley.

Williams used the title metaphorically: there was no street-car named Desire trundling along the tramlines to Stella’s house, but there was, and is, Elysian Fields Avenue, and the name is forever linked to the steamy tragedy of Stella, Stanley and Blanche.

Image from Wikicommons (Brando in Streetcar)

Marlon Brando in Streetcar

Marlon Brando played Stanley in the original Broadway production, and in the 1951 film adaptation of the play, he set the standard for all future Stanleys. His despairing “Stellllaaaa” echoed around cinemas and lodged in the minds of filmgoers forever, when drunk, sweat-soaked and half-dressed, he stumbled onto the sidewalk and fell to his knees, bellowing for his wife, “Stellllaaaa, I want my baby down here” – probably the most famous line from any of Williams’ plays. Little did anyone guess then, that this angst-ridden howl would one day become a feature of one of the USA’s Literary Festivals.

What Happens During the Literary Festival

Events like the Stella Shouting Contest, theatre productions, in-depth writing workshops, and lectures from best-selling authors on everything from scene-setting to stereotypes in fiction attract attendees from all over the world. Giants from the world of literature and theatre mingle with would-be-playwrights and authors to offer advice, give talks and join in the celebrations, all overlain with that N’awlins easy charm.

What Happens in the Stanley Shouting Contest

The famous scene, and the scream, is replayed again and again by men who come to The Big Easy to test their screams against other men. Technically it’s a Stanley/Stella shouting contest as females can also take part, but as Stella didn’t yell “Stanley” it doesn’t resonate with the public in quite the same way so there are few entries on the Stella side.

Standing beneath the filagreed balconies of the houses around the green oasis of Jackson Square the contestants direct their howls of desire and angst at local actors attired as Stella and Blanche on a balcony above. Celebrity judges lounge on adjoining balconies, while festival go-ers, voodoo hustlers and tarot card readers jostle for positions from which to watch the fun.

One by one the contestants give it their best shot in the allotted three shouts in which they must portray Stanley’s despair, rage and emotion. They fall to their knees, tear their shirts – the iconic torn white tee-shirt is a given – and douse themselves with water to conjure up the image of Stanley’s sweat-soaked torso.

To whoops and cheers, six finalists are selected and they go on to compete, a few hours later, on the main stage of Le Petit Theatre, the venue for the Festival’s workshops, play readings and lectures. We, the onlookers and audience, troop in after them, by now having a favourite to encourage in the tension-filled finals.

On the stage at Le Petit, the Stanleys now scream with more gusto and histrionics, encouraged by their fans in the crowd. Hyped up – alcohol may play a part as well – cheering for their man and booing the opposition, the audience sounds as primal as Stanley.

All this for the grand prize of the Golden Stella Trophy, holidays in New Orleans, hampers of local goodies, and trips on Ole Miz, the muddy brown Mississippi.

Interior Courtyard of Le Petit Theatre by David Ohmer, creative commons.org/licenses/by/2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Few Festivals have such a strong performance element as the Tennessee Williams Literary Festival – two full-length plays and several one-act plays of the master are usually staged alongside film screenings, tours of the French Quarter, book signings, and jazz evenings. All this plus work-shops and lectures from writers like David Simon, James Lee Burke, Richard Ford, Laura Lipman, and dozens of others. You’re bound to meet your favourite author there and for some reason, crime writers are particularly well represented.

Tennessee Williams – Photo: Orlando Fernandez, World Telegraph staff photographer, via Wikimedia Commons

New Orleans

The Big Easy still lives up to its motto of ‘Laissez les bon temps rouler’ – let the good times roll – and outside the theatre the city goes about its business, partying along Bourbon Street and entertaining the tourists in Jackson Square where the voodoo priestesses, hawkers of hats and beads, and groups of wild looking Cajun and Zydeco musicians straight from central casting come together in a gloriously chaotic, laid-back cocktail.

There are also city tours, swamp tours, plantation tours, and that old standby, shopping, and that for which New Orleans is best known – music – from trad jazz to funk, zydeco to gospel. While there you can take in a session with one of the city’s best bands, Jon Cleary and the Monster Gentlemen Band, who will take you on a jazz voyage like you’ve never had before.

St. Louis Cathedral, New Orleans, the oldest continuous use cathedral in the USA.

So if you’re in the area next March and fancy your chances of being a ripped-shirt Stanley with a voice that could persuade Stella not to leave him, then go for it.

Tennessee Williams loved this mixture of the pious and the profane, the sinners and the saints – isn’t that what all his plays are about?

Factfile:

The 38th Annual Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival took place this year between March 20^th—24th. Next year’s dates not yet published. Sign-up for the Stella Shouting Contest will begin at 1.30 3 or 4 days prior to the opening.

The Tennessee Williams Literary Festival: 938 Lafayette Street, Suite 513, New Orleans, Louisiana 70113. Tel: 504 581 1144. info@tennesseewilliams.net

British Airways flies direct to New Orleans from £575 Return and also offers hotel bookings. Other airlines fly via Chicago – a good place for a stop-off.

Art and Architecture, Europe - Mediterranean, Uncategorized

VERONA – A SHORT STOPOVER

October 16, 2023 maristravels 21 Comments

It’s no secret that I love Verona, and just two of the reasons for loving it are a) the city is highly walkable, and b) it is a place where tourists take second place to locals who live and work in its historic centre.

That’s not to say that visitors aren’t everywhere, but as you stroll through the medieval streets, charmed by faded frescoes and hidden gardens, or sit at the foot of an enigmatic marble statue in one of the huge piazzas, you never feel part of mass tourism.

Simply strolling through Verona leads one to magical places, like the splendid Piazza del Signori. Italy’s most famous poet, Alighieri Dante, lodged nearby with the ruling Della Scala family during his exile from Florence in the 14^th century, and so the square also answers to the name of Piazza Dante. Surrounded by ancient buildings which played an important role in Verona’s early civic life, whose façades, although faded, are still beautiful, the square still resonates with a sense of medieval life.

Scaligeri, Napoleon and Castelvecchio

Nearby is another tiny square in which can be found the tombs of the Scaligeri family. They dominate the area, massive Gothic-like edifices, some behind a gated courtyard, and one above the church door. Intriguing, certainly, and something not to be mi

More Scaligeri family history can be found at Castelvecchio, best approached along the Adige River and across the bridge into the city proper. Castelvecchio (in Italian ‘the old castle), a red brick building with crenelated walls and square turrets was built by the ruthless Scaligeris in the 1350’s as a home and a fortress. A later ruler also used it as his residence, during his time in Verona – one Napoleon Bonaparte who had conquered most of Northern Italy in the early 1800’s.

During the 1920’s it was converted into a Museum and then in 1985, a renovation project to repair the damage done during the second world war was started by Italian architect Cala Scarpa. The result of that renovation is the splendid red brick castle one sees today the interior of which has been converted into one of the best Museums in Northern Italy.

Romeo & Juliet

The Crowds Below Juliet’s supposed balcony, 2023

Everyone knows that Romeo & Juliet are fictitious characters dreamt up by William Shakespeare, but that doesn’t stop the crowds pouring into the courtyard of the supposed home of Juliet in Via Cappello, to touch the statue of the young heroine, and to pose on the balcony for a selfie. So many people have touched Nereo Costantini’s bronze statue that her right breast has now been burnished to gold. But even though the balcony you see today was erected only because tourists kept demanding to see the balcony, it is worth a visit even if you are in Verona for only one day. The house once belonged to the rich Veronese Dal Cappello family, and to visit the house and its courtyard gives an idea of how families lived in Verona in the 14^th century.

My last visit was some 14 or so years ago, the courtyard then was almost empty, we had time to explore the house and surroundings and even read some of the letters received daily asking for advice. This time, however, the search for the ultimate selfie by the crowds queueing and surging into the small space under Juliet’s balcony was a major distraction, yet I would still return to feel the magic that the place possesses. It is but a short step away from the city’s two major Piazzas linked by its famous shopping street, Via Mazzini.

Lovers’ Locks

Verona was the first place to have love locks on bridges, something that is now defacing bridges all over the world.

Piazza del Erbe and Piazza Bra

Piazza del Erbe, named after the spices that were once sold there, (erbe=spices in Italian), Verona’s most ancient piazza, was ‘the Forum’ during Roman times. It is now Verona’s commercial centre, a hub for shopping, café life, and people watching. Beautiful old buildings surround the Piazza in front of which lively market stalls sell food, spices and household goods, while the traders entertain the public as they have done since Roman times. It is around this area that you will find the prettiest streets and alleyways.

The Via Mazzini, a high-end shopping area where the shops all bear famous fashion names, from Chanel to Dolce & Gabbana, links Piazza del Erbe with Piazza Bra, home to the famous Amphitheatre of Verona, usually called The Arena. Elegant ladies with tiny dogs parade down this street which on Sundays can become very crowded when it is time for the passeggiata, the ritual Sunday evening parade when all Italy turns out to display la bella figura.

The Verona Arena

I kept the best till last. The impeccably preserved Amphitheatre in the heart of old Verona and the city’s most famous site, is deserving of that much abused word, awesome. Rows of arches and curves dominate the skyline and form a centrepiece in Piazza Bra, the city’s largest public square.

The square is lined with bustling restaurants and imposing buildings, notably the 19^th century Palazzo Barbieri, a yellow building with a neoclassical façade that now serves as Verona’s Town Hall. Nearly two millennia old, the Colosseum used to hold up to 30,000 spectators at gladiatorial fights between men and men and men and beasts, who fought to the death on the sandy stage. And this glorious arena is not a dead relic of the past: it still entertains the masses although in a different way. No more are the crowds offered bread and circuses but performances of high art, most notably the world famous Verona Opera Festival which takes place every summer.

Verona is a city for all, young and old, the seeker after history & ancient cultures and lovers looking to re-kindle an old love or find a new one, opera lovers who fill the Arena night after night during the summer, and fans of William Shakespeare who watch his dramas play out under the stars. There’s a jazz festival, a festival of street games, and even a horse fair. As I said, Verona is a city for everyone.

Art and Architecture, Europe - Northern Europe & Scandinavia, photo challenges, Sculpture Saturday - Silent Sunday, Sculpture Saturday/Silent Sunday

Silent Sunday: London

Image September 23, 2023 maristravels 7 Comments

Art and Architecture, Sculpture Saturday - Silent Sunday, Sculpture Saturday/Silent Sunday, Wars and Battlefields, Prose & Poetry, Weekly Photo Challenge

SCULPTURE SATURDAY

September 23, 2023 maristravels 2 Comments

Linked here to Debbie’s photo challenge

Monumental Art in Salo, Italy, home of Mussolini

Art and Architecture, Europe - Mediterranean, photo challenges, Uncategorized

THURSDAY’S DOORS.

September 14, 2023 maristravels 12 Comments

A Door in Garda on the Lake of the same name.

Art and Architecture, Europe - Mediterranean, Famous Men & Women, Random Jottings, Uncategorized

The Godfather in Savoca

February 19, 2022 maristravels 13 Comments

Excitement is high among fans of The Godfather trilogy, with the release of the newly re-mastered films, three movies that are Shakespearean in drama, operatic, and complex. As one of those fans I delved into my archives to search for photographs I took in Savoca, location of a few major scenes of The Godfather, and a reminder of one of those serendipitous moments that occur from time to time in one’s travels.

A shady spot at the Bar Vitelli

It was in Sicily, about 30 years ago, when we came across Savoca, a medieval village perched on a hill overlooking the Ionian coast. We had driven through the mountains from Taormina, stopping here and there to admire villages clinging to the sides of the mountains and blue seas far below on which floated toy boats. We pulled into Piazza Fossia, saw a parking place opposite a pleasant looking bar with terrace which meant we could sit outside rather than in the inky black interiors preferred by the Sicilians, and entered Bar Vitelli.

The Bar Vitelli

We ordered drinks, and the owner graciously waved me inside to see what else was available. What she really wanted me to see was her wall of photographs of the stars of The Godfather and various artifacts to do with the film. Most were of Marlon Brando – although he was never in Savoca for filming – Al Pacino, Simonetta Stefanelli, who played Apollonia in the film, and James Caan.

Then I made the connection. This was the small, cliff-side café where Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) sat with his two bodyguards (one of whom would later betray him) and drank wine. In fact, this small patio with the dappled sunlight playing on the tables, was the location of several scenes filmed over a six-week period during the shooting of the first Godfather movie.

Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) had fled New York City to escape both police and the Mafia and came to Sicily to take refuge. Out hunting one day, he saw a beautiful Sicilian girl and immediately fell in love with her.

Back room of Bar Vitelli with photographs and connections to The Godfather

The Bar Vitelli, as it is now, was actually the home of the beautiful young girl he’d seen, and it is here he asks the café owner for permission to court his daughter, the lovely Apollonia (Simonetta Stefanelli). A later scene, depicting a traditional Italian family Sunday dinner and a still later scene of the eventual outdoor wedding reception, was also staged on the terrace of the Bar Vitelli and in the tiny piazza in front.

La Signora watched me carefully and when she could see that I was suitably impressed with the display she sat me down and told me tales of what it was like when she had Pacino and Brando in her café. Of course, I knew that Brando had never been there but everyone’s allowed a little bit of licence and in that small village of less than 100 inhabitants, The Godfather had sprinkled a little bit of its magic on both the village and the Bar Vitelli.

La Signora sits outside Bar Vitelli.

Savoca owes it’s connection to Hollywood to the fact that Francis Ford Coppola thought that Corleone, a town near Palermo and the book’s setting for The Godfather, looked too modern for his vision of the Sicilian village from which the family came. After much searching throughout the island, he found two small villages untouched by modernisation for his locations, – Savoca and Forza d’Agro.

At the time we were there, few tourists visited this remote village so La Signora was happy to spend time talking to us and showing us some more pictures of the stars of The Godfather, plus some newspaper cuttings she’d collected.

Back room of Bar Vitelli

I never got back to Bar Vitelli but I saw a short film a while back that showed it looking exactly as it had been when I visited, and as it was in the film – right down to the bead curtain in the doorway. La Signora is no longer alive and the bar/restaurant is now successfully run by her descendants: Godfather tours (along with Montelbano tours) are now big business in Sicily, and Savoca is a port of call on the trail.

It was nice to know that it hadn’t been commercialised at all and that the stone-flagged walls covered in greenery and the terrace with vine covered pergolas, still offer shade to travellers, along with coffee granita, supposedly the favourite drink of both Pacino and Coppola when they were there.

When I watch the 3-hour long film again on March 26^th, I will be carried back 30 years to when I sat on Al Pacino’s chair in Bar Vitelli and heard first-hand from la Signora that, although Pacino may have come from New York, he was molto Siciliano.

This was the prettiest house we saw in Savoca, and we were told it belonged to someone very important. I wonder who it belongs to today?

In Savoca, apart from Bar Vitelli, the nearby Church of San Nicola was used as a location for the wedding of Michael Corleone and Apollonia. The church is only a short walk from Bar Vitelli.
Bar Vitelli is housed in the 18th century Palazzo Trimarchi, located in the Piazza Fossia, the town’s main square, near the Town Hall.

The Godfather:

The Godfather revolutionized film-making, saved Paramount Pictures from Bankruptcy, minted a new generation of movie stars, and made the author of the book, Mario Puzo, rich and famous. It is compelling, dramatic, and complex and it started a war between Hollywood and the high echelons of the Mob as the makers had to contend with the real-life members of the Mafia. Location permits were withdrawn without notice at inconvenient times, Al Ruddy’s car was found riddled with bullets, and ‘connected’ men insisted on being in the cast (some were given film roles, whether due to threats or talent nobody knows)!

Art and Architecture, Europe - Northern Europe & Scandinavia, photo challenges

Silent Sunday

February 13, 2022 maristravels 17 Comments

Misty morning, Ely Cathedral, Cambridgeshire.

Art and Architecture, Europe - Mediterranean, Famous Men & Women, Uncategorized

Dante Alighieri: 1321-2021

December 16, 2021 maristravels 18 Comments

This year Italy celebrates the 700th anniversary of Dante Alighieri’s death, a genius born in Florence but whose remains now lie in Ravenna. The poet found Ravenna to be the ideal place to complete The Divine Comedy and as the home of his burial, the city has been preserving Dante’s memory for seven centuries since his death in 1321. How his bones came to be in that city of glorious mosaics is quite a story.

Dante Alighieri: Photo by Rhodan59 via Pixabay

Although his name will be forever associated with Florence, the city of his birth, when he died in 1321 he had been an exile living outside that city for some 20 years. He had been exiled for life by the Florentines themselves after being on the losing side in a local fight for control of the city. Despite offers to return home, Dante defiantly refused to do so, regarding the terms as unjust.

Ravenna has the world’s most important Byzantine mosaics, a glittering jewel-box of 5th and 6th century art, described by Dante as being “of the sweet color of Oriental sapphires.”

He had been invited by Ravenna’s ruler to settle there and he had been a resident of the city for 3 years when he died, aged 56, already a major figure in the world of letters. He was buried outside the cloisters of the church of San Pier Maggiore (now the Basilica di San Francesco) in a Roman marble sarcophagus where it remained for the next 160 years as his reputation in Europe continued to grow.

It is said that it was the lectures in praise of Dante given by fellow poet Boccaccio (who followed Dante’s precedent and wrote in the vernacular instead of Latin) which caused the Florentines to re-think their loss, and seventy-five years after Dante’s death Florence made the first of many requests for the return of his body. Ravenna said no! In 1430 Florence tried again, and again in 1476, but got the same firm “No” as an answer. Meantime, the sarcophagus was moved to the other side of the cloister and a sculptor was commissioned to make a marble bas-relief of the poet at work.

Florence, now a very powerful city, took umbrage. It was 1513 and Giovanni di Lorenzo de’ Medici had just became Pope Leo X giving the Medici family the ultimate authority in the Christian world. Using the most powerful weapon in his authority, he issued a Papal Decree and demanded the return of Dante’s remains. Ravenna ignored the Decree.

After this last attempt by Florence, Ravenna then moved the remains inside the cloisters for safe-keeping where they were guarded by the monks for another 150 years. We know from a note left by a friar named Antonio Santi that on October 18th, 1677, he put the remains into a wooden casket and it was recorded in 1692 that workers carrying out repairs on the sarcophagus were supervised by armed guards to make sure nothing was stolen.

Dante’s reputation continued to grow over the ensuing centuries and in the late 18th century Ravenna decided to give Dante a more imposing tomb, to which end they commissioned a local architect to erect a small neoclassical mausoleum. This was lined with marble and topped with a dome to house the original sarcophagus and 15th-century bas-relief: it was completed in 1781.

In 1805, a new threat appeared from France in the shape of Napoleon who had declared himself “Emperor of the French and King of Italy”. Ravenna fell under Napoleon’s rule and as his armies looted their way through religious orders up and down the region, the friars were forced to abandon their monastery. But first they made sure that the poet’s remains didn’t become war spoils. After less than 30 years in his new mausoleum Dante’s remains were gathered up and put back in the wooden chest in which they’d spent most of the 18th century and in 1810 they were hidden in a wall of the chapel. Then the friars fled, forgetting to tell anyone what they’d done or where to find the bones, so that right up to the middle of the 19th century, pilgrims continued to visit Ravenna to pay homage to the poet, not realizing that the mausoleum was empty.

There are many Via Dante Alighieri’s in Italy and he spent many years of his exile in Verona where he was a guest of the tyrannical del Scaligeri family. Many other countries also welcomed the poet, because, like Shakespeare, his work is universal. This street sign however, is in Ravenna, the city in which he choose to live for most of his exile.

The remains, hidden inside the wall, might have remained there had they not been discovered by a worker at the basilica in 1865. Of equal, if not more, importance, was the fact that someone spotted the note first put in the casket with the bones and labelled “Dantis ossa” (“Dante’s bones”). On examining the bones, doctors pronounced them to be the almost intact skeleton of an older man between 165-170 centimetres tall, and so they were accepted as the remains of one of the greatest writers of all time.

At last the bones, now in a heavy wooden casket lined with lead, could be placed in the mausoleum in Ravenna, the city that had opened its doors to the exile and where the poet wanted to be laid to rest.

Portrait of Dante. Credit: Photo by Gordon Johnson via Pixabay

But rest for Dante was still not possible because World War II was now raging over Europe. In 1944 Northern Italy was occupied by the Germans, and the Allies were bombing day and night. Once more the poet’s bones had to be moved: this time they were buried in the garden of the basilica, where they remained until hostilities ceased. Finally, on December 19th, 1945, Dante was taken back to his Ravenna mausoleum.

Florence has given up seeking the return of its famous son and in a gesture of friendship, the city sends local Tuscan olive oil each year to burn in the lamp that lights Dante’s mausoleum.

Art and Architecture, Random Jottings, South East Asia, Uncategorized

An Artist in Ice

March 30, 2021 maristravels 10 Comments

The Buffet table at your holiday resort looks stunning, the food arranged with aesthetic attention to detail, and dominating the centre is a beautiful carving in ice, a pagoda, a ‘plane, a fantasie in ice with coloured lights making it dance and dazzle, or a bird, its neck an opaque white and the translucent wings poised as though to take flight. In a few hours it will have dissolved into a puddle.

The people who create these centrepieces are artists in ice, men and women who have the ability to create these beautiful animals, birds, and flowers in frozen water to add a shimmering brilliance to the tables. And they do this knowing it will all disappear in a few hours. Performance art? Or art installation?

First you start with a solid block of ice

Khun Panas Suchantra at the Dusit Thani Resort in Hua Hin, Thailand, was the resident artist in this ephemeral medium when I was last there. He is involved in every aspect of the work, from the early discussions with the F & B Manager, the chef, and the General Manager if the event is of importance.

I watched him work on various carvings over a three week period and never tired of the theatricality of the scene as he chipped and chopped, moved around with speed (the ice continues to melt as he works on it) and created delicate ice flowers and feathered wings with the precision of a mathematician.

Most ice-carving artists use many different types of chisels, plus a saw, to get their effects. Initally, a V-angle chisel is used to score the outline and to draw on the uncut ice, gouge chisels with their round tipped blades are used for making patterns, and flat chisels are for shaving. The saw is used for cutting and carving (see photograph below).

Khun Panas often works outdoors in a covered Pagoda overlooking the sea, a piece of performance art that is much appreciated by the visitors to the hotel who gather round to watch in silence, as a solid block of ice is transformed into a three-dimensional sculpture.

As he works, the mateial starts to melt and there is a sense of urgency about his actions but with a few quick movements he saws off a piece of the block on which he outlines a shape before beginning to chisel away the excess.

With the outer shape of the subject delineated he starts on the base cutting into the ice to enhance the main figure. After that it seems but a very short time before the ice-carving is complete, to be taken into the kitchens and stored in the freezer until it is ready to be placed centre table at the buffet.

The Ice Swan Takes its Place Centre Table

Japan is the country that has elevated ice sculpting to high art: you only have to look at the Winter Festival in Sapporo to see what visions they create. It goes without saying therefore, that the best and most expensive tools come from that country, seasoned by years of experience in making Samurai swords.

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